I would like to contest the now outdated idea that the greatest evil out there is money. I don’t deny that money can persuade people to do stupid things, but ultimately it is the people, and their ideas, that cause the evil, not the money (which is an emotionless mathematical abstraction designed to make economics work.)
So yes, I think that the greatest evil is an idea. It is one that pops up in all sorts of places and makes people argue for all sorts of nastiness.
Moral conservatism
In brief, moral conservatism says that people should be subject to my moral code, which should be enforced by law. People are divided into the good (deserving) and the bad (undeserving,) and society (and the state, if one exists,) need only take action to protect the interests of the good/deserving ones.
It is the principal employed by religious extremists to justify the killing of non believers. It is the principal used by the daily mail to justify harsh, unsympathetic treatment of asylum seekers and those on benefits. It is the principal that drives racial hatred. It is the principal the Pope uses to attack homosexuals. It is the principal used by Israel to perpetuate economic hardship on and attack the Palestinians, and the reason Palestinians kill Israeli civilians.
It is the principal used by the conservative party to justify attacking the public sector in times of debt, and the principal used by the labour party for building the public sector up in times of excess. It is the principal that makes Polly Toynbee write articles in which the UK in a fight between public sector heroes and private sector villains, and Jan Moir call all gay people promiscuous druggies who will all die young.
It is the most evil idea in the world, and the cause of all suffering: this arbitrary group of people are more important, and more deserving, than “others.”
Liberalism as the inverse
Moral conservatism is a principal which is in direct opposition to liberalism, which says that the law is there to protect everyone, and should be based on the principal of preventing harm, not arbitrary restriction.
It is the principal used when arguing for equal rights laws, protecting minorities (racial, cultural, sexual preference, religious, political) from the evils of majority rule. It is the principal that drives the seemingly endless search for world peace, and peaceful coexistence within states. It is the principal which justifies the state welfare, and which drove the Liberal Party to found it in the early 20th Century.
Next time: charity as the embodiment of moral conservatism (and why the state is the solution,) and when liberals take things too far.