Non-resistance to evil

Evil is endemic in the world. To claim otherwise is naive. People are careless to evil influences around them and without protection they become subject to being agents of evil themselves.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? (Alexandre Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago).

Proactive non-resistance to evil is a means of combating injustice through active love. When applied in the context of social or political affairs, this may include the practice of satyagraha as advocated by Gandhi, namely a combination of truth and firmness, or steadfastness to truth. This is not to be confused with passive resistance which fails to reject violence as a matter of principle. Non-resistance to evil aims to convert the other by patience, honesty, sympathy or self-suffering, based on a belief in the inherent goodness of every human being.