Donna Adelson was recently found guilty of murdering her son‑in‑law Dan Markel on all 3 counts. Murder, conspiracy to murder and solicitation for murder.
And it took just 3 hours for the jury to find her guilty.
It’s been a long lurid journey that has lasted more than a decade. You can find the details elsewhere.
But I wanted to share my inner Jordan Peterson and give my take – which is this: We are all – each and every one of us – capable of great evil, and we are far better of is we recognize it. Most people react to a case like this with a comforting lie: “I could never do something like that.”. That’s precisely the mistake. Donna Adelson talked about loving her children and grandchildren; none of that insulated her from the choices that a jury found proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Good self‑stories don’t protect you from your shadow; they often hide it. Hannah Arendt called it the banality of evil—not cartoon villains but ordinary people who rationalize, compartmentalize, and obey their worst incentives.
And as Jordan Peterson stresses, moral strength starts with admitting your capacity for malice. If you can’t see that capacity in yourself, you won’t control it. If you can’t name it, it drives.
Deny the shadow and we’ll just sleepwalk into justifications: “Protecting the family.” “Doing what has to be done.” “Everyone does it.”
That’s how evil often looks in real time—reasonable. But the tougher stance: assume you’re capable of the worst.
Not because you will do it, but because only then will you build guardrails strong enough to stop it. People who insist they’re harmless aren’t safe; they’re naive.
People who know exactly how dangerous they could become—and fear it—are the ones who deliberately yoke that force to good aims. They’re humble, disciplined, and hard to recruit for ugly causes. I will never forget Warren Buffett telling me at our famous charity lunch that he would never want to get into too much debt – because he would not like to discover what he might be capable of.
And that’s Warren Buffett!
So what we do with the Adelson case?
For my part, I need to use it as a mirror. Ask where I am denying my own shadow—in my politics, my business dealings, my family arguments, my online crusades.
If I find myself loudly certain that I’m on the righteous side, that may be the red flag.
We live in a culture that preaches self‑esteem more than self‑knowledge. That leaves people morally flabby—performing virtue while outsourcing the actual discipline that keeps ordinary humans from doing monstrous things.
The better way is brutal humility: I’m fully capable of evil; therefore I will build systems, habits, and communities that keep me pointed at the good.
If you take one thing from this trial, let it be this: own your shadow. Name it, study it, and put it to work in service of what is right. That’s the only path I know that reliably turns fallible human beings into a force for good.
Further Reading Here:
- The Education of a Value Investor – Guy Spier
My own journey of learning to build systems, environments, and habits that keep me aligned with the good — and protect me from my shadow. - Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
A Holocaust survivor’s classic, showing how purpose and responsibility are the keys to staying human in the face of suffering and evil. - The Road to Character – David Brooks
A meditation on humility and the “eulogy virtues” that matter more than self-esteem or résumé achievements. - The Obstacle Is the Way – Ryan Holiday
Stoic wisdom on turning hardship — and our own destructive impulses — into fuel for growth. - Eichmann in Jerusalem – Hannah Arendt
Where Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil,” showing how ordinary people rationalize monstrous acts. - 12 Rules for Life – Jordan Peterson
Practical lessons for confronting the shadow within and integrating it into real moral strength. - The Gulag Archipelago – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A searing account of the Soviet camps, with his timeless reminder that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.
