On Evil

I just finished reading a book called “The Death of Satan” by a Harvard-educated psychologist. His premise is that modern society has lost the concept of evil, of sin, of wrongdoing, and as a result has plunged into a moral void where we explain away wrongdoing with psychological evaluation rather than confronting and judging it. As a result, the universal framework of our moral existence is endangered (at least that’s what I got out of it).



I’ve thought about his premise a great deal this week. I confess, I have historically chosen to believe that pure evil did not exist. I know now that is not correct. There are, in fact, evil people, people who have no empathy for anyone else. They view people solely as a means, a tool if you will, to achieve their desired end. Sociopaths exist. Our human experience is littered with examples. In my own lifetime, I’ve seen millions slaughtered by leaders devoid of goodness, leaders who are evil.


But what about the vast majority of us who have a conscience, subscribe to a moral code, yet still do wrong? It is this question, given my own personal experience, that has caused me the most difficulty.


I was at my absolute best, most altruistic, most loving, and responsible, the first meeting I held with my criminal defense attorney. It was five days after my arrest and I was a mess. Depression, anxiety, fear gripped me. My life had come completely unhinged. I was secretly suicidal. The thought of going on even one more day was beyond my comprehension.


I met with my attorney and said the following: “I don’t care what happens to me. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, I’ll admit to anything, accept responsibility for anything, as long as my wife and kids are protected from all this”. I frankly didn’t care about anything other than their well-being.


Since uttering those words I have had them used against me numerous times by the Attorney General’s office as they challenge my legal attempt to have a fair sentence imposed.


Ironically, I knew what the right thing to do was. My wife presented me with the most one-sided property settlement agreement ever drafted (I don’t even own my underwear!). She was able to get all our possessions because I told the prosecutor “give my family our assets and I’ll plead out”. Two weeks after the papers were signed and my sentence finalized, she filed for divorce.


Evil. It took me a long time to admit this to myself, but what I did, stealing and lying to the woman I loved and who loved me, was evil. It was wrong. I did it for selfish, self-centered reasons.


That doesn’t make me evil, but it does mean I have to accept responsibility for what I did. Yes. I had crap happen to me growing up that messed me up. Yes, I went out of my way to not disappoint people and as such, my self identity, my fear of being rejected was so great I was willing to steal to get that acceptance.


But that doesn’t excuse what I did. Perhaps the most difficult question I had to answer for myself was why. Why would I hurt the most important people in my life? Reinhold Niebuhr, a renowned twentieth century theologian said, “Evil is the capacity to render invisible another human; sin the confusion of self with the world”.


I understand what Dr. Niebuhr meant. Whenever we act out of selfishness, self-interest, we run the risk of succumbing to evil. What concerns me so much about the present state of prisons is that, by there very organization and structure, they promote and encourage evil to flourish. Prison is supposed to be a place of repentance, reflection, rehabilitation, and ultimately restoration – at least for the vast majority of those incarcerated. Instead, it is a warehouse of revenge, refuse, and retribution. No good comes out of prison.


Some may find salvation; some may find meaning and purpose in their imprisonment. But that is not the result of anything the prison system accomplishes. That result occurs in spite of the prison system. It is a replay of Dr. Frankl’s premise that even in the worst of circumstances, light shines through the darkness.


The darkness, I have concluded, is that we all have the capacity to do evil, to cause hurt and pain to another, to violate a moral precept we say we hold dear, yet willingly breach to satisfy our own selfish desire.


My ex-wife is a “good” person. She is pleasant, sweet, loving, kind. Yet, her decision to end our marriage was evil. I remember early on after my arrest she wrote and told me how many people in our church were bringing her meals. I wondered then – and now – how many of those same people spoke honestly with her and said “your professed faith requires you to love and forgive him. Your vow is stronger than his crime.”


We don’t do that. We stand idly by as evil is perpetuated on a personal scale and global scale and do nothing, say nothing. We worry so much about offending. We don’t want to appear judgmental. Yet, we have an obligation to speak the truth, not in condemnation, but in love.


I had a friend who was ignoring his wife. He was totally self-absorbed. They ceased making love. In truth, he was having an affair. His wife would cry about the state of her marriage to my wife. In hindsight, I should have said something to him. I didn’t because of my own guilt over the secret life I was leading.


Months after my arrest she came for a visit with my friend. She always was a beautiful woman, but seeing me imprisoned she broke down. Shortly after their visit, I wrote him. I never mentioned what I knew. Instead, I told him he needed to realize how blessed he was. He needed to love and cherish his wife because at the end of it all it won’t matter how much we made, how much we owned. In the end, it’s all about how much we loved.


One of my favorite movie lines of all time occurred in Primal Fear. Richard Gere played a brash criminal defense attorney, a female reporter asked him “how can you represent those kind of clients?” He said, “I choose to believe that even good people can do bad things.”


We are so consumed with evil, the sociopathologic, that we ignore our own flirtations with it. Perhaps that’s why Jesus’s teaching on the commandments is so profound and difficult: “Love the Lord with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself”. Our lies would be much better spent if we lived by that law.