>Please help me to understand this. I don't think you can, but please try. Imagine you are a member of the elite. You have money, and power. You produce nothing of value. Nothing. To maintain your position, you must continuously hire people to protect your wealth and your power. The largest threat is the mob of the rest of humanity. The best way to neutralize that threat, is to keep them constantly separated into two or more competing camps - ideally, camps that hate each other to the extent that, while the camps see the "elite" as a threat, they perceive that as secondary to defeating the other competing camp or camps. Doesn't matter what ideal or goal is used to keep the camps divided and hating each other - so long as it drives an insurmountable wedge between the mob. You, or rather, the people you hire (military, bankers, attorneys, politicians) must ensure that no one group becomes dominant - else the mob will coalesce into a single entity that WILL overthrow you and your like from the seat of power and wealth. So while you compete, loosely, against your peers, there is also an understanding that you have more in common with them than the members of the mob - so your group tends to take care of each other - only throwing one of your number to the mob if and when necessary to restore balance between the competing mob groups, or if one of your number betrays the elite. So... killing babies? cannibalism? pedos? everything and anything is on the table, provided it serves the need to protect wealth and power. often, that means these evils are used to exercise complete control the people you hire. Can't have the head slaves getting uppity, coveting the elite they serve.