On Calling Evil by Its Right Name

ALL THIS may have been long ago, and it may not have been just as it now appears to have been_but we seem to have remembered or to have read of a time when the demarcation between good and evil was more sharply defined and better understood than it now sometimes seems to be. Perhaps it was not so at all. Perhaps only distance gives it that appearance. But in those days_call them old-fashioned, call them puritanical, call them what you will_from this distance it would seem that there was a reasonably well-marked line, each side of which was known for what it was. Now all this_ if it be true_had its inconsistencies, to be sure; for no man is wholly bad and no man is wholly blameless, and no line, however sharp, can always draw the mark between them. But this fact must not ignored: As long as evil appears in its true colors, as long as it is known for what it is, and as long as those who tamper with it do so with their eyes open, the number who touch it will be smaller. A bare-faced evil issues its own warning. But evil that is permitted to hide behind polished fronts and chromium trimmings and glamorous names is more dangerous and more deadly than the bare-faced variety. False things so often like to masquerade in the appearance of respectability. It gives them admittance and acceptance in places to which they could not otherwise go. And whenever we let a thing of evil take on the appearance of respectability, we have advanced its cause immeasurably, because we have then removed from it one of its most feared, penalties_the penalty of moral condemnation. Strip from evil its polished fronts, its deceptive appearance, its false glamor, and paint it in its true colors, and we shall have less difficulty with a growing and impressionable generation of young people. But once let it acquire a respectable guise, and it becomes difficult to distinguish, difficult to discourage. Whatever else we may do with evil, let’s not give it the face of respectability.