A big chunk (most?) of the evil in the world is done by people convinced that they know what's best for everyone else, and so are justified in forcing it on them.
> A big chunk (most?) of the evil in the world is done by people convinced that they know what's best for everyone else
Not only do I think that's a small part of the harm done in the world, and that the vast majority of the harm done in the world is done through simple selfishness (with possibly overwrought moralistic rationalizations), but also that it's important to make the distinction that this is the source of none of the evil.
Evil can't include people trying to be kind badly, or else it's just become a general euphemism to give every petty grievance one has a grand, millennialist, Manichean cast. Or to be realistic, it's usually just warmed over early-mid 20c anti-New Dealer, anticommunist bullshit.
I'm currently considering the Pentecostal church which sent missionaries to Congo to build hospitals and teach/train doctors, for instance dr. Denis Mukwege[1], who was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize for his work helping and saving thousands of women who have been raped. The reason these women were raped is not religion, it's technology (the war is about valuable land with rare earth minerals).
The intense poverty and destitution and hopelessness in the inner cities suggests Americanism (America's brand of capitalism) isn't without it's own flaws though, so there's something to be learned from the communists