Whatever works under existing conditions can thereby become evil.

Evidence

The notion that the progressive forces have been defeated and that fascism can last for ever leaves intellectuals at a loss for ideas. They think that anything which works must have something good about it, and conclude that fascism consequently cannot work. But there are periods in which existing conditions, in the strength and efficiency which they possess, thereby become evil. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 281

Categorization

• APHORISMS: Reads as durable counsel: success and efficiency are not moral warrants; a working order may be damning precisely by working.
• XREF: connects to: Ordinary routines plus denial create evil after the fact; A chain of innocent-seeming steps can jointly produce evil — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045; Extreme evil can stem from meticulous order rather than its breakdown — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 430 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Ordinary routines plus denial create evil after the fact; A chain of innocent-seeming steps can jointly produce evil — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4045; Extreme evil can stem from meticulous order rather than its breakdown — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 430 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• People who do evil use shifting justifications rather than entering a fixed altered state #complicates (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3940