Edmund Burke

When Good People Stand Silent, Evil Advances

Yet good intentions falter under predictable pressures. After the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder—whose press accounts were exaggerated, as Manning, Levine, and Collins (American Psychologist, 2007) later showed—social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley demonstrated the “bystander effect” (1968): diffusion of responsibility, evaluation apprehension, and pluralistic ignorance make groups paradoxically less likely to help. Complementary studies deepen the picture: Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments (1963) revealed how authority cues override conscience, while Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) illustrated situational forces that rapidly normalize abuse. Consequently, inaction is not merely moral weakness; it is a foreseeable human default unless countered by deliberate norms and training. [...]

Fear’s Power to Paralyze Reason and Action

Yet history and literature also provide examples of individuals reclaiming their faculties by confronting fear. Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of courage not as the absence of fear, but the ability to persevere in spite of it. This return of agency affirms Burke’s point in reverse: when fear recedes, the mind regains its powers of reasoning and action, enabling progress both personal and collective. [...]

You Can Never Plan the Future by the Past - Edmund Burke

The quote suggests that innovation and creativity are crucial for future planning. Instead of replicating past methods, one should seek new strategies that align with the present and upcoming challenges. [...]