People of the Lie
Why the majority of Americans are unable to see the reality of evil.
JOHN LEAKE
AUG 12
Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the spiritual fat cats, by the Pharisees of our own day, the self-righteous who think they are without sin because they are unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-examination. Unpleasant though it may be, the sense of personal sin is precisely that which keeps our sin from getting out of hand…It is a very great blessing because it is the one and only effective safeguard against our own proclivity for evil.
-M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for the healing of Human Evil (1983).
The bad habit of lying starts in childhood when we discover that lying may enable us to indulge in something forbidden, break a rule, or shirk a responsibility without getting into trouble for it. Growing up is ...
