For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. … It is powerful because we have not recognized it.
— The Gospel of Philip, 3rd century
Part I: Turning Away
Have you ever done something you knew was wrong at the time, but couldn’t fully admit to yourself until later? Maybe you made a cruel comment to boost your ego, took credit for someone else’s work, or cheated on a test (or even partner).
Try and remember what that was like. You knew it was wrong, even as you did it. The knowledge wasn’t unconscious—but it wasn’t fully conscious either, was it? It lived in a strange kind of limbo, where you simultaneously knew and yet didn’t.
The part that knew: it couldn’t tell you exactly how it knew, could it? So you listened to the part that could—the part that “proved” everything was fine.
What could be wrong with trusting something you can prove?
Deep down, I know that what lives in the “bad people” lives in me, too. But this is too horrible to admit, so what do I do? I treat them with contempt. See them as fundamentally other.
At some level, I know this “othering” is what enables all harm. Could the executive ravage the rainforest if he felt the life he was destroying? Could normal people commit atrocities if they recognized themselves in their victims? No. To cause harm, we must shield ourselves from the life in others.
So by dehumanizing them, I’m doing to them exactly what I condemn them for. I know they can sense it—but part of me wants them to. They deserve to feel what it’s like to be on the receiving end. Maybe then they’ll stop.
But does this ever actually work, or does it only make them feel more justified? I already know the answer, and yet I can’t help but do it anyway. Why?
Trick question. I don’t do it despite knowing this—I do it because of it. Watch what happens.
Part of me feels completely righteous. I mean, if my behavior makes them worse, then what does that say about them? What kind of person digs in their heels in response to righteousness? I’m revealing their true colors—a genuine service to the world!
But something uncomfortable gnaws at me.
How do I react to contempt—even when I know I’m in the wrong? I can tell the other person isn’t serving what they claim to serve. Their words say one thing, but their tone and gaze convey something much darker. It’s almost like they’re baiting me. Seriously, fuck those people. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Shit. Might that be what I’m doing right now? No, it can’t be. If it were, I’d know it—and I don’t. So I’m not.
And yet they seem to be accusing me of malice anyway! Ha. I knew it! They’re projecting! Which means I was right: they really are beyond help. I mean, I gave them every chance, and this is what they chose, of their own free will.
There’s only one way to deal with people like that…
There’s nothing more primally, viscerally satisfying than violently punishing evil. Pause and feel that.
…
And my enemy is now one step closer to being the kind of person who requires me to deal with them that way.
What a “happy” coincidence, huh?
The most evil people—the ones knowingly destroying the world—if I had a choice between delivering them the righteous vengeance they so richly deserve, or offering them a pill that would magically enlighten them: which would I choose? Isn’t there some part of me just itching to mash that first button?
And if that were somehow visible to them—well, that would certainly justify their reaction, wouldn’t it?
But how could it be visible? I mean, I’m barely aware of it myself…
The truth is, something in me needs my enemies to be utterly beyond help. Because if they’re not—if they had any hope of redemption—then what the hell have I been doing?
It would mean I’ve been shoving fundamentally redeemable people deeper into the abyss.
And part of me already suspects it’s true. I mean, why else would they have to shield themselves to cause harm—unless a deep part of them didn’t actually want to be doing it?
Which would mean I’ve been smothering their light just to prove they don’t have any. All for that delicious hit of self-righteous satisfaction of knowing I’m better.
And all the additional harm they went on to cause as a result, and its downstream effects: would they not be partially on me? How many innocent people might that include?
In which case I’m not truly separate from “what’s wrong with the world.” I’m an integral part of it. And worst of all: some part of me has always known this, but did it anyway. To hide it.
And that just… can’t… fucking… be.
So no: some people really are just fundamentally different. And I’m going to prove it.
What do you do when you need something to be true, but can’t be responsible for causing it? When the mere knowledge that you are would undermine the very thing you’re trying to prove?
You do it without knowing it. By turning away from a very deep part of yourself.
Because how does that look from the outside?
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a dehumanizing gaze? Doesn’t it feel like the person is somehow absent or “turned away” from themselves?
That’s what you’re looking at. They know they’re in this state—and also, they don’t. No matter how beautiful their words, you can sense something dark about it, can’t you?
So why do we think it looks any different when we do it?
We don’t.
I don’t just turn away to feel okay with what I’m doing to you: it’s how I reveal that I’m doing anything at all. How else would I provoke you without implicating myself?
