In Praise of (some) Ignorance

The presence of evil in the ordinary and mundane existence of life is itself difficult to ponder. The presence around us of simple horrors and distortions of good is a fear-inducing reminder that somehow, we live among the darkness and that it stalks us, seeking to infiltrate our own lives. Need we ponder more evil than its local manifestations simply because we can? What is it that draws our eyes to the train wreck? With evil being as complex as it is, confusing and seemingly unjustifiable, global evil is either unbearable and crushing in its scale, or this grand scale is trivialised in order to cope with the knowledge of it. Simply, how can we do justice even to the contemplation of evil?

While some may see ignorance as an evil in itself, there may be merit to an ignorance of evil — to knowing of its presence in vague and shadowy silhouettes as opposed to the definite and grotesque clarity available. Ignorance of the global is merited, I think, where it enables sympathy and care for the one right in front of you. The mental toll of evil in the everyday is at risk of being eclipsed by the faraway catastrophe to which little but empathy and prayer may be attended from an equal distance (bearing in mind that, speaking personally, even thinking about and praying about something as near-constant as broken or complex families in my neighbourhood is a task I seldom achieve). Also worth noting, I speak from the relatively peaceful country of Australia (rural Australia at that!). It may be that the global crises that spot the face of the planet are circumstances you are close to or within. Nevertheless, the scale of the global makes it seem more important, but life is lived in the relationships one actually has, and that is made up in greatest part by those who walk with you day by day — the embodied.

Biblically, Avoid association with evil

A number of passages that are close to this idea speak of being innocent of evil, mostly in that you do not partake in it, but also in a more arm’s-length distancing from evil. For example, Ephesians 5:11–12, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.” (ESV) Not only does the Christian not partake in evil, but they expose evil through the light of godly living and holiness (v. 7–9). However, there is also a caution that the Christian ought not speak of the shameful deeds of evil done in darkness. Why is that? Well, earlier Paul wrote that even crude joking or foolish talk is to be avoided (v. 4). It’s “out of place”. There is a parallel set up here, of not talking of foolish matters, and not speaking of evil matters, of which perhaps the same reasoning applies to both: that in both cases it’s “out of place” or unseemly. That in the talking like a fool, you’re obviously foolish. But by derivative or association, the speaking of secret and shameful matters done by others is somehow shameful for us to do. There is a tension between exposing the evil yet not speaking of it. In many cases you must speak of evil to expose it. But the primary thrust of the passage is the exposing through godly living (see also 1 Peter 2:15).

Today people are very quick to speak in order to expose. We feel a deep, deep need to share the evil of others so that someone will finally do something. But another biblical alternative is to first and foremost not commit the evil ourselves (Romans 2 has much to say on this ease at pointing out evil but hypocritically partaking). Surely it is easier said than done to say this evil should not happen, all the while we are guilty of the deeper root cause of the evil (whether lust, or pride, or anger, etc.). The biblical first step is not so much to speak out against, but to not do it ourselves, and then to live and act oppositely to the evil. To be light in darkness. While others may pucker their lips at the idea, saying you are not making any difference in the world, it may be that you are in fact making the greatest difference. Is anyone above evil at a personal level? Absolutely not. The difference between the global and the local is not such a difference as people think. After all, every person is capable of the evil we deride others for having done. The unimaginable evil of the global is often unnoticed and dormant (and under the common grace of God, often restrained) in each of us. Which is why the first step of exposing evil should be not doing it ourselves — of which that is a task harder than might be anticipated.

Not cynical and not naive.

So now, regarding the global evils or grotesque details of evil. You do not want to be naive, but you also do not want to be cynically depressed. Evil has a way of crushing you as you share emotionally in it through empathy with the victims or perpetrators of evil as you know of it. At the local level, this is obvious: grief at death, counselling through lived experience of sin (one’s own, or at the hands of another), whether of an everyday variety or a tragic variety, and depending on where you live, the two may be close together. This weight and burden takes its toll: the simple objective knowledge of evil, without even partaking in it, is a sullying of the mind, leading or tempting toward depression, cynicism, or hopelessness; or desensitisation, so that one does not treat the weight of evil in the lives or environments of oneself and others appropriately. Then what you relinquish is the ability and capacity to care for and love those under its effects. Walking side by side with people around you and in your church is troubling and dangerous because of life’s pains and sorrows, let alone our own pains and sorrows. There is wisdom in “self-care”, that awkward term which speaks of the danger a personable and helpful saint may gravitate toward, having all the love and empathy drawn out of them with no reserve left. The result is cynicism and hopelessness.

