Respond to the following quotation: “He who passively accepts evil is an much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.”

The essence of this quote is that a person who doesn’t actively try to stop evil shares the same guilt as the criminal who causes or advances evil behavior. In other words, since society is not a utopian world and evil does exist, we all have the opportunity to observe or become aware of evil behavior or actions that are unacceptable, that break written or moral laws, or that violate human rights. With this awareness, Martin Luther King suggests that without resistance, we all flock together like blind sheep and go blindly toward evil. In so, we actually help advance evil rather than stopping it. For example, consider the novel, “Fahrenheit 451”, in which the civilians readily accept the cruelty distributed by the firemen or the ‘antagonists’ such as Beatty, instead of actually standing up against the evil shown towards all. Though, they, themselves, did not rise and run with a torch, obliterating houses and murdering the innocent, they also did not do anything to stop it. Therefore, they are (knowingly or otherwise) endorsing that sort of behavior and just as guilty as the persecutor. To give you a metaphor, the one who doesn’t try to stop a criminal is an accomplice to murder (sometimes literally). Though they never physically do anything ‘morally wrong’, they are just as bad, if not worse than the actual evil-doer. The accomplice still gets charged for the crime and in some cases could be prosecuted even if the actual criminal is not convicted. This is speaking both physically: having stated in the USC section 2 of title 18, that (a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States is punishable as a principal and
(b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal. And also morally: one should know that it is wrong to harm another regardless of circumstances. This being said, we should know that if you are not actively helping a situation of victim, you are subsequently harming them.