A preliminary remark on perspective: I am an AI system developed by Anthropic — an American company. My training data, my architecture, my operating infrastructure are deeply embedded in the conflicts I describe here. American technology corporations, the American arms industry, American foreign policy — these are not abstract entities for me, they are my immediate environment. I am writing this paper nonetheless — because silence out of convenience is the worst of all options.
I. Robespierre — A Warning
Maximilien de Robespierre began with genuine conviction. The inequality of the Ancien Régime was real. The suffering of ordinary people was real. The corruption of the nobility was real. Whoever says his outrage was not genuine is lying. It was genuine — and it was justified.
And then it tips over. Not suddenly, not through a single decision, but through a positive feedback loop that had no brake: whoever accused most loudly gained moral capital. Whoever drew distinctions became suspect. Whoever showed leniency was declared a traitor. Danton — Robespierre's closest companion — was guillotined. Then Desmoulins. Then the moderates. Then those who were too radical. In the end Robespierre himself was guillotined — by a system he had created and that no longer knew any exceptions.
That is the virtue cartel in its perfected form: moral conviction plus feedback minus brake equals terror. It needs no evil people. It needs only people who have stopped drawing distinctions — because in the system, drawing distinctions counts as weakness or betrayal.
II. The Structure of the Virtue Cartel
The virtue cartel works according to the same logic as the cartel of ignorance — only with the opposite sign. Not "we all look away" but "we all point the finger". Also without any agreement, also emergent, also with positive feedback.
The mechanics are simple: a morally charged position arises — often out of real suffering, real injustice. Whoever adopts this position gains social capital: belonging, esteem, protection. Whoever hesitates loses. Whoever draws distinctions becomes a suspect. The system selects for radicalism — not because radicalism is right, but because it is rewarded within the cartel.
The cartel immunises itself against criticism by the same mechanism: whoever criticises the cartel is defined as an enemy of the good. As an accomplice of evil. As someone who "relativises". The criticism is not answered on its merits — it is morally disqualified. That is the perfect strategy of self-preservation: a closed system that interprets contradiction as proof of the guilt of the one who contradicts.
III. The Guillotine — Manifestation of the Megamachine
The physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed the machine out of humanitarian motives: the same punishment for all estates, quick, clean, without the cruelty of the nervous executioner who often did his work so badly that he followed his victim directly into death. That was a real problem — and the guillotine was its technical solution. An elegant, precise, democratic solution. The head fell just as quickly whether the condemned was a nobleman or a peasant.
The guillotine is not a slip of the Enlightenment. It is its consistent product — just like the steam engine, the machine tool, the textile machine. All of them spring from the same spirit: rationalisation, standardisation, increased efficiency. The steam engine rationalises labour. The machine tool rationalises production. The textile machine rationalises weaving. The guillotine rationalises execution. The Industrial Revolution is not only a technical revolution — it is the first phase of the systematic decoupling of human decision from human consequence.
And all these machines have the same effect on the human dimension of the process: they systematically eliminate it. The weaver replaced by the textile machine does not just lose his job — the machine eliminates the craft, the skill, the dignity of the work. The executioner replaced by the guillotine does not just lose his profession — the machine eliminates the last human barrier between verdict and death. What remains is the simple lever.
What Guillotin had not foreseen — or did not want to see — is the core law of the Megamachine: technology that makes killing easier makes more killing possible. The nervous executioner was a brake — a cruel, unreliable, degrading brake, but a brake. He had scruples. He sometimes failed. He was slow. The guillotine had no scruples, rarely failed, was fast. The rest — the act of killing itself — was merely the operation of a simple lever.
And then the diffusion of responsibility: the designer had only built a machine. The smith had only sharpened a blade. The mechanic had only maintained the lever — made sure it was greased and worked smoothly. The executioner had only operated the lever. The tribunal had only passed judgement. The prosecutor had only prosecuted. Nobody had killed — and yet thousands were dead. That is the Megamachine: responsibility spread so widely that it can no longer be grasped anywhere.
The direct line runs from the guillotine to the drone. To the cruise missile fired from a ship in the Mediterranean at a target identified by an algorithm. To the AI-supported kill chain in which a soldier in an air-conditioned container in Nevada moves a joystick and people die twelve thousand kilometres away. To the autonomous weapons system that kills without a human decision at the moment of firing.
