For those without a fatal attraction to the extreme, evil is uncomfortable to approach and examine in depth. So how do we best deal with it in order to protect ourselves and posterity? And how do we follow the narrow road to joy?
Allegedly, Israel, Canada, and sixteen European countries have laws aimed at punishment for Holocaust denial. Well intended, no doubt! Those survivors and their relatives who suffered untold losses during WWII are meant to be spared insults and humiliation, insensitivity and indecency—at least from those trying to rehabilitate the Third Reich.
The Holocaust has taken up a lot of space in public debate since the 7 October atrocities last year. In the same period, anti-semitism has returned with a vengeance, driven by Islamists and anti-Western “Marxists”; but is any justice done to the Jews or ourselves as free citizens by outlawing the denial of their genocide? Who would publicly deny it, anyway? Well, for a start, mainstream Islamists, marginalized neo-Nazi freaks, and other anti-Semitic extremists who are in bed with the Islamists. These include homegrown and Third-World Marxists. In other words, sworn enemies of the ‘open society’ defined by the philosopher Karl Popper.
It is of far-reaching importance for our self-understanding and moral integrity as Westerners to answer this question: is it proper to outlaw certain opinions on history because they originate from suspected malice and are pronounced by malicious agents against their better knowledge? On closer reflection, does it serve the true long-term interests of our society, grounded as it is on principles derived from the Bible and the Enlightenment, to silence its enemies? Are we not laying the groundwork for our own destruction by excluding certain ideas from public debate and thereby risking contradiction? It could be interpreted by the enemies of freedom as if we applied double standards and were hypocrites.
In an open society, we should never fear honest competition of opinions or ideas. On the contrary, we must encourage it and accept this challenge. Where opinions clash publicly, both explicit and implicit arguments may be tested in detail before all eyes. At best, public debate may contribute to clarification of concepts and eventual adoption of mature, responsible positions. Political-moral ideas immediately condemned by the majority as morbid and deviant may be fully exposed and subjected to the rebuke, shaming or ridicule that is due to them.
A ban on repugnant ideas in public debate in unlikely to eradicate them. Instead, it relegates the conspirators, with reinforced prejudices about society, to secret places. Without public oversight, they might be even further radicalized. Simply to outlaw certain ideas is, in reality, to flee from them rather than to take up the fight and refute them by means of factual argument, empirical/historical evidence, concern for human dignity, and loyalty to justice.
In analogy with children, opinions usually benefit from coming out into the open rather than living in the shadows where they may grow crooked. Basic assumptions, including those of racial or religious supremacism and lines of argument underlying publicly stated opinions should therefore be analyzed and tested. If need be, they must be vigorously contested and refuted.
In the open society, it is—in principle—incumbent upon everyone to participate in public debate; it is not a special treat reserved for academics, clerics, or political elites. However, this requires both commitment and courage. It would be inconsiderate of us to allow misguided loyalty to convention and fear of causing offense to cripple our resolve. If free at heart, then speak out! At bottom, that is what freedom is all about. Of course, we cannot expect to debate publicly with each other without disagreeing and occasionally even offending someone. That is not to say that offense should ever be an end in itself if we are honest and decent people in search of truth. On the other hand, the risk of disagreement should never deter us from speaking truth.
So long as we resist the temptations of ‘cancellation’ and violence, which express varying degrees of totalitarian oppression, then debate—the dynamic competition of ideas—may be a source of deeper insights and progress for society as a whole. To stipulate agreement in advance and to prohibit positions that the other party may find offensive or even impermissible is tantamount to prohibiting open dialogue in a democratic society. That is how it works in a static, closed society. To a large extent, citizens of Western nations, which have unlimited access to knowledge nowadays, are allowed to be ignorant, bigoted, and unreasonable; they may hold naive, inconsistent, and ridiculous opinions. However, they are not excluded from participation in the management of society solely for that reason.
As a first line of defense, the appropriate response to politically or ideologically motivated disinformation is well-founded, reliable information. Usually, culture wars are ones of attrition. It takes confidence, perseverance, and bravery to win them. Lies, whether spread by internal or eternal enemies, should never be tolerated at face value, but always countered with truth. In a manner of speaking, evil must be driven out with good. Thus, we patiently try to convince our opponents of their errors, assuming good faith and applying arguments that may be independently verified and corroborated.
