Most "Good People" Are Only One Crowd Away From Evil

Alla, Adobe Stock

 The terrifying truth about ordinary kindness

Many people assume that ordinary people are inherently kind, as if “kindness” is a default attribute everyone is born with. But the reality is far more brutal—most ordinary people actually don’t have the ability to be truly kind at all.

True kindness is rare. 

It requires genuine empathy, the ability to feel pain for people who have no direct interest relationship with you. It requires enough wisdom to see through the chains of interests and real causes behind things. It also requires real action and capability, the ability to actually help the other person, rather than just indulging in self-satisfaction in your own mind.

Yet the vast majority of people only ever care about themselves.

The little bit of “care” they occasionally show others is mostly just to make themselves feel better emotionally. This is not kindness, this is emotion management. 

Once their emotions are soothed, whatever is happening outside has nothing to do with them anymore. Their thinking is shallow, and they are particularly easily manipulated by the media and propaganda. In the algorithm era, everyone is trapped in their own information cocoon, seeing only what the platform wants them to see. Over time, they can only shout along with everyone else and follow the crowd.

When propaganda says something is good, they act kind. 

When propaganda says something is evil, they can shout the loudest, act the most ruthlessly, and still firmly believe they stand on the side of justice. 

This is the truly terrifying part.

Take some places in China, for example. 

Many ordinary people harbor intense hatred toward Japanese people today. 

They take the crimes committed by the Kwantung Army decades ago and pin them all on ordinary Japanese people living and working in China now. 

In recent years, there have been multiple cases where ordinary Chinese people violently attacked Japanese nationals in China, even causing deaths and injuries. 

In the eyes of the perpetrators themselves, they were “seeking justice for the country,” upholding justice, and doing good. They might admit their methods were a bit extreme, but they will never acknowledge that their motives were evil.

Mediocrity plus stupidity most easily produces evil wrapped in the cloak of kindness.

These people are usually not the masterminds, but the most enthusiastic accomplices. 

Once their emotions are ignited, they happily serve as the knife. 

After it’s over, they eat and sleep just fine, because in their worldview, they are always the good guys.

True kindness is completely different. 

1. It requires an independent personality that refuses to be hijacked by group emotions. 
2. It requires a clear mind that can see through lies and appearances. 
3. It requires even more courage, the courage to stand alone when everyone else has gone mad with frenzy, and to bear the consequences.

Hannah Arendt said that the greatest evil often comes not from evil people, but from people who do not think. The funny thing is, most people who quote this line automatically assume they belong to the thoughtful minority, it never once occurs to them that they too cannot see the edges of their own understanding.

These qualities are extremely rare in any era. 

Truly kind people are often the misunderstood minority.

Mediocrity and stupidity can never produce kindness, they only mass-produce ignorant evil, including those who most vigorously flaunt their own “kindness” on their social media feeds.

Neo Shakya