There was a posting recently which I can't find which mentioned how a society could lock itself in a hell where everybody knows that it harmfull to follow the rules (punish others) but nonetheless all continue. Falls into the same pattern of Hell and Moloch. Now I found a description of this in real life:

What struck me as I talked with teens about how race and class operated in their communities was their acceptance of norms they understood to be deeply problematic. In a nearby Los Angeles school, Traviesa, a Hispanic fifteen-year-old, explained, “If it comes down to it, we have to supposedly stick with our own races. ... That’s just the unwritten code of high school nowadays.” Traviesa didn’t want to behave this way, but the idea of fighting expectations was simply too exhausting and costly to consider.

From "It's complicated" by Dana Boyd http://www.danah.org/books/ItsComplicated.pdf

What do you think?