The Balance of Conflict

Unity among people crumbles most often when interests collide. The discord between good and evil is necessary, yes—but far more necessary is the discord among the wicked themselves.

Good never seeks friendship with evil, never wishes to live in harmony with it. Evil befriending evil, evil aligning with evil—these should be easy, yet we rarely see such unity take hold. Nature, in her own wisdom, preserves a certain discord even here.

Why? Consider this: if the wicked aligned perfectly with one another in every thought and deed, the world would suffer greatly. Two malevolent forces joining would birth something monstrous. But here lies our mercy—one villain never truly trusts another. Suspicion lingers between them, distrust festers, conflict endures. Murder among them is almost routine.

This is how a kind of checks and balances operates everywhere in the world. Because the wicked cannot unite with one another, because they war and clash among themselves, humanity is spared from the full weight of evil's dominion.

Look closely and you'll see—it is the wicked who expose wickedness to all. One unprincipled man knows the pulse of another. When his interests are threatened, or when ambition tempts him to appear greater, he will consciously divulge everything, betray it all.

When discord arises between people of opposite natures, harmony can be restored with relative ease. But when discord strikes between people of the same nature, restoring unity becomes infinitely harder.