We may rightly wonder at our enemies, fearing their motives and power. At the same time, we must keep calm and put our trust in God. Those posing as our enemies must be given the benefit of the doubt, invited to explain themselves, and persuaded through arguments, including appeals to logic and fairness—rather than coerced through violence.
In truth, enemies of the open society have a fundamentally different approach to those whom they claim to despise and conspire to defeat. With an avowed desire for reconciliation, the upfront debater on the side of liberty may be slow to realize that his counterpart is not sincerely open to civilized discourse; that they refuse to allow any room for doubt, and are solely concerned with silencing us by any means necessary—including cancellation, defamation, threats, and violence.
Presently, there is ample opportunity to study the anti-Western enemies on College campuses. In the guise of “students”—including outside troublemakers—many of whom don masks to hide their identity, they call for annihilation of the Jewish state and pay tribute to Islamist terrorists; ones who carry on the sadistic legacy of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. Some of the young protesters, warped products of a school system on the edge of collapse, are clearly ignorant of what the conflict is really all about. They nonetheless participate in the anti-Semitic campaign for social reasons, waving banners and shouting from the crowd like ‘useful idiots’, while the real organizers act out of vicious motives.
Only once our enemies resort to violence, denying the rest of us our freedom and openly challenging the social order, must we be resolute, apply the law, and then forcibly restrain them. If we ever set out to censor ideas held by others, because they are in conflict with the opinion of the majority, we lose our innocence and destroy the foundations of the open society. In short, we become the very evil which we set out to fight.
In the West, we owe our philosophical and technological development, or ethics and aesthetic singularity, to freedom of thought. The proud tradition goes back to the ancient Demosthenes and Cicero, and deep into the Old Testament. Our dignity as free citizens derives from our God given rights and the courage to exchange opinions without state retribution. Neither truth or justice are served by forced silence.
Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer identifies three groups of people involved with mass movements: men of words; practical men of action; and fanatics. These can be further summarized as the benefactors—politicians and community leaders who gain power through aggressive protests; the agitators who play the role of true believers by manipulation, causing people to gain recognition and power; and the cannon fodder, who are easily led to see social justice as a means to gain social acceptance and esteem. Hoffer lacked access to psychological studies of individuals within mass movements; had he, then his contemplations may have focused upon the personality traits of individual participants within mass totalitarian movements—especially among the agitators and cannon fodder—and concluded that true belief was not the only driver toward violence.
Man-on-the-street interviews of Hamas sympathizers reveal two of these groups on full display: the agitators denying the barbarism of Hamas atrocities on 7 October, dismissing it as Zionist propaganda; and the cannon fodder exposed as a legion of brainless twits—many of whom did not not know what river or which sea they were demanding for Palestine. “Queers for Palestine’ activists are especially ignorant of the murderous welcome they would receive from Hamas if they ever visited Gaza. It involves stones and rooftops.
But what motivates people to deny truth—or ignorance altogether—in order to spread mayhem, destruction, and fear?
Numerous studies suggest that right-wing authoritarianism is dominated by strict endorsement of conservative social norms and values, compliance with established authorities, and antagonistic behaviour toward outgroup members. These studies label right wing groups as homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic, and all around dirty rotten scoundrels. Of course, when we think about right wing versus left, we assume conservatives vs. progressives; but keep in mind, the dictatorial mullahs in the Muslim world are considered conservative, right wing authoritarians who would happily stone to death a gay man or adulterous woman and slit the throat of any number of persons deemed infidels.
Historically, few studies have examined left-wing authoritarianism in any detail since, naturally, left wing adherents are all well-meaning, empathic, altruistic souls who—through strict adherence with social justice—are simply trying to make the world a better place for us all right?
In the aftermath of the 2020 protests, professors at the University of Bern examined similarities and differences between right and left wing extremists. They discovered that while there is wide agreement that both are valid psychological constructs, the option of left wing authoritarianism has met with skepticism by many researchers. Some empirical studies also found evidence for the existence of authoritarianism on the left side of the political spectrum. Academic skepticism is fed by the bias of left-leaning researchers who believe that right wing, knuckle-dragging MAGA voters are monolithic, religious zealots who seek to enforce theological diktats, armed with assault rifles fed with large capacity magazines.
What we witness in continual Hamas, BLM, or Antifa protests are participants suffering from high levels of neurotic narcissism. The lack of altruism undercuts the left’s supposed strong desire for social justice. It is unwise to paint all leftists as neurotics. Many of the college students, or cannon fodder, are run-of-the-mill narcissists who will one day see their participation in these protests as regrettably childish. For many agitators, grift from donations is the primary mover for their activism; but the actions of zealots and cannon fodder are closer to psychopathy and thus disturbing.
