Work in progress I am building this as I go.
This page is what I am doing: trying to understand how good people — including me — end up supporting or enabling evil, so we can stop doing it. I am not recruiting you for a team jersey. I want better seeing.
If you have real, verifiable input — primary sources, corrections, missing cases, better citations — I welcome it. I am more harmed by what I “know” that isn’t true than by what I don’t know. Prefer documents, statutes, court records, and named sources over vibes.
A Facts for Reality tab Ross Howell, September 2026
The definition I use
Evil, as I use the word here, follows M. Scott Peck in People of the Lie (1983 / Touchstone editions — page ~42–43 or ~46–47 depending on printing): evil is the force that seeks to kill life or liveliness; goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.
Peck also summarizes Erich Fromm’s related contrast (necrophilia vs biophilia) — that middle stretch is Peck summarizing Fromm, not a Fromm primary quote. Correct spellings: unpredictability / originality (ignore circulating quote-card typos).
This is the lens for the quest below — why decent people end up supporting what destroys life or liveliness.
The hook
I want to understand how people who enable harm can do so without waking up plotting villainy. They usually wake up wanting to be good neighbors, good employees, good citizens. That is the problem: if “evil sounds like monsters, decent people never look in the mirror — and tyranny never has to recruit monsters. It recruits the compliant.
I am not building a museum of cartoon villains. I am studying how good people go along — silence, fear, conformity, obedience — and what we can do before the offramp disappears.
What the current research says
1. Silence as permission
John A. Deller, “Bad Things Happen When Good People Stay Silent,” The Epoch Times, Jan. 5, 2026.
Link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/bad-things-happen-when-good-people-stay-silent-5965310
Core: atrocities persist when good people do not speak — from not knowing, self-interest, separation, or not recognizing evil as real.
2. Obedience as the engine
Jonathan Miltimore, “The Science of Manipulation: Why Good People Follow Orders to Do Bad Things,” The Epoch Times, May 7, 2026.
Evil’s most reliable allies are not hatred or malice, but weakness, fear, and conformity — the silent forces authorities use to marshal obedience.
- Milgram
- Arendt banality of evil
- COVID-era obedience as fear/conformity not sadism
- Solzhenitsyn — line through every heart
Related: Hayek, Orwell, and ‘The End of Truth
3. Life vs control (Peck / Fromm)
M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie — evil kills spirit/liveliness. Erich Fromm (via Peck) — control/dependency vs promoting life. Working test: better-for-life vs control.
4. Case file — power over the exam room (California)
AB 2098 (Ch. 938, 2022) added Bus. & Prof. Code §2270: COVID “misinformation” to a patient = unprofessional conduct (license threat), effective Jan 1, 2023. Doctors sued; Høeg v. Newsom / Hoang v. Bonta — federal preliminary injunction Jan 25, 2023 blocked enforcement. SB 815 (Ch. 294, 2023) repealed §2270 effective Jan 1, 2024. Challenges dismissed as moot. Do not claim licenses were lost under §2270 without a named case. Pattern: when constituents stop watching, bureaucracy claims the conversation that guides welfare.
Link LegInfo AB 2098: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2098
How this pairs with other FFR pages
Your turn
Send corrections, sources, or case files I should check. Comment here or use Get involved on this site. Verifiable beats loud.
— Ross Howell (rossabh)