"Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde est en droit de vous rendre injuste."
-- Voltaire.
The literal translation of that phrase into English is "Certainly who has the right to make you absurd has the right to make you unjust."
A more accurate (though slightly paraphrased) translation is "One who can persuade you to believe absurdities can persuade you to commit atrocities". Voltaire was only partly correct though: the prelude to atrocity is not just the willingness to accept the absurd, it is the loss of even caring that there is a difference between the absurd (i.e., that which is false) and reality (i.e., that which is true)
I had an upsetting "thing" happen this weekend (don't ask) and the "thing" wasn't an argument with (leaning here too heavily on cliche) "uneducated rednecks". This happened in Silicon Valley, and everyone involved was "educated" and in the professional class.
Arendt rings in my ears more loudly every day:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.