Now, after a long life, I’ve come to understand how common it is for many basically nice, well meaning people to do terrible things in their lives. When few — that is, on the micro-level — are involved, it may destroy families and communities. When many do it, whole civilizations may be destroyed. It is why, particularly on the macro-level, I care little about niceness. As regards people I rely on outside my home — presidents, teachers, airline pilots, doctors, architects, investment advisers, my rabbi — I don’t care fundamentally if I’d enjoy hanging out with them. I care about their work product.
Many, on the other hand, care deeply about niceness. They regularly get blinded by its superficiality and the destructiveness it may conceal. They suffer — we all do — the consequences.
Not being naïve and led astray by niceness is an important rule of life. It brings clarity to how one should approach, especially, the many nice folks in our lives now doing terrible things to our country.
I should also know something about the lack of relationship between niceness and goodness. I used to be one of these nice American guys, a man who worked as a doctor. Early in my career, I did some terrible things to many children. I participated in the killing of dozens of innocent children through abortion. It was a terrible thing to do to each individual child but also a terrible attack on a core value in America: the respect for the sanctity of human life. I’d get a request to scan the pregnant woman in order for the abortionist to figure out the best means to end the life of the little boy or girl. I, a nice American doctor, said nothing. I did my job without thought of the moral or social implications. I’m quite ashamed of this.
Things are much worse in our country now, decades later. Half of America, tens of millions of basically nice folks are hell-bent on destroying all the core values of this wonderful country. The wall has been breached, the foundation unmoored, the center given way, the abyss entered. We watch each day as virtually every norm, tradition, custom and institution of America has been destroyed or is under powerful assault from many nice people.