The guises of evil

Human beings are not telepaths. As such we rely on the impressions our senses make of the exterior of a person. We make unconscious and conscious judgements about people based on what we see in their eyes, their body language, and their manner of speaking. But sometimes our ability to detect the interior person from their fleshly vestments is fooled by the great skill of a person at concealing their inner self:

Source: BTK Suspect Confesses to Killings

Assuming the allegations are true, can you imagine how shocked, how hurt the people who know this man are? He appears to have carefully constructed the facade of a model citizen, with barely a hint of who he really was. An incident like this makes you wonder if you can trust anyone.

But it would be a true evil if we succumbed to that. I think it better to bear the scant risk that we will be betrayed in such a fashion than to risk becoming a cynic distrustful of everyone. For surely it is not everyone who has a heart of darkness.