Dennis Prager Warns of the Evil That Springs From "The Yetzer Hatov," the Desire to Do Good

In so doing, he offers a warning re Utopians and other do-gooders:

At least in the 20th century, the most enslaving and murderous century in recorded history, the great majority of evil was caused by...the yetzer hatov. Vast numbers of people supported evil causes because they believed they were good. 

Communism, by far the greatest cause of 20th-century genocide, was the most obvious example of evil unleashed by the yetzer hatov. With promises of equality and economic and moral progress, communism seduced tens of millions of people, including a disproportionate number of the best educated. In the free West, communism had support among the well educated, not among hard hats. Indeed, until the 1960s, organized labor was a leading force in the anti-communist movement. 

Even Nazism appealed, at least at first, to many Germans’ good side. Hitler’s initial appeal to Germans was economic and psychological: He would remedy Germany’s terrible poverty and inflation, and he would restore German dignity after the humiliations of the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I. Every historian of this period whom I have read agrees that Hitler actually downplayed his Jew-hatred in order to get elected in 1933...

There is virtually no evil doctrine that people have not rationalized as being good...