Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

Some among us seek to explore evil, to know it intimately. We willingly explore the dark depths of human nature, wanting to know every minute aspect, wanting to know everything possible about how evil happens. There are others who believe that any knowledge of evil taints the possessor of that knowledge, that the slightest knowledge of evil will create an irresistible attraction that must eventually draw the possessor into the clutches of the dark side. They seek to portray even the willingness to discuss topics like war, slavery and mass murder as advocacy of such practices. They react to any mention of the source of their fears with unthinking aversion, mistakenly hoping that safety might be found in the absolute avoidance of even the slightest mention of what frightens them.

Encouraged by a mass media that holds no means of countering the profound lessons from the past, we've allowed ourselves to be tricked into turning our backs on the hard-earned truths of our predecessors. We've allowed our egos to believe the all too attractive lies that we are now somehow too advanced, too sophisticated, to be bothered by what really happened before our time. As a result, those with the greatest potential access to knowledge accumulated at such great cost in the past, those who should be the most aware of the real nature of the dangers with which they innocently flirt, those who should be the most resistant to evil, have set ourselves up as evil's most eager victims.

Ignorance and denial may be bliss in the short term, and has been attempted during nearly every manifestation of the dark side of human nature. But has intentional ignorance ever proven an effective defense against evil? Has it ever protected the unfortunates that cowered behind its illusion of safety? Did it save the Jews from the Nazis, the Christians from the Romans, the Roman Legions from the German tribesmen waiting for them in the Tuetoburg Forest, The indians from the British who gave them smallpox infected blankets? History says no.

At least part of the underappreciated justification for public education was to educate youth as to the nature of past manifestations of evil so that they would be on guard against future dangers to their hard won liberty. But the modern sanitized politically correctly "history" imposed on the unsuspecting impressionable young minds of today studiously avoids any real understanding of evil.

Rather than attempt the Herculean task of physically eliminating all of the damning evidence accumulated through humanity's long experience with evil, the tactic of its current advocates has been to convince the prospective victims of today to willingly ignore all of the warnings of history. We've been taught to contemptuously dismiss such admonitions from the past as "hold your friends close but hold your enemies even closer", "know our enemy as you know yourself", and "those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it", as quaint antiquities of a bygone age.

Turning the best means of defending against evil to its own purposes, much of what passes for modern education today has been distorted into a means of instilling an unquestioning acceptance of evil by its prospective victims. Taught to revile the wisdom of the past, and terrorized by a manipulative mass media, these willing victims are all too eager to surrender their most precious freedoms in the vain hope of purchasing some measure of personal safety.

History indicates that the best defense against evil is to know it well, and thereby be able to recognize it in its varied disguises. And to know evil, one must be willing and capable of seeing the world through its eyes, of understanding its motivations regardless of how reprehensible they might be from the perspective of a rational society.

Down this path lurks danger. Some who seek to know evil become ensnared by its attractions, so dazzled by its superficial temptations that they ignore the peril lurking just below the surface. But the fact that some fall by the wayside is not sufficient reason to give up the defense. Those who truly understand and embrace strong basic principles of ethics and personal integrity are immune to the attractions of evil. Only those who lack a true understanding of good are at risk of succumbing to the deceptive attractions of evil.

Knowledge has always been power, while ignorance has always been an invitation to an unwanted education in the grim realities of the dark side of human nature. We must not allow the fears of the least capable among us to inhibit the understanding of evil by those who would defend against it. It will always be better to defend against the encroachments of evil than to escape from its clutches and recover from the terror and desolation it creates.

Those unwilling to learn about evil will inevitably be forced to learn from it.