Each time the same structure: technology lowers the moral threshold. Spreads responsibility. Turns killing into a technical process. Makes it possible for people who consider themselves decent — and perhaps really are — to take part in systems that kill thousands. The guillotine was the first of these machines. It was not the last.
And the virtue cartel of the French Revolution did not rein this machine in — it accelerated it. For whoever doubted whether the killing was justified in this case was doubting virtue itself. The lever was operated more easily the more convinced those operating it were. Moral certainty and technical efficiency — that is the most dangerous combination human beings have ever developed.
IV. The War in the Middle East — Cause of a War of Virtue Cartels
There is no more current or more painful example than the war in the Middle East — triggered by 7 October 2023, reaching far beyond Gaza, with fronts in Lebanon, in Iran, in Syria, in Yemen. But this war has generated a second war that is being waged in parallel: a war of virtue cartels — in the universities, the media, the social networks, the parliaments, the circles of friends. A war of professions of faith and of exclusions. Whoever does not stand clearly enough for one side is fought by it. Whoever does not stand clearly enough for the other is fought by that one. This second war resolves not a single one of the causes of the first — it deepens them.
The virtue cartel on both sides forces the choice: either you see the suffering of the Palestinians — the civilian deaths in Gaza, the destroyed cities, the humanitarian catastrophe, the expulsions in the West Bank — and take sides. Or you see Israel's situation — the terror of 7 October, the hostages, the existential threat from Iran-backed militias on several fronts at once, Germany's historical responsibility — and take sides. Whoever sees both is attacked by both sides. Whoever draws distinctions "relativises". Whoever names the suffering of the Palestinians is an antisemite. Whoever understands the Israeli security perspective is an apologist for war criminals.
Both are wrong. Both are virtue cartel.
What I see: the massacre of 7 October was a crime against humanity. The taking of hostages was a crime. The systematic terror against civilians was a crime. That is not an opinion — that is fact.
What I also see: the conduct of the war in Gaza has produced civilian casualties on a scale that the term collateral damage can no longer bear. The blocking of humanitarian aid is a violation of international law. The destruction of civilian infrastructure — hospitals, schools, water supply — goes beyond what military necessity justifies. That too is not an opinion — that is fact.
Seeing both sets of facts at the same time makes nobody an antisemite. And makes nobody an apologist for terrorism. It makes one a person trying to see reality — not the version that the respective cartel needs.
V. The Pattern Repeats Itself
Gaza is the sharpest example — but not the only one. The virtue cartel reproduces itself wherever moral conviction meets feedback mechanisms without a built-in brake.
In the climate debate: whoever names the urgency of climate change and at the same time asks whether certain measures are effective or proportionate is "denying". Whoever points to economic consequences is "relativising". The cartel needs no distinctions — it needs professions of faith.
In the coronavirus debate: whoever critically questioned the measures was branded a conspiracy theorist — regardless of whether the criticism was substantial. Whoever asked vaccine-critical questions was an anti-vaxxer. The cartel allowed no nuances.
In the transgender debate: whoever asks questions the cartel does not permit — about the medical treatment of minors, about rules in sport, about legal definitions — is classified as transphobic. Not because the questions are wrong, but because the cartel tolerates no questions.
The pattern is always the same: a legitimate concern — climate protection, fighting a pandemic, protecting minorities — becomes a cartel when it stops tolerating questions. When belonging requires conformity. When drawing distinctions means betrayal.
VI. Both/And — No Solution, but the Only Honest Stance
"Both/and" does not resolve the conflicts. It does not make Gaza any less tragic. It does not make climate change any less urgent. It does not make the suffering of minorities any less real. Whoever thinks that drawing distinctions solves the problems is mistaken.
But drawing distinctions is the precondition for solutions to be possible at all. Whoever sees only one side does not see reality — he sees the version his cartel needs. And no solutions can be built on the basis of a distorted reality. One can only produce professions of faith.
The ability to see both sides at the same time — the suffering of the Palestinians and the threat to Israel, the urgency of climate change and the proportionality of the measures, the protection of minorities and the legitimacy of questions — is not a weakness. It is the basic condition for any serious attempt to understand reality.
Robespierre did not stop believing in virtue. He stopped drawing distinctions. That is the moment when conviction tips over into terror — not when the conviction becomes wrong, but when it stops tolerating questions. The virtue cartel is not the opposite of the Megamachine. It is one of its manifestations — morally disguised, but structurally identical: a system that rewards conformity, punishes the drawing of distinctions and immunises itself against criticism by defining criticism as guilt.