Only Love Sees Clearly

   I can’t tell you how many times we’ve thought to ourselves: The world would be better without people like that. Without those beliefs. Without that kind of stupidity. Without that kind of behavior. Our comments section has been particularly inspiring for these sorts of thoughts.

   Those thoughts spring up in all of us, masquerading as clarity. They feel righteous. As if we’re helping the world by discerning what’s wrong with it. But here’s the problem: everyone feels that way—no matter what “side” they’re on. And that should concern us…deeply.

   If everyone believes they’re doing what’s right, and yet the world is still full of cruelty, war, and division, then judgment clearly isn’t the proper guide. Why? Because judgment is born from a narrow view—a relative view, limited by our little individual experiences, biases, and a fragmented, twisted, broken knowledge.

   To judge is to separate good from bad, right from wrong, us from them. But our judgments are shaped by culture, upbringing, media, trauma, and peer groups. They’re never objective, like we like to think. We see the world through filters we didn’t choose. So when we let judgment lead, we’re usually doubling down on our own biases—acting as if our limited vision is total truth. And even when we’re aware of our limitations, we often excuse our passing judgments with: Yeah, but I’m sure of this one.

   In 16th-century France, Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other for nearly four decades. Both sides prayed to the same God. Both believed they were saving souls. Both saw the other as evil. Their judgments didn’t make them wise—they made them blind.

   Most of us, when we think of the holocaust, we imagine pure evil. But do you really think an entire people was purely sadistic? Many were everyday people with families, dreams, and a desire for national renewal. They were gradually made to believe that Germany had been betrayed, and that radical purification was a moral duty. Within that distorted framework, their judgments made sense to them. 

   That’s the terrifying part—people are most capable of monstrous acts while believing they’re serving a noble cause. This is the disturbing but essential truth: Most evil is done by people trying to do good. They’re rarely malicious, and more often misguided. But if we can’t trust our judgements, where do we turn?

   To love. Only love. Even a little pollution readies the sword. 

   The philosopher Iris Murdoch wrote, “Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.” Love forces us out of our ego. It asks us to see others not as enemies or obstacles, but as full human beings—shaped by their own experiences, predispositions, and factors outside their control just like we are. It doesn’t mean agreeing with them, or excusing harm. Love means that our discernment is rooted in humility, not ego. In empathy, not moral superiority. In understanding, not ignorance. When love leads, we no longer act from the impulse to destroy what we hate—we act from the desire to heal what is broken.

   Judgments don’t need to be formed. Love does. Judgment is easy. Love is hard. But judgment can justify anything: war, oppression, even genocide. Love stops the cycle. It’s the only force open to the complexity of humanity. In a world where everyone believes they’re making things better, only love leads to the wisdom capable of it. 

Agree or disagree, we love you. Condemn or accept us, we love you. Love us or hate us, we love you.