the state, on the other hand, avows, with respect to its its own suprapersonal person, the most naked commitment to the principle that one may rob, murder, and cheat so long as the result is power, civilization, and glory. of course i am not saying that all this is acknowledged in theory as well; on the contrary, theoretically it is all quite murky...moral reasoning is, in this context, just one more means to an end, a weapon one uses in pretty much the same way as a lie. that is what the world made by men looks like, and i would want to be a woman if only—women did not love men!
what is considered good nowadays is anything that gives us the illusion that it will get us somewhere: but this conviction is precisely what you called the "flying man without remorse," and what i said is a problem that can't be solved because we lack a method.

robert musil
agathe, or, the forgotten sister