Is evil stronger than good?

Torre Annunziata,
Marina del Sole

Because a coward, a thug, an indifferent person manages to be so effective in doing harm, and instead one who tries hard to do things well, or to try to do good, at best achieves results that are so modest as to be even discouraging?

This question fully captures the drama of the history of all humanity and the life of the individual person: indifferent people, the thugs and cowards are more determined than honest people in achieving their goals; a single evil act easily manages to destroy what countless good deeds have been accomplished with so much effort.

We can console ourselves by thinking that in the long run it is good to triumph, but in the long run we will all be dead. It is not a question of being pessimistic, but realistic: the truth is that the good, even if spontaneous, is fragile, so fragile that a trifle is enough to compromise it, to ruin it, even to destroy it.

Give up? Never. I try, without always succeeding, to do the opposite of intolerant people and those who see evil everywhere: I try to show that coexistence between different people is possible, that diversity can be a great resource, that the needy can be helped even without having all the means deemed indispensable for such important goals.

I think this is possible not because I believe I am capable of doing it but simply because I believe in it. Although reality often shows that the results of so many personal efforts and of so much economic commitment are sometimes discouraging to the point of wondering if it is worth it, the good must always be done.

Diadoco di Fotice wrote: “The nature of good is more powerful than the instinct of evil, for the fact that good exists, while evil does not exist if not only when it is committed”.

The value of the common good is weak and almost always a loser, for this reason it must be supported and practiced in a free, generous and free way even when it seems to us that it is useless.

Salvatore Cimmino