Essay: Permission Is the Dangerous Part
There’s a quote that gets attributed to a lot of people—sometimes a novelist, sometimes a philosopher, sometimes a scientist. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: You will always have good people doing good things and bad people doing bad things—but to get good people to do bad things, you need religion.
Whether or not any one person actually said it isn’t the important part. The idea behind it keeps proving itself true.
Bad people don’t usually need ideology to be cruel. They don’t need scripture, a manifesto, or a political platform to hold harmful beliefs. Those beliefs often exist on their own—quietly, privately, or shamefully. What ideology provides isn’t the belief itself. It provides permission.
Authority changes behavior.
History shows this over and over again. People are far more likely to act on prejudice when an external source tells them their actions are justified, necessary, or righteous. That authority might be religious, political, cultural, or institutional. Sometimes it’s a sacred text. Sometimes it’s a leader. Sometimes it’s just “how things are done.”
What matters is that responsibility is outsourced.
When harm is framed as obedience, duty, or moral correctness, people stop seeing themselves as agents. They stop asking whether something is right and start asking whether it’s allowed. That shift—from ethics to authorization—is where ordinary people cross lines they otherwise wouldn’t.
This doesn’t mean belief systems create prejudice. It means they can activate it.
Fear plays a role too. Some people believe because they want a story that makes sense of the world. Others believe because they were taught to. Others believe because they’re afraid not to—afraid of punishment, exclusion, or chaos. And many people believe what they need to believe to belong to a community, because belonging itself is a survival strategy.
Once belief becomes tied to identity and authority, questioning it feels dangerous. Acting against it feels unthinkable. And that’s when harm becomes normalized—not because people are monsters, but because they’ve been given a moral green light.
The unsettling truth is that systems matter more than individual intent. Most harm doesn’t come from dramatic villains. It comes from everyday people following rules, fulfilling roles, and trusting that someone else has already decided what’s right.
If we want to understand injustice, we have to stop asking only what people believe and start asking who is giving permission—and why.
Sources / Further Reading (non-exhaustive):
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (the “banality of evil”)
Stanley Milgram, Obedience experiments
Philip Zimbardo, Stanford Prison Experiment
The Lucifer Effect
Research on authority, conformity, and moral disengagement in social psychology
Reflecting on the concept that authority and permission often drive harmful actions, I’ve noticed in my own experiences how people tend to defer moral decisions to a higher power or system. For example, in workplace settings, individuals sometimes justify questionable decisions by citing company policy or leadership directives, effectively outsourcing their own ethical judgement. This behavior echoes key findings from social psychology, such as Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment led by Philip Zimbardo, both of which highlighted that ordinary people can commit acts they personally might find wrong when acting under perceived authority. Personally, I believe that recognizing this dynamic is crucial in combating injustice. It encourages us to question not only our own actions but the sources of authority that validate those actions. It also highlights the importance of cultivating moral courage to resist harmful norms, especially when belonging or fear may pressure conformity. Being aware of how belief systems and cultural practices can 'activate' latent prejudices has helped me to stay vigilant against implicit biases and to advocate for ethical accountability. Moreover, understanding that moral disengagement can lead to normalized harm has deepened my appreciation for the need to foster environments—whether in communities, schools, or workplaces—that emphasize ethical reflection rather than blind compliance. Ultimately, this perspective challenges us to look beyond individual beliefs and focus on the structures of permission that shape behavior, reminding us all that true change starts with questioning who grants authority and why.
