Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
Interpretation
Labeling something as a 'necessary evil' helps us justify its existence, often leading to decreased moral scrutiny.
Sydney J. Harris highlights a critical flaw in human reasoning where the act of labeling something as a 'necessary evil' leads to a comfort that diminishes our moral apprehension. When we categorize certain actions or events in this way, we risk normalizing them and failing to recognize their inherent negativity, allowing them to appear more acceptable over time.
In practice
During a corporate meeting discussing layoffs, one might quote this to challenge the perception of necessary budget cuts.
A person is either himself or not himself; is either rooted in his existence or is a fabrication; has either found his humanhood or is still playing with masks and roles and status symbols. And nobody is more aware of this difference (although unconsciously) than a child. Only an authentic person can evoke a good response in the core of the other person; only person is resonant to person.
We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.
At it's highest level, the purpose of teaching is not to teachβit is to inspire the desire for learning. Once a student's mind is set on fire, it will find a way to provide its own fuel.
This awful catastrophe is not the end but the beginning. History does not end so. It is the way its chapters open.
The only journey is the one within.
Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.
What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.
A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.
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