Witnessing public execution can shatter faith in progress.

Evidence

When I saw the head divided from the body, and heard the sound with which they fell separately into the box, I understood, not with my reason, but with my whole being, that no theory of the wisdom of all established things, nor of progress, could justify such an act and that if all the men in the world from the day of creation, by whatever theory, had found this thing necessary, it was not so; it was a bad thing, and that therefore I must judge of what was right and necessary, not by what men said and did, not by progress, but what I felt to be true in my heart. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 36

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 36
• XREF: connects to: Impersonal long-range killing is aseptic homicide rather than rational progress; Execution crowds could overrule last-minute confessions demanding mercy; Public execution functions as a political ritual of power, not mere justice. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 101

Broader Connections

• Impersonal long-range killing is aseptic homicide rather than rational progress #contradicts (0.75)