What if you were the first atheist?

you: “I don’t believe in God.”
other: “So you’re a Satanist!”

One of the problems with self-growth, with philosophical exploration, is that the context within which you operate grows much more slowly. You, the people around you, and the culture you’re in, are all doing their own thing. The divergence between these sets of norms is painful and confusing.

How can you tell if something which feels right to you, and yet is condemned by everyone else as corrupting, is valid, moral, ethical?

That’s actually a trick question: it betrays the genealogy of morals — they exist only in relation to the other. It’s only possible to say that something is “wrong” within the context of someone else’s — or some groups’ — attempt at coercion. The man alone on the desert island doesn’t issue himself trespassing citations.

I suppose this line of thought means that self improvement must act counter to morality. It is necessarily deemed evil, though not necessarily violent, or even rude. It is simply a disagreement as to the proper relationship of the individual to the group.

Indeed, a counterrevolutionary challenge indicates that the revolution is succeeding: you will know you’re on the right track when they start waterboarding you.