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The content of a conscience, like the particular language that is learned, depends upon the society in which the individual grows up.
Joan Robinson, Economic PhilosophyAs dusk fell over the jungles of Midnapore, India, on the evening of October 9, 1920, the Reverend J. A. L. Singh was waiting atop a hunting platform high in a tree. Rev. Singh had established an orphanage for abandoned children and periodically traveled to remote villages in search of children in need. On one such trip the residents of a village begged his help in ridding the area of Manush-Baghas, terrifying “man-ghosts.” They believed the ghosts lived in a den within an abandoned termite mound, and Rev. Singh was perched above that spot, hoping to identify the cause of their fears. From an opening at the base of the mound came three adult wolves, followed by a pair of cubs:
Close after the cubs came the ghost – a hideous-looking being – hand, foot, and body like a human being; but the head was a big ball of something covering the shoulders and upper portion of the bust, leaving only a sharp contour of the face visible, and it was human. Close at its heels there came another awful creature exactly like the first, but smaller in size. Their eyes were bright and piercing, unlike human eyes. I at once came to the conclusion that these were human beings.
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- Economics and PowerAn Inquiry into Human Relations and Markets, pp. 167 - 190Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989