Evil is real and much closer than we want

DEAR EDITOR:

These days we seem to dismiss the idea of good and evil as nonsense of another age.

For the most part, I don’t think many people think of evil and its consequences. But the tragedy is that it’s never far away. Not far from where you are seated at this moment, men, women, and children are being forced into every type of slavery and prostitution, by people so feral they are more like wild animals than humans with no conscience.

Not far from you domestic violence and child abuse rages, drugs are sold to children changing the direction of their lives forever, and people are being tortured, taken advantage of, blackmailed, corrupted or intimidated.

So what is evil? It’s defined as profoundly immoral and it all hinges on that word. The word presents an intricate problem for our society. Morality is rarely discussed any more. Every type of perversion and depravity has become someone's personal preference and right.

If we pretend there is no such thing as right and wrong, good and bad, then this inevitably leads to the proliferation of evil. And it has.

Immorality has become the morality of an alarming number of the most influential people in our society. The daily consumption of media and entertainment relentlessly celebrate immorality and desensitize us. This normalization is accomplished gradually and by repetition. This is how evil thrives in society.

Think not — think again.

Consider what is happening in the world today — the lies, deception, and corruption of our leaders and governments that we are exposed to daily. We become the stories we read, hear, and watch committing ourselves to the normalization of evil. Desensitizing ourselves to evil dehumanizes people and it changes the way we treat each other.

We can’t control everything around us but we can and should pay attention to how we treat others.

Evil is real and much closer than we want to acknowledge and I believe we are at one of those moments where history is holding its breath before it reveals the fate that lies in store for future generations.