“A fundamental thing we need to understand about the people who do truly evil things is that a great many of them sincerely believe they are doing good, or at least something that is necessary in order to create good. This can make them very hard to distinguish as they will often have the appearance of good and moral men and women. The crucial difference lies in a craving for control over others, mind and body, instead of just their own lives, habitually passing moral judgements, aiming to restrict the lives of others and especially those different to themselves. We need to be very alert for such people, as giving them power and control is the first step towards an authoritarian society which turns its people into victims of itself. As has happened so many times before, especially as we move away from such a state of things.”
The appearance of good
