“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people;
it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
(James A. Baldwin)
Civilisations collapse not so much because of the wicked, who are usually few and easily recognised, but because of the multitudes who, out of fear, habit, or sheer laziness, choose silence, inertia, and acquiescence.
It is these masses who, by closing their eyes and shrugging their shoulders, allow injustice to become systemic, oppression to be normalised, and evil to become, indeed, banal.
Yesterday, Hannah Arendt spoke to us of the ‘banality of evil’, of how horror can emerge not from isolated monsters, but from ordinary men and women, who relinquish their consciences and take refuge in blind obedience.
Today, one no longer needs to reread her books to see this phenomenon: it is enough to turn on the news, scroll through a social media feed, and observe how far too many people prefer not to see, not to take a stand, not to risk.
The message is timeless and chillingly relevant in the world of today.
For the most dangerous evil is not the one that proclaims itself openly, but the one that grows unchallenged in silences, in small everyday complicities, in the “it is none of my business,” in the cowardice disguised as prudence.