Brutal truth is that we will never be able to fix all of world’s evils

By David McElroy · July 16, 2015

There was a shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn., today. Four Marines were apparently killed by a gunman motivated by religious hatred. That’s as much as I know about it — and that’s all I want to know.

When I was growing up, I thought it was everyone’s duty to be informed. By that, I meant one should read newspapers and watch news on television. It somehow seemed like the responsible thing to do. I thought news was important. That’s probably part of the reason I ended up spending a decade in the newspaper business.

But I pay little attention to news today. What’s more, I pay very little attention to the larger evils that I’m aware of. I know people are being slaughtered in various countries because of political and religious conflicts. I know that people are sitting in prisons — in the United States and around the world — who have no business being punished for things that shouldn’t even be crimes. I know that there is open slavery in some parts of the world. I know there is underground sex trafficking in most places. I know that women are abused and children are being taught to continue ugly cycles of evil all around the world, including near me.

I know that children and adults suffer in violent and dysfunctional households. I know that kids are being beaten and sexually abused pretty much everywhere, mostly hidden. I know that animals are being tortured and abused for the pleasure of evil people. I know that people mistreat each other and hate one another and excuse it in the name of religion or other beliefs.

There’s so much evil that it’s impossible to list it all. In fact, there’s so much evil in the world that much of it is so routine as to seem banal.

I’m not paying attention to any more of it than I have to, but it’s not that I’m callous. I actually care too much.

I care too much to treat it as entertainment. I care too much to look at it all the time and then go right on living my life as though nothing happened. I can either ignore it or I can become overwhelmed and go crazy.

I have had to learn to ignore evil — to ignore what we call news — because I’m not willing to sacrifice my life and destroy myself for nothing. I finally had to accept this brutal truth — that you can’t change everything that’s evil in the world. I had to learn that until you accept that, you’re not going to have peace in your life.

The world is full of voices lecturing us about doing something about all the world’s ills. We’re rarely told how we can stop evil, of course. We’re just exhorted to do impossible things.

Albert Einstein is frequently quoted as having said or written, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Since so many supposed Einstein quotes are fakes, I don’t know if he said it or not, but the point is that this is the typical voice of wisdom in the world today.

And that “wisdom” is a path to misery in most cases.

People often express surprise that I read or watch almost no news anymore. When I explain my reasoning, they say things such as, “But surely you don’t think I should do nothing about all the terrible things going on.”

Actually, yes, that’s exactly what I think. Unless you are one of a very limited number of people whose actions can really change something related to a particular evil, I think you should do nothing — because there’s nothing you can do.

What can you do about periodic random shootings? Nothing.

What can you do about ISIS beheading people and releasing video for the world to watch? Nothing.

What can you do to stop the fighting in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians? Nothing.

What can you do to prevent Iranian religious leaders from hating Americans? Nothing.

What can you do to stop tribal and ethnic violence in Africa? Nothing.

The list goes on and on and on. For almost every single person who could possibly read this, there is nothing you can do to stop the evils you see reported on television and read about in newspapers.

Absolutely nothing.

If you’re one of those few people who can change something, do it. If you’re trafficking children for prostitution, well, stop it. If you know something that can stop such abuse, go ahead and do something with your knowledge. If you happen to be in a unique position and your action can stop some particular evil, go ahead. Do it.

Otherwise, accept the difference between what you can do and what you can’t do.

You can’t stop other people from being evil. You can only control your own actions. So what you can do is change your own mind and your own heart. You can change the way you personally treat people. As Jesus memorably said a couple thousand years ago, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5 ESV)

I have to look away from some things, because I can’t concentrate on everything in the world. If I pay attention to all the things I can’t fix, it will break my heart. It will overwhelm me. It will depress me. And it will make me insane because of my inability to change what I see.

I can change myself. I can’t change others.

That’s why I don’t watch the news. That’s why I don’t read the news. That’s why I won’t be offering wise commentary on the shootings in Chattanooga and telling everybody how to solve the problems.

Life is more peaceful for me now that I’m not trying to fix everybody else. Improving myself is a full-time job.

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It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

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