Evil exists. It is real, and it means to harm us. When you work in the news business, you deal with the ugly side of life. Every day across your desk comes story after story about man's inhumanity to man, from mass murderers to child molesters to mothers who drown their children to husbands who murder their pregnant wives. These stories push the limits of our ability to imagine man's potential for depravity, and yet they are horrifically true.
Because these events are so repulsive, troubling, and shocking, we want to imagine that there is some explanation for them - we don't want to accept the reality that evil is alive and well and roaming through our world. Denial is for more comfortable.
But if we acknowledge the painful fact there are evil actions, we can then enjoy the clear knowledge that there are also good actions, and we begin to see the rational structure of the universe: artists reveal the beauty of goodness and the ugliness of evil in their poetry, music, and painting; philosophers patiently untangle the details of good and evil; religious leaders seek the source of the distinction between good and evil; governments work to discourage evil and clear the path for good; parents teach their children about good and evil.
James Madison, explaining the structure of the Constitution, wrote that
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Historically, when evil has run amok on a large scale, we see principles at work: first, totalitarian governments are the breeding ground for evil, because even if you give power to a political structure with the best intentions, it creates the opportunity for abuse, and sooner or later, someone will use that opportunity. Second, the most horrifying examples of evil are not insane, although we are tempted to call them that: the genocides of Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Ortega's Nicaragua were not insane, but rather quite rationally organized. Third, if we fail to confront evil, and try instead to appease it, it will merely grow: one need merely mention the name Neville Chamberlain.