That being said, you certainly will not be naive if you engage people enough to hear their stories and encourage them in life. Life contains evil. People sin and are sinned against. You will only maintain a naivety by not getting personally involved in people’s lives. So the antidote to naivety is relationship. Blissful ignorance is possible to achieve if you do not have anything but surface-deep relationships at church (which is not hard, it seems).

The tolerance for the knowledge of evil and its contemplation is wildly varied, it seems to me. Some people balk at my time as a mental health nurse (which was absolutely no problem for me), while I balk at the idea of working on a job site surrounded by porn, Friday night hopes for casual sex, and weekend spending. Some people cannot handle the presence or discussion of certain evils while others can, and then those cannot handle much of another evil while the other handles it better. This could be due to temperament or history. So there is no wrong in admitting a sensitivity to particular evil such that it is too difficult to properly engage someone’s struggles with it in a helpful and encouraging way that bears burdens. Having no sense of the self and your capacities in this regard will mean you unwittingly become a casualty in the pursuit to help others, as Jude puts it: “save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” (Jude 23 ESV)

How different is this side-by-side journeying from the ethereal and purely abstract knowledge of another country’s woes? Where sweeping statistics and numbers are thrown into space to be wrestled into concrete experiences of suffering you can do nothing but imagine. Knowing of global evil and its scale in detail is too brutal to ponder with justice, as all those who suffer are reflections of God’s image in a tragically broken world. Yet knowing this and considering it requires the greatest of mental capacities to do justice to it. In an effort to stay sane, then, we depersonalise or venture only into the vagaries as a means of self-preservation. Is this a sign of your moral inferiority? Not necessarily. Perhaps it’s wisdom and focus. It’s just as possible that many people will use the brutality of the world far away in an enraged state to simply defer their own struggles in life. After all, my anger at my children is surely not as important as the murder of a child in the next state over, right? Who cares about my minor indiscretion? Look over there at the greater evil!

The Joy of Evil

Then there is the weird and twisted desire to look at the train wreck (in Australian terms, to watch “Dash Cam Owners Australia” on YouTube). Of course, there are far worse depictions of evil. But the desecration of the mind is in part due to indulgence in the unsavoury, brutal, or depictions of evil out of the joy of it. Ignorance of evil today may look like an ignorance of global news, which is more like “infotainment” than anything else. It is the feeling of FOMO when you do not keep up with the vulgar show your friends watch. Perhaps it is a vague understanding of the details of important events while not delving into the specific depravity of this or that scandal. Boring.

So it is that ignorance today in the tech-obsessed, hyper-connected landscape may make you look like a Luddite in comparison to the majority. Honestly, my 80-year-old father is more informed than I am. Even the old cleaner at my office got talking about some terrible crime the other night of which I was totally unaware (but I can now assure you, without any desire of my own, am now very aware of… And even she said at the end, “it would be better not to know” — I, ironically, agreed). It seems as though the propagation and proliferation of evil content is heavily dependent on online platforms and infotainment news channels running constantly. Ignorance may require distancing yourself from many forms of technology or media platforms (mainstream or otherwise).

This is ultimately not hard to justify, I think, if you are busy embedding yourself in the lives of others for their encouragement and support, which can only be done in person. Even their mental anguish at [insert event overseas which they are not involved in at all] is something that does not require you to understand in order to help them. Understanding a greater meta-narrative may help (i.e. a biblical perspective of politics in general, or technology in general, or war in general). Perhaps it will be of the greatest benefit to inform your more general or biblical knowledge on a subject with some distance from its global manifestations, in order then to help those who are unhelpfully entangled in the minutiae of the details without a robust understanding of the greater narrative or principles it fits within. This is to be informed by a framework (biblical in this case) before having our framework informed primarily by the events or manifestations of evil (which will lead to a confused worldly framework or perspective). I can only imagine someone who is socially disconnected touting the superiority of global/international and even national evil as more important than its local manifestations in lived experiences and relationships. But you won’t have a good comeback to these challenges if you aren’t actually embedded in people’s lives such that that’s true.

But in conclusion, go back to the priority put forward in the Ephesians passage above. These latter paragraphs are secondary to the actual life that’s lived not merely in ignorance of evil deeds done by others, but by a life that is “ignorant”, that is, does not partake in evil itself. That is the greatest combating of evil — your mortification of sin.