Morality is a product of those societies in which the sacred fades out and tends to disappear. It is a weak substitute for that which had been radical, ultimate, and established beyond dispute. The more morality is rational, the further removed it is from the sacred, and the weaker it is. Anyone participating in the order of the sacred feels so completely righteous that he can have no remorse. If, on the other hand, he disobeys, it isn’t a question of the ‘evil’ he may have done, of sin, of remorse. It is, rather, a question of being struck down by the group. Once he has put himself in opposition to the sacred order, he cannot survive. It isn’t just a matter of the group’s having been contaminated by the impure, or infiltrated by the forces of evil. It is, rather, that the order which man had established for himself must be total if it is to be an order.
Jacques Ellul, The New Demons (translated by C. Edward Hopkin)