When I dehumanize you, part of me knows I’m revealing my inner darkness, and how it will affect you. But it knows I can interpret this as righteous. Justified. And thus not “dark” at all—unlike yours. It already sees how I can use it against you.
At some level, I know this is what’s happening. But is that knowledge conscious?
If it were purely conscious, I couldn’t do it to you. Smothering your light is horrifying. Nor would it work: the ruse would be too obvious, and you wouldn’t take the bait. And even if you did, the recognition of my own complicity would defeat the whole purpose: to know that I’m the good guy.
But it can’t be purely unconscious, either. Because then I’d be confused or apologetic when you accused me of it. Instead, I keep the whole thing carefully on track, adjusting the details to counter your every reaction. I must be behind the wheel.
It’s not that I’m somewhere between conscious and unconscious. I am both at the same time. Being conscious is required to do it, and being unconscious prevents me from feeling complicit. Both halves are necessary.
The limbo state: it’s not an accident. It is a structural requirement.
So am “I” the one doing this, or is some dark part of myself using me—a part I would refuse to endorse, if only I could see it clearly?
Whatever answer I apply to myself I must also apply to others. Either we both deserve grace or we’re both morally bankrupt.
But something in me powerfully resists this symmetry.
Which part of me do you think that is?
Part II: The Replacement
Turning away from myself; from my humanity; from your humanity; from the full consequences of my behavior—it’s all a single move.
I call it “myself” because it is the deepest part of me. A part that doesn’t want to cause harm. That wouldn’t let me.
But it’s also the thing that warns me that I am turned away. Which means that when I do, you see it even though I don’t. Because I don’t.
You perceive this as evil—something I must fully see—making you feel morally compelled to punish me for it. And part of me already knows you will.
The hiding: it is the revealing.
But it’s not merely that I don’t know I’m turned away. I feel more certain than ever that I’m not. Like I’m seeing more clearly than I ever have. Isn’t that true?
It’s almost as if something else has taken control. The more I go along with it, the more it feels like me—and the less I remember that a deeper part even exists. Which makes you increasingly certain that it doesn’t.
People committing atrocities: they don’t feel “evil.” They feel impossibly righteous. Just as I do when violently punishing them for it.
The darkness: it doesn’t defeat the light through head-on confrontation. It masquerades as it, slowly eroding the distinction.
The “righteous” pleasure of violent punishment and the “righteous” feeling of acting from integrity: they don’t feel the same at all, do they? All they share is the label.
So what better way to disorient us than to make us focus on labels—on what we can name?
The part that knows I’m creating a darker world cannot prove it, while the part that’s darkening it can prove that I’m not.
So why not get me to focus on what I can prove instead of what I know?
The more I do this, the more obvious it becomes that there’s no difference between the two. I mean, if I “know” that treating you with contempt darkens the world, then I ought to be able to prove it, right? And I can’t. So it doesn’t.
Thus the darkness that results can only be your fault.
Watch how I transmit this confusion to you.
When I treat you with contempt and call it “good,” what does it teach you? Especially when I get away with it?
That genuine goodness is a myth. “Goodness” is just a story we tell ourselves to get what we want—to benefit ourselves at others’ expenses, without anyone judging us for it. You’d be a fool not to do the same.
This isn’t a position you adopt consciously. Instead, “good” just increasingly means whatever you need it to mean. The self-serving aspects of your actions and agendas become easier to justify; harder to recognize as such. They feel increasingly necessary. Justified.
But I didn’t teach you this cynicism explicitly. How would that even work?
All I’m doing is being malicious while pretending I’m not. I know you can sense this, even as I myself can’t. I know what this will do to you, while hiding it from myself. And not only do I know all this, but I know that you know it—and that you know I know it, etc.
But where, exactly, is this ‘malice’? You can’t point to it in my words. You can’t capture it in a recording. It lives nowhere except in the structure of the trap itself—in the foreknowledge of how my hidden provocation will force you to react. And when you finally do react, your anger becomes the ‘proof’ that I never had any malice at all. You are just crazy. I know this, you know this, I know you know it, etc.
The whole thing is unmistakable to both of us—yet unprovable to anyone—producing an eerie hall-of-mirrors effect: deafeningly obvious from the inside, but invisible from the outside.
And that is what teaches you that all that matters in this world is what we can get away with; what we can prove. It does this by demonstrating it on you.
It is as if, by turning away from my own light, I’ve turned you away from yours.