It is a conundrum. Do we follow the Golden Rule with everyone, or should there be a means test? You know, be nice to those who earn it. Some speak about retribution—inflicting punishment—rather than doing “unto others as you would have them do unto you.” So, there is a divergence of opinion. Do we treat those whom we think are bad well? Do we take the risk of treating the good badly?
G. K. Chesterton and others said that fairy tales do not tell children there are monsters; children know there are monsters. Do our children know? Do we? Do we Americans acknowledge evil? Acknowledge there are evil people or people capable of evil acts? Or did we actually teach our children that all people are good and will do the right thing in the end? Have we smoothed all volatility and negative impacts out of American life until we believe nothing can go wrong and no one wants it to?
At the end of the movie “The Usual Suspects,” Verbal says, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince people that he did not exist.” Are we convinced?
If really there are bad guys, have we lost the ability to recognize them? Do we recognize the possibility? And if we can no longer recognize bad guys, can we distinguish the good? Do we treat the bad guys as we treat the good guys? Should we?
The meaning of the quote from “The Usual Suspects” is that evil is most effective when we deny its existence. And yet, perhaps we should treat everyone with kindness because perhaps the Golden Rule is also a talisman; even more than a talisman: armor against danger, a buffer against attack. If we follow the guidelines of decency, is it possible there is a negative consequence to being good? To find an answer, let’s start by reading Hannah Arendt.
Born in 1906, Hannah Arendt was a German philosopher forced to leave Germany in 1933 at age 27. She lived until 1975. In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951) was a study of both the Nazi and Stalin regimes.
Arendt wrote about the twin catastrophes of the 20th century—world wars and totalitarianism—and how they came to be. Central to understanding the how was her thesis that those who want power “don’t lie to convince but to obliterate truth—to cripple the ability to tell truth from fiction and weaken the ability to tell right from wrong.”
Arendt hypothesized that only the mob and the super rich understand and embrace totalitarianism; the rest of us must be lied to, propagandized into believing up is down, destructive is constructive, and wrong is right. “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist,” she wrote, “but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”
She coined the phrase “the banality of evil” referring to people who did great evil to others and claimed, “I was just doing my job.” “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” They would be shocked to learn they are the evil doers.
The constant lying is not aimed at making people believe a lie but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.
Perhaps we now live in an age when we believe everything is possible and nothing is true. Perhaps we are at a turning point where vast wealth concentrated in a few hands—a Gilded Age of today—is changing us too rapidly for us to catch up and comprehend. Perhaps there is evil and it is on the ascent. What then? Abandon the Golden Rule?
James Baldwin said that children don’t listen to their elders, but they watch what they do. Maybe following the Golden Rule is modeling. Maybe some will copy us. Maybe our numbers will grow.
Even the Constitution of the United States suggests it. Maybe that is what “all men are created equal” means: not that we are all alike but that we all deserve equal treatment.
Besides, learning to do unto others doesn’t mean forgetting how to fight. With full knowledge that you can reason with folks with desires but not with folks with a single desire to benefit themselves. It probably informs how we fight. Do we fight with malice aforethought? Or do we fight when pressed, without wishing to, and with rules of engagement that embrace humanity and decency.