Suffering does not Equal Goodness

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart …”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Suffering Does Not Equal Goodness

By Gary Phillips 10/31/2025

We live in a cultural moment where suffering is often equated with virtue. From the pulpit to political rallies, we are told that the oppressed are noble, the marginalized are pure, and that injustice automatically creates saints. It is a comforting narrative, but it is also a false one.

The truth is that suffering does not make someone good. Oppression does not ennoble the soul by default. History is filled with examples of the marginalized who, once freed or empowered, perpetuated cruelty themselves. The human heart is not cleansed by poverty or persecution. It contains the same spectrum of motives—generosity and greed, kindness and cruelty—whether in the palace or in the slum.

Why, then, do we assume that the oppressed must be virtuous? Partly it is the legacy of religious and literary traditions. Scripture often lifts up the poor as closer to God. Stories of underdogs triumphing over giants cast the downtrodden as heroes. Politically, emphasizing the moral innocence of victims has been a way to build sympathy and rally movements. But what works as rhetoric does not always hold up as reality.

This confusion is compounded by a second mistake: the idea that all marginalization is unjust. It is not. Exclusion and limitation, though painful, are sometimes the necessary outcome of justice. A person barred from practicing medicine without qualifications may feel oppressed, but the standard protects patients. A 70-year-old who cannot join a professional football league is marginalized by age, but not unfairly. Free associations—like women’s choirs or veterans’ groups—exclude by definition, yet such boundaries protect the integrity of the community. Even criminal punishment, by design, oppresses and marginalizes. In these cases, justice requires what looks like oppression.

The crucial distinction is whether the exclusion is arbitrary and demeaning, or principled and necessary. Injustice occurs when people are marginalized for characteristics beyond their control—race, sex, heritage—or when rules are enforced unevenly. But not every limit, not every exclusion, is unjust. Pretending otherwise cheapens the word and blinds us to genuine abuse of power.

None of this is to excuse cruelty or to suggest indifference toward those who suffer. It is right and necessary to resist prejudice, exploitation, and systemic harm. But we should do so for

the sake of justice itself, not because we imagine that every victim is pure or every exclusion wicked. To base justice on myths is to build on sand.

The oppressed can be noble, and often are. But they can also be cruel. The powerful can be corrupt, but they can also act with honor. Human beings are not transformed into saints or villains by their circumstances alone. When we confuse suffering with goodness, or exclusion with injustice, we distort reality.

True justice does not require comforting illusions. It requires clear eyes. It demands that we defend human dignity without reducing people to symbols. And it insists that we hold everyone—oppressed and oppressor alike—accountable for their choices.

Justice is not about which side appears more pitiable. It is about truth, fairness, and responsibility. Sometimes that means standing against oppression. Sometimes that means enforcing standards that marginalize. Either way, justice begins when we stop mistaking suffering for virtue.