How Indifference Becomes Power

This is my first post here and im glad i found this sub and would hope to be a regular and pour out my thoughts.

After some deep thought ive come to the conclusion that most people like to think of themselves as good. Like from your perspective someone could be the most evil person and carry out heinous acts but to them if you ask them ultimately they consider themselves good people and i also considered the ratio of good to bad people and from many people that ive conversed with they seem to think their are definitely more good people than bad people. So why is it that seems that the world is controlled by this fewer bad people? Because 99% of people are indiffernt/lazy. Being good i realise has become merely a condition or a resting state like unspoiled apples or unbroken glass. Most are content to simply stay out of trouble. Actions are what matters, not sentiments or conditions, generally speaking, we aren't good. We're not bad either. We're largely indifferent. Most people would probably agree that people starving is a bad thing. Fewer would bother donating money to help feed them. Fewer still would volunteer at a food bank a few hours a month. Yet even fewer would dedicate a large portion of their lives to such a cause without it also being their source of income, and their own way of providing for themselves and their family. Almost no one would dedicate their lives to it volunteerism if it doesnt come with some sort of benefit and that is why i hardly believe in 90% of the " activism" these days, most of these activists use it as an excuse to propel themselves to some form of benefit.

It is often said that only a small fraction of people are truly evil. That may be true. But the real danger lies not in the few who are evil, but in the many who im sorry to say are foolish or easily led. One evil person surrounded by a thousand foolish people does not remain one evil person for long. In effect, you end up with a thousand and one. This is why the question of whether people are “good” or “bad” is too simple to be useful. Reality is far more complex. Each of us perceives the world through countless variables far more than we can consciously grasp. Some of these variables we label “good,” some “bad,” and most sit in a vast grey zone, are defined differently by each individual. Our definitions of good and bad wont always align, and the deeper you go into the details, the more they fracture.. Many people want what benefits them and are largely indifferent to what happens to others so long as they get it. They see kindness not as virtue, but as opportunity.

Id like to add also that in a highly competitive society, good people are at a competitive disadvantage compared to those who are willing and able to be ‘bad’ to get what they want. Naturally, bad people want to reduce the restrictions on competition, (and the enforcement of those restrictions,) since with moderated competition, good people can also prosper, and the bad people don’t have as great an advantage over the good people.

Fortunately for the bad people, (and unfortunately for the good people) it is the good people who contribute more to society than they take, and the bad people who take more from society than they give. This could almost be the definition of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’) So when the bad people take control of a society, they seek to reduce restrictions as ive earlier said, on competition, so they can more easily exploit and take from the good people. So what happens is that they reduce the restrictions on competition so much that the good people can no longer keep enough of what they produce to support themselves, The bad people manipulate society and its laws and institutions so they can take more and more from the good people, and society eventually collapses and then these 'bad' people who eventually become leaders because they are willing to do heinous things to attain power, blame everyone but themselves for the eventual collapse of the society and then we have the 'foolish' people who would support these bad, corrupt leaders even when it is evident that they are being exploited.

Why do people still support these bad leaders, you may ask?

Because most people do not judge goodness by outcomes, they judge it by proximity and personal benefit. A bad leader does not need to be universally good, he only needs to be selectively good. A small act of kindness here, a favour there, a handout to his supporters, a well-timed speech invoking morality or faith and suddenly his larger crimes fade into nothingess. To those who benefit they say ” He is “one of us.” And of course just as importantly, bad leaders/people rarely see themselves as bad. In their own minds, they are justified. They point to the few good things they have done as proof of their character, while dismissing the damage they cause as necessary or someone else’s fault. Every villain is the hero of his own story. The foolish as i'd call them are indifferent and play a crucial role here. Supporting a bad leader is often easier than confronting reality. To admit that the person you defend is corrupt is to admit that you were wrong or that you were fooled. So instead, people double down. They rationalize. They attack critics. This is how bad leadership and people survive, not through brute force alone but through passive consent. The majority may not directly commit the harm, but they enable it by refusing to resist it. Silence becomes approval. Neutrality becomes alignment and Inaction becomes collaboration.

And so we return to the uncomfortable conclusion, the world is not ruled by bad people because they are many. It is ruled by bad people because too many others are unwilling to act. In the end, the greatest lie we tell ourselves is not that evil doesn’t exist, but that we are somehow separate from the system that allows it to thrive.