Though not clinical diagnoses, we call them psychopaths (born from evil) and sociopaths (made from evil). These are the folks you see on true crime shows who are mass and serial murderers. In the psychological literature, there is consensus that no clinical treatment will help individuals with psychopathy. Little is known about them because sufferers do not seek help and are usually exposed only through court-ordered treatment after being found guilty of heinous crimes. Much of the literature is focused upon helping victims of psychopaths and teaching others how to isolate themselves from these deranged souls, not for treatment.
Evil is the absence of conscience; psychopathy is the lack of empathy and conscience. Thus, many left wing extremists are evil incarnate. There is no persuasion nor negotiation that can yield resolution with members in these camps. They lack empathy and conscience; these are necessary traits in order to find non-violent resolution. The best strategy is to isolate, ignore, and gaol them when their actions become destructive.
One example of left wing extremism is unfolding in Oklahoma. Their top education official recently ordered the state’s public schools to teach The Bible. Superintendent Ryan Walters says:
“The Bible is an indispensable historical and cultural touchstone. Without basic knowledge of it, Oklahoma students are unable to properly contextualize the foundation of our nation.”
This, along with the Louisiana state decision to post the Ten Commandments in elementary school classrooms, set off a wave of near hysteria amongst the leftist establishment. The New York Times called it an “extraordinary move that blurs the lines between religious instruction and public education.”
But are these decisions fully in the right? And if so, do they go far enough?
The fact is, we cannot understand the West without thinking about God and The Bible. We cannot understand Western man or Western history, Western literature, art, or philosophy, without first considering them in the context of faith.
This is true whether we believe in God or not. Human beings act on certain basic drives and instincts. If we do not acknowledge and account for these, then we cannot understand what humans are prone to do and why. If we do not know human motives and desires, then we cannot make sense of our actions or see into our inner lives. History, culture, politics, and even personal relationships become little more to us than a meaningless jumble of anecdotes.
This is of course basic common sense. We all want to live and to thrive. We cannot begin to understand ourselves without examining the pressures of survival that form human priorities. People are driven to be fruitful and to multiply. We cannot understand women without considering their maternal instincts. Conversely, we cannot understand men without parsing the nature of their sexual longings. It makes no difference that some women hate children or that certain men never look at women. Even those experiences must be understood in the context of the norm. This is not an imposition of societal values; this is just the way of the world.
After the primal desire to live shared by all creatures, perhaps the most basic human desire is happiness. In his treatise entitled Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote:
“Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim...[the good] is generally agreed to be happiness...Happiness is a civility of soul in accordance with perfect virtue.”
So that for Aristotle, happiness is an end in itself. Throughout all of Western history and most certainly in that portion dominated and shaped by Christianity, the form of virtue has been understood in relation to the will of God. This means that the central human drive for happiness is inseparably linked to faith.
As 17th century scientist-philosopher Blais Pascal once wrote:
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception...While the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us, and from misfortune to misfortune leads us to death, their eternal crown...These are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
For C.S. Lewis, the very presence of this God-shaped desire within us justifies faith:
“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Now, of course, Lewis could have been wrong about this. It may be that our desire for God cannot be satisfied; but that does not make the desire go away any more than our sexual desires disappear if left unfulfilled. As with sex, repression or abandonment of our God desire causes it to morph into other forms.
Those atheist philosophers honest enough to face the ramifications of their unbelief have acknowledged that with God, both virtue and happiness must logically become manifestations of our will to power and pleasure. The Marquis de Sade declared:
“There is no God, nature sufficeth unto herself...if misery persecutes virtue and prosperity accompanies crime, those things being as one in Nature’s view...[so]is it not far better to join company with the wicked who flourish, than to be counted amongst the virtuous who founder?”
Sade, the namesake of sadism, saw that the greatest pleasure of the strong is to satiate their desires on the weak. One story has it that Sade helped ignite the French Revolution by crying for help from within the Bastille. Though apocryphal, the story illustrates this perverted insight—seeking the basis of virtue within ourselves will quickly transform our quest for freedom into a riot of sadistic violence.
