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Does Evil Survive Without Good? Reclaiming Human Agency in a Fractured World

In last week's episode of EZ Conversations, I had the opportunity to host Alan Paul Roberts (Listen Here), who is the author of The Globalist Plan to Collapse Everything. In this discussion, I explore Alan's perspective on what he has observed in the world around him and why he felt compelled to share what he believes are the 11 pillars of societal breakdown. In our conversation, we also discussed how Alan would respond to being labelled a conspiracy theorist, and he explained the term's history. However, what stood out to me most in our discussion was Alan's encouragement to recognize their moral agency, not to lose hope despite all the conflict around us, to influence change in their own way, and to use faith as a cornerstone for navigating uncertain times. Overall, the biggest takeaway was the opportunity to reclaim one’s agency.

As I reflected on my conversation with Alan and navigated a week filled with turbulence, I also realized that we can all live in the same world with alternate realities—and that navigating them can be deeply uncomfortable. But that discomfort is exactly where believing in one’s truth and faith can become a foundation for growth and agency. The ability to recognize that we have a choice to respond differently, even in the face of the most difficult situations, is how we claim our agency back.

In the context of alternate realities, it can still be challenging to keep a level head and feel motivated to go about one’s day. Questioning reality has become even more difficult, especially in political discourse, where confusion keeps surfacing, and people see the same situation yet interpret it at opposite ends of the spectrum. But that is what makes the truth so complicated, and the pursuit never-ending. At any point, we can only do our best and influence what is around us. The doubt will always be there, but one thing will always remain—our free will.

And here’s where the research becomes quietly reassuring: when life feels unstable, the mind doesn’t just crave answers—it craves meaning, coherence, and a sense that our actions still matter.

Across many studies, meaning in life is consistently associated with lower psychological distress, including anxiety- and depression-related symptoms. A large meta-analysis found that the presence of meaning is negatively associated with distress, whereas a restless search for meaning (when untethered from action) tends to correlate with higher distress. In other words, when the world is chaotic, grounding ourselves in what we consider meaningful can act like an internal stabilizer.

A similar pattern shows up with purpose and values. A 2023 meta-analysis found that greater purpose in life is linked with lower depression and anxiety. And when psychologists talk about “values,” they don’t mean slogans—they mean the inner commitments that shape who we decide to be, especially when it would be easier to become cynical, avoidant, or reactive. A systematic review and meta-analysis found that valued living (actually living in alignment with what matters to you) has significant negative relationships with both depression and anxiety, with a stronger association for depression.

This is where morality becomes more than a religious or philosophical concept—it becomes psychologically protective.

Choosing a good and moral life in the face of evil doesn’t mean denying tragedy. It means refusing to let tragedy draft your character for you.

Research even suggests that a stronger moral identity—seeing goodness, fairness, and compassion as part of who you are—is associated with greater emotional well-being (including happiness, meaning/purpose, life satisfaction, and self-esteem). This matters because anxiety and depression often thrive where identity collapses into helplessness: Nothing I do matters. I don’t know who I am anymore. The world is too far gone.

Yet we’re not powerless.

One of the most practical ways to reclaim agency is through prosocial action—small acts of goodness that reconnect us to meaning and to each other. A growing body of evidence links volunteering and helping behaviours with better mental health and well-being across the lifespan. And meta-analytic work on loving-kindness/compassion-based interventions suggests they can improve positive mental health indicators and reduce negative symptoms.

So even if we can’t control the headlines, we can still control what we practice:

• We can practice restraint instead of impulsivity.

• Truth-seeking instead of tribalism.

• Service instead of despair.

• Faith instead of nihilism.

Not because it guarantees a painless life—but because it protects the soul from becoming deformed by what it witnesses.

When people are anxious or depressed, they often try to think their way out of pain. But there’s another path: choose a way of being. Choose who you are in the fire. Align your actions with what you believe is good—especially when you’re scared, especially when you’re uncertain, especially when you’re tempted to numb out.

That is not naïveté. That is agency.

And maybe that’s the deeper question beneath everything:

Does evil survive without good?
Or does evil only flourish when good people surrender their agency?

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