Most of us to the very end of our lives
are obsessed by infantile cravings
for protection and direction,
and out of these cravings 
come all these impulses 
towards slavish subjection 
to gods, kings, leaders, heroes, bosses,
mystical personifications like the People,
My Country Right or Wrong, the Church,
the Party, the Masses, the Proletariat,

Our imaginations hang on
to some such Big Brother idea
almost to the end.
We will accept almost any self-abasement
rather than step out of the crowd
and be full-grown individuals.

And like all cubs and puppies and larval things,
we are full of fear.
What is the Sense of Sin
but the instinctive fear
of an immature animal?
Oh, we are doing wrong!
We are going to be punished for it!
We are full of fears,
fears of primal curses and mystical sin,
masochistic impulses to sacrifice
and propitiate and kneel and crawl.
It paralyses our happiest impulses.
It fills our world with
mean, cruel, and crazy acts.
(H.G. Wells – Star-begotten)