Why is Evil Easy?

Last week, I finally watched the movie Unplanned. It was an excellent film – although very intense; I wouldn’t recommend watching it on a whim. I had to look away a few times. But it drove home once again a point I keep forgetting and then being uncomfortably reminded of – that is, just how easy it is for us to allow evil into our lives.

Letting it happen

In the movie, young women come into the clinic looking for abortions. They’re scared; they’re stressed. They don’t know what to do; they feel pressured on all sides. They just want the situation to go away, and someone is telling them – calmly, confidently, kindly – that if they just do x, y, and z, they won’t have to worry about it anymore. It’ll all be over. It’s alright. It’s not that big of a deal. It’ll all be over soon. Don’t listen to your misgivings; don’t listen to your conscience. It’s so much easier just to give in. Don’t make a conscious choice, just follow the instructions, just kind of let it happen.

And they do. They do x, y, and z. As C.S. Lewis describes it, it’s not a deliberate choice, but more of a sliding acceptance. Somewhere, turning over options in the dim, gray confusion of our minds, we let the moment of decision pass. We let it happen – and in doing so, we choose. It’s so easy – so terrifyingly easy – to make the wrong choice. The easy choice. The choice that will make it be over. But at what cost?

The easier way

The truth is, we don’t live in a neutral world, one where we can make decisions objectively behind a veil of ignorance. We live in a world full of problems, obstacles, and enemies, a world that often seems like it’s falling down around our ears. To escape from these problems, we are often lulled into taking the easy way. We think only of ourselves, ignore or rationalize the consequences, listen to people who tell us what we want to hear, and just kind of let it happen. We don’t choose to do evil. We just don’t choose to put forth the effort it takes to not do evil.

I have to go back again to the Holocaust, to the slave trade, to the Roman mothers who left their children in the snow to die. I don’t bring this up because I think these people were so evil; I bring it up because I don’t think they were that different from the rest of us. They allowed themselves to slip into evil; it was the easier choice. If we were put in such a position, do we know how we would react? The Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram Shock Experiment – what do they say about us? Perhaps we are all just a number of easy decisions away from becoming what we abhor.

Every day, we have choices to make – or fail to make. It’s easier not to stop and help the person who’s obviously on the verge of tears in the hallway. I’m sure it’s nothing; they’ll be alright. It’s easier to cut corners on the ever-increasing piles of paperwork. No one’s going to read it anyway. It’s easier to not jump into that conversation and defend the person you know the facts would vindicate. The truth will come out eventually. It’s easier just to let it happen and walk away. But is it right? To him who knows to do good and does not do it, it’s sin.

The Choice

I don’t mean for this blog to be discouraging. Human history is filled with remarkable achievements: breathtaking paintings, rapturous music, awe-inspiring architecture, incredible scientific discoveries and feats of engineering. In the wake of natural disasters, mass shootings, and pandemics, people demonstrate truly astounding courage and compassion to help people they’ve never met before. We have such an enormous capacity for good – when we choose to do it.

Too often, we slip. The violent actions of a few make the front pages, but behind them there is a society of other people, a society that stood by and turned away and did nothing. Why did the German people stand by during a genocide? Why did those mothers leave their infant children in the cold to die? How could they do such a thing? Because it was easy.

It still is. But it’s time we take the hard road.