What is the essence of evil, and which part of the human soul gives birth to it?
This is one of the most difficult questions for civilized man. Many of us can recognize the results of evil intuitively: evil causes vast human suffering; revokes our sense of human dignity; creates an ugly, dystopian, or disharmonic world; destroys beauty and poetry; perpetuates fear, anger, distress and terror; causes torture and bloodshed. Nevertheless, there are always some people who seem to remain ignorant of its presence — or, incredibly, see specific visceral atrocities as justified and even good.
Those of us who have taken a stand for freedom over the past few years know instinctively that a great evil has occurred. Millions of people have lost their livelihoods, fallen into depression and committed suicide, suffered indignities at the hands of public health authorities and bureaucrats, died or suffered unnecessarily...were denied, in short, the meaningful experiences that make us human.
To those of us who suffered directly, or who saw our highest values suddenly dismissed and decreed expendable, we feel that evil in our bones and we know that it is there, still hanging over our heads, as the world keeps turning and others, incredibly, go about as if nothing had ever happened.
Should we feel compassion for people who were “just doing their job,” and in so doing, became the tools of injustice? Should we excuse ignorance, or cowardice? Do the perpetrators of evil generally have “good intentions,” but make honest mistakes or succumb to selfishness, greed, habit, or blind obedience? And if this last scenario is the case, how much lenience should we allow them, and how accountable should we hold them to be for their actions?
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