Image by Mateus Campos Felipe.
It has been described as the root of all evil. It is that insipid form of cowardice, indifference, and selfishness that allows human suffering, exploitation, and oppression in all its forms to prevail.
It feeds apathy and inaction in the face of war, social injustice, and environmental breakdown, and it enables the turning of a blind eye and a deaf ear to the horrors of state terrorism and genocide. It is complacency.
Conditioning into complacency takes place virtually from birth, through a materialistic value system built on division and selfishness. What ‘I want’ is all that matters — regardless of the impact on others, society, or the natural world.
It lies at the root of the “I’m alright, Jack” culture, so beloved by devotees of neoliberalism.
Meanwhile, the house — our house — is on fire, literally in many places. The planet is being vandalised, the climate disoriented, and societies fragmented by division and extremism. Armed conflicts multiply. And Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza stands as the greatest war crime since the Second World War.
It is complacency that allows all of this, and more, to happen. Not among those marching and protesting on the streets of capitals around the world, but within the offices of power: the governments, corporations, and institutions that shape the world.
Among the rich and comfortable — those not living under the suffocating weight of poverty and financial insecurity, which affects the vast majority of the world’s population — it is widespread. Complacency also exists among the poor, though for different reasons. It is born out of a sense of hopelessness, and, in some cultures, a rigid or internalised notion of class — or caste, as in India — reinforcing a sense of fatalism that robs people of agency.
Governments, of course, bear the greatest responsibility — and opportunity — since they have the power to bring about change through policy decisions and the tone they set. Corporations, too, wield enormous influence, and therefore responsibility. And it is these groups, dominated by men, whose complacency carries the greatest consequences.
Nowhere is complacency more apparent than in the West, and nowhere is the weight of historic persecution and violence heavier than in former colonial powers. Their fearful silence allows atrocities and misinformation to proliferate — emboldening those who would exploit power, distort the truth, and marginalize the vulnerable.
These governments routinely proclaim their commitment to democracy, human rights, social justice, environmental protection, and peace, yet are among the most complacent — and thus hypocritical and dishonest. Their actions are overwhelmingly shaped by geopolitical bias and economic interests, rather than compassion and moral duty, to the point that complacency, in cases such as Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, climate breakdown, or the flouting of international law, becomes complicity.
The Antidote
It is against this pervasive complacency that love stands as the only true counterforce — love, and all that flows from it: compassion, selflessness, justice, goodwill, and human kindness. Complacency, by contrast, grows out of self-interest; it develops from a belief in separation and finds expression in the denial of responsibility for others, for society, and for the environment.
Love, on the other hand — not sentimental, emotional love, but the impersonal uniting force that holds all things intact — is inherently outward-looking and active. It drives engagement and responsibility; it animates acts of brotherhood and underpins expressions of collective goodwill. t manifests in collective demands for justice and freedom, and in individual demonstrations of unconditional kindness. It is the hidden source, the impelling impulse, urging every expression of life toward unity.
To confront complacency, we must therefore cultivate love in all areas of life. Only then will justice, freedom, and peace flourish — principles of goodness carried within the hearts of people everywhere, that will never be realised while complacency holds sway. For while love is the silent seed of truth, complacency is, indeed, the root of all evil.
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