Friday 8 July 2022

Why are people unable to acknowledge evil among their leaders?

It is stunning to observe the moral blindness of people, of Christians and (self-identified) Christian churches; when it comes to evil motivations among the leaders of social institutions, nations and corporations. 

Experience has no effect. It is apparently impossible for people to recognise that those with most power in the world are ultimately motivated by evil.

Part of this is that evil is not understood. Greed for money is the only generally accepted evil attributed to leaders, and the idea that people could fundamentally be motivated by a desire to do harm to others seems merely fanciful - a "conspiracy theory".

This applies mainly when there is a somewhat plausible excuse for the long-term and systematic inflicting of harm - as with the birdemic or climate stuff; but people are willing to accept even ridiculous non-excuses for massive harms, such as sanctions/ WW III and the transagenda.

But people remain self-blinded to even explicitly stated evil, such as the Agenda 2030 or Great Reset... We are at a point when those with the greatest power and of evil intent, can publish detailed evil plans... and the masses will refuse to take them seriously.

What are the mass motivations behind such wilfully self-destructive mass attitudes?

In the end, I am forced to admit that the only plausible explanation is that people desire their own destruction; that evil finds a gullible audience among the masses exactly because the masses have taken the side of evil -  and in an ultimate sense, want for themselves what their evil leaders want to do to them.

Indeed, unless this was the case, spiritual harm would not be possible; because (like a vampire) evil must be invited-in, and may be expelled by repentance and the commitment to follow Jesus Christ.


8 comments:

a_probst said...

We in the West have had it so soft for so long that people simply 'can't believe this sort of thing could be happening'. Any leader from the party of their choice is categorically good; from the opposition, not so good. The Great Reset is likely dismissed as yet another slough of futuristic predictions/schemes to be forgotten until 2030 when their quaint inaccuracies can be snickered at, like the 'flying cars by 2015' in films from the 1980s.

Charlie said...

Great post! I believe you have correctly hit on the ultimate causes (and effects!) of the willful blindness to evil: self-destructive urges, alignment with evil, and a lack of connection to Jesus.

But just to mention them, I think there are also other, “earlier” causes on the slippery slope. The blindness to evil is enabled by insufficient connection to Jesus, but the full alignment with evil comes at the end of the ride down the slippery slope.

I’m thinking of some good people who I love who are Christian believers but who seem unwilling to truly see the depths of the evil of our leaders, preferring to blame it on incompetence or true belief in bad ideas. Some of their motivations seem to be:

* normalcy bias
* acceptance of hierarchy (surely we need leaders, even if they often fail us)
* narcissism (surely the system exists to help us, however imperfectly, not to destroy us. Surely my vote matters, etc.
* desire to be a good citizen/ member of society (even if the birdemic is exaggerated, it is pro-social to accept emergency safety norms, and anti-social to rage against them)
* fear that contemplating evil too deeply might “get some icky evil on us.” Belief that positive thinking is good, contemplating evil is bad in the way gossip is bad
* belief that it’s unproductive to wring hands about politics/ world events (focus on what you can control
* Fear of the truth—it’s too horrible and destabilizing to contemplate that everything is a lie, our leaders want to destroy us body and soul
* Cowardice. If I don’t see the evil, I don’t have to fight it

It’s not a pretty picture, it is disconnected from Jesus, and it puts people on a slippery slope to embracing evil. But I can understand how it starts, this aversion to confronting the horrible truth.

What do you think.

Bruce Charlton said...

I think Vox Day was accurate in his evaluation yesterday: "World War III is not only here, it is the better option for humanity. Submission is not an option and will avail those who do literally nothing. Even the proverbial Rider on the Red Horse is preferable to global enslavement to the very worst and most wicked members of the human race and their spiritual masters."

whitney said...

In my multi-generational atheist family, the denial of evil is the same as the denial of Christ. It wouldn't be stated exactly like that but I was told from an early age that only foolish, stupid or crazy people believe in God, but all of my parents ire was directed towards Christians, those foolish Christians that believe in Good and Evil when it's just really nature, temperament, happenstance. If today, I say something is evil, my octogenarian mother will purse her lips because I've said something so distasteful. I don't think this is really an abnormal family in the Anglo sphere, even for families that didn't openly proclaim atheism, many many never believed. But it is things like this that ironically led me to Christ. Once you see all the contortions people go through to deny Him you start to wonder why. But it's a powerful deterrent if you are told from an early age that it is only foolish and stupid people that believe in Jesus Christ. That early programming is very powerful. Not as powerful as Christ.

Bruce Charlton said...

@w - Part of the spiritual nihilism of these times is that most people are fighting either the battles of a century-plus ago, or else against imaginary enemies (birdemic, climate emergency etc); whereas gross and (one would have hoped) obvious evils are ignored and denied.

Nonetheless, I am confident that God (who is creating this world moment by moment) will ensure everybody (without any exceptions) is made aware of this before their *final* choice (perhaps by some very harsh learning experience in mortal life, perhaps posthumously), and will be given a clear view of the sides - before making a decision.

Jonathan said...

It baffles me that there are examples like the current Pope, doing extreme evil like destroying the Latin Mass, yet most Catholics seem unable to see anything wrong!

Bruce Charlton said...

@J - I believe they are seriously in error (and more and more Catholics are seeing that Francis is 'wrong') ; but it does not 'baffle' me - considering that the absolute authority of the Pope has been a lynch pin of most serious Catholics for such a long time (the 'ultramontaine' tendency, which until recent decades dominated such nations as Ireland and Poland).

Roman Catholics have suffered massive traumas in the past decade - first from this antipope, and then from the birdemic closures, denial of mass and confession and being abandoned (with no time limit) by the majority of priests.

Those RCs who have recognized that this was a great (historic) wrong are strengthened in their faith for these trying times - but the majority of lukewarm RCs are now established on the other side.

Lady Mermaid said...

Normalcy bias is definitely a factor. It's something that I still struggle with. Following the crowd has been the norm throughout human history. This is not necessarily a bad thing when the leadership is seeking the good. However, in these times, following authority w/o question will lead to destruction. I believe that God is using this opportunity to teach us how to truly follow Him in our hearts as opposed to simply following the traditions of our forefathers. The traditions must be internalized.

Whitney also has a great point about the modern denial of real evil. My degree in criminal justice always looked at crime from a materialistic perspective: opportunity, SES status, nature, etc. In fact, a psychology textbook outright denied the existence of evil stating it was too subjective and unprovable. You see this attitude in modern TV/books in which villains are poor misunderstood victims.

Finally, there is an attitude that the elites are incompetent or trying their best and failing. I used to hold that viewpoint that modern politicians were stupid and incapable of operating a functioning society. In a way, they are stupid as evil in inherently destructive. Not coincidentally, Francis Berger has a post about this attitude.

https://www.francisberger.com/blog/the-implications-of-they-never-learn