What causes the most harm in the world, but is completely avoidable? Although it helps, you don’t have to be a Christian fatalist to sense that no source of great harm is completely avoidable, and that even nearly undetectable harms—for instance, the kind done to souls—can be among the greatest in adverse consequences.
I can't top the excellent responses by Seth Barron or Spencer Klavan. I would suggest that the inability to mind's one business is a symptom of narcissism, an obvious evil that is worse than any pandemic or plague we've ever had and that is rampant not only in America but all over the world. I suspect it's connected to one of my pet explanations: the abstractedness of modern life. What prevents us from experiencing the world with our five given senses? How did we get from biological fact to the monkeys of "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Say No Evil"? Sometimes the problem doesn't approach evil. It's more like: monkey doesn't return other monkey's emails. Monkey See Monkey Do is a hardwired biological fact, as is self-interest. So you see what we're up against. Abstraction is hard to avoid altogether. But I would like to point the finger at photography, film, radio, television, computers, internet, and cell phones/"smart" phones. These take us away from the world of our senses into make-believe, usually for the sake of entertainment. They put someone else's ideas and experience into our heads. The cultural conservatives are partially wrong. The problem isn't merely content. It's the habits of passivity, fantasy, and delusion that these inventions encourage. What can one say except, "Come with me, leave yesterday behind/And take a giant step outside your mind."
I can't top the excellent responses by Seth Barron or Spencer Klavan. I would suggest that the inability to mind's one business is a symptom of narcissism, an obvious evil that is worse than any pandemic or plague we've ever had and that is rampant not only in America but all over the world. I suspect it's connected to one of my pet explanations: the abstractedness of modern life. What prevents us from experiencing the world with our five given senses? How did we get from biological fact to the monkeys of "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Say No Evil"? Sometimes the problem doesn't approach evil. It's more like: monkey doesn't return other monkey's emails. Monkey See Monkey Do is a hardwired biological fact, as is self-interest. So you see what we're up against. Abstraction is hard to avoid altogether. But I would like to point the finger at photography, film, radio, television, computers, internet, and cell phones/"smart" phones. These take us away from the world of our senses into make-believe, usually for the sake of entertainment. They put someone else's ideas and experience into our heads. The cultural conservatives are partially wrong. The problem isn't merely content. It's the habits of passivity, fantasy, and delusion that these inventions encourage. What can one say except, "Come with me, leave yesterday behind/And take a giant step outside your mind."