Nietzsche agreed that without God, objective morality vanishes. We are left to deconstruct the genealogy of our contingent morals so that the strong among us can impose a morality of their own “beyond good and evil.” After his death, this philosophy was used, perhaps unjustly, perhaps inevitably, to support the depredations of Hitler and the Nazis.
Nietzsche’s most influential disciple, Michel Foucault, also believed that what we call morality is merely disguised power. To move beyond power’s oppression, he sought to dismantle its conventions and so destroyed himself and others in an orgy of sexual masochism.
We long for happiness. Happiness derives from virtue. Without God, virtue is but a manifestation of power and desire. If we seek happiness in power and desire, then we become agents of destruction. As God warns us in Proverbs 8:36: “All those that hate me love death”. This is not to say that atheists are incapable of being fine people; only that they cannot make sense of their signaled virtue. This is the crowning feature of the WOKE mob. They cannot explain why the strong should suppress their desires for virtue s’s sake. Thus even atheists, one way or another, will ultimately be forced to confront their own lack of faith before God.
We have nevertheless entered a time when the clerisy is desperate to ignore God’s presence even as a psychic construct. The panic over Oklahoma’s Bible mandate or Louisiana’s Ten Commandments in classrooms are but examples of the left’s ubiquitous attempts to erase any mention of the source and inspiration of our culture and its history.
Brilliantly rational believers like C.S. Lewis and Rene Girard are relegated to second rate status beneath thinkers like Nietzsche and Foucault, whose philosophies wrought disaster. The atheist arguments of writers like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Pinker and Yuval Harare are praised and exalted; though it is clear that these men, while intelligent, have absolutely no understanding of religious thought.
In 2007, the European Union marked its 50th anniversary without once mentioning the religion that shaped the continent formerly called “Christendom”.
The brilliant Wall Street Journal book reviewer Barton Swaim recently remarked:
“I don’t know how many lives I’ve read in which otherwise fair and capable biographers dismiss or minimize their subject’s expressions of faith for no obvious reason.”
This is true onscreen as well, where biopics about such fervent Christians as Louis Zamperini, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash reduce their subject’s faith to a mere footnote. The resistance against and outright hostility toward considering life and culture in light of our God-shaped yearnings may have begun as a rebellion against superstition and church oppression; but it seems to have metastasized into something like the rebellion of Lucifer in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”—an attempt to free ourselves from moral reality altogether, so that we can define our own natures, genders, rights and wrongs, and make “a heaven of the hell, a hell of heaven.”
Since neither reality or our desires will reshape themselves at our command, the predictable result of our willful ignorance about God is that we have become stupid about humanity’s true situation. Only when we consider the universe, our world, and our lives as conscious acts of creation, can we begin to wrestle with the reasons why they exist at all. This alone is the path to discovering meaning, virtue, and true happiness, otherwise known as joy. If we think for a moment that we can forge a different road there on our own, then we cease to know ourselves and commit the same sin that Adam and Eve did in the Garden.
True freedom is here. Everyone thinks about it differently. Most would say that freedom is a virtue that should be sought, but that idea changes depending upon how it is defined. Many, like Foucault, think that freedom is the absence of restraints. We are truly free when extricated from the things that hold us back. Others define freedom by our human will—if we can choose what we want, then we can be free.
These ideas are a bit different from what we find in Scripture. According to God’s Word, freedom is found wherever God is found. Freedom is found when we live according to God’s original design for our life.
When we begin our life with Jesus, He gives us a new heart and way to live. He also sends the Spirit of God to live within us. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is true freedom. This means that all who believe in Jesus can experience this true freedom.
Freedom does not come from doing whatever we want but from living according to the Spirit of God who lives within us.
Paul goes on to say that those of us who belong to the Lord should spend time in God’s presence. It is only when we sit with God daily that we are transformed by Him. Through God’s Word and talking with Him, we have access to true life transformation and freedom from sin. The Greeks have a more precise word for sin, called Hamartia, which means “to miss the mark”. The idea is that when we try to experience joy apart from God through pride that the Greeks call Hubris, we ‘miss the mark’. This is how we succumb to temptation and are seduced by evil.
Can you identify one or two things that are holding you back from living this way? It may be an unresolved conflict or a recurring sin. Whatever it is, spend some time with God today. Ask Him for forgiveness and seek out your next steps. Spend time in His presence through prayer, mediation, and reading Scripture. Your life will be transformed if you continue to spend time with the only One who can thoroughly change you. That is the only way to deal with evil.
