Political Ideals
Evil Really is Evil
by Bertrand Russell
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In dark days, men need a clear faith and a well-grounded hope; and as the outcome of these, the calm courage which takes no account of hardships by the way. The times through which we are passing have afforded to many of us a confirmation of our faith. We see that the things we had thought evil are really evil, and we know more definitely than we ever did before the direc-tions in which men must move if a better world is to arise on the ruins of the one which is now hurling itself into destruc-tion. We see that men's political dealings with one another are based on wholly wrong ideals, and can only be saved by quite different ideals from continuing to be a source of suffering, devastation, and sin.
Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individu-als as good as possible. There is nothing for the politician to consider outside or above the various men, women, and chil-dren who compose the world. The problem of politics is to ad-just the relations of human beings in such a way that each sev-erally may have as much of good in his existence as possible. And this problem requires that we should first consider what it is that we think good in the individual life.