Life is about making choices that define us and reflect both our values and respect for others. No matter how certain that we are right and others are wrong, self-doubt and self-reflection must always lurk in the backs of our minds when deciding the who, which, when, why, where, and how of both small daily issues and major life decisions.
However, as odd it might seem, not making any choice at all can be equally damaging. Deciding to not decide—to float through life lacking both passion and purpose—was historically an affliction of the terminally immature, but it has over the past couple of decades become strangely fashionable to accept everything, condemn nothing, and glory in “tolerance” that is actually moral laziness that poses a danger both to oneself and all our citizens.
The many who mistakenly believe they are being good and tolerant when they are, in fact, exhibiting socially-sanctioned cowardice in the face of evil are obvious everywhere we look, and we all pay a price in terms of laws not being enforced, taxpayer money being wasted, and innocent lives being harmed. Making choices becomes, therefore, almost an act of insurrection because it rejects a deeply dysfunctional and dangerous status quo that has been carefully crafted to excuse the actions of the incompetent, the inconsiderate, and the insane.
This tendency toward moral laxity is especially pronounced in bureaucracies where following rules and procedures—and not asking questions—is more valued than individual judgments. “I was just doing my job” should not ever be an excuse for harming others, but the rise of the faceless administrative state over the past century has created new opportunities for by-the-book cruelty that made Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Stasi-driven police state of the former East Germany possible. Obedience to dogma divorced from an awareness of our common humanity creates the conditions for totalitarianism that brings out the barbarian in every true believer.
Refusing to follow the dictates of our conscience often comes, of course, with a personal and professional costs, which is why many choose lives of dull-witted amorality. Selecting one path or belief over another can alienate families and friends, and deciding to not be complicit in a workplace where ethics are lax and people are harmed will typically result in being fired. Given that most of us want to be both popular and employed, acquiescence to the wishes of bad or selfish leaders is the usual course of action, and the choice of silence is the safest choice for most, although it betrays children, adolescents, adults, and elderly Americans who count upon our competence or protection.
Great harm often results from bland acceptance born of personal weakness, and it can be persuasively argued that the majority of the blood and pain throughout human history has resulted from people simply being afraid to say no to the dictates of the worst among us. Standing up for oneself and others can be difficult and uncomfortable. However, failing to be brave will inevitably lead to catastrophe for others; just ask an adolescent girl who has submitted to so-called top surgery—or an older American beaten and robbed by a career criminal out on the streets again thanks to the beneficence of a Liberal prosecutor who believes in giving felons a break—whether they would have liked someone to speak up to protect them from harm.
Fitting in with the maddening crowd that is certain they—and only they—have the wisdom to govern or judge provides the protection of the herd but exposes other to the greatest harm. Almost every horrendous mistake of human history—ranging from the simplest misdeed to to most brutal massacre—has resulted from a cowardly refusal to recognize a wrong and be brave enough to say what is right. Tyranny relies on the laziness of the many, and those cowards who have looked the other way, shuffled the paperwork, and kept their mouths shut are always a plague upon humanity.
The historian and essayist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe the sheer ordinariness of the most vicious of the Nazi functionaries, but I believe a more apt description of what we are seeing today with our modern age of social media hatreds validating violence is the “echo chamber of evil”. The worst impulses and least empathetic thoughts are rewarded with likes and follows because angry and lost people thrill to the drama of words causing outrage that mirrors the deep pain in their own empty souls. The most damaged among us egg one another on, lowering the bar of what passes for reasonable discourse and behavior, and no one is allowed to complain because that would not be exhibiting the “tolerance” that is so prized (and expected) by those rage addicts who so enjoy injuring others just to see them bleed.
The choice we face on a daily basis is this: Do we validate terrible people with our self-interested silence or take the risk of saying out loud what is right and what is wrong? Do we withdraw our consent, do we put friendships on the line, do we dance at the edge of career suicide—or do we simply stay silent and allow others to suffer? We have only to, once again, flip back in time to see that conforming to sick societal norms usually does not work out because it enables the schemers, cheaters, and wheedlers who have no compunctions about harming others in pursuit of ideological purity, personal profit, and frightening power.
Speaking out makes one a threat, but bravery is, nonetheless, essential for any nation to thrive.