The Bigger, Badder Wolf— On Hypocrisy, Cowardice, And The Evil We Create By Doing Nothing

I used to think the worst people in the world were the obvious villains.

The loud ones.

The cruel ones.

The ones with their teeth already showing.

At least with them, you know what you’re dealing with.

There’s something honest about open darkness.

But the more I’ve lived, the more I’ve realized something uncomfortable:

The real damage rarely comes from the openly evil.

It comes from the people who insist they’re good.

That’s the heart behind my poem “The Bigger, Badder Wolf.”

[The Bigger, Badder Wolf

Let me tell you a story

about the even bigger, badder wolf.

The scariest people in this life

aren’t the openly cruel ones.

Teeth bared

hands bloody

at least they’re honest

about what they are.

No—

it’s the fake good ones.

The self-proclaimed righteous.

Halo polished.

Hands folded.

Spines missing.

Preaching kindness

while practicing cowardice.

Speaking of morals

then vanishing

the moment those morals cost something.

The hypocrisy.

The ignorance.

Heads buried deep in the sand—

weakness

stitched together

and sold as virtue.

No spine to say what must be said.

No courage to do what must be done.

And somehow

they’re still called good.

How blind

can you truly be?

Here’s the irony

they’ll never notice—

Ignore real goodness long enough,

silence it,

punish it—

and even the gentle

begin to harden.

Even the patient

begin to snap.

Even the good

start sharpening their teeth.

Because nothing corrupts faster

than watching injustice thrive

behind a smiling, righteous mask.

You’re no sheep.

You’re a wolf in wool,

mistaking softness for safety,

mistaking silence for innocence.

Blinded by your own arrogance,

certain you’re the hero

in a story you’re too afraid to change.

All the while

a bigger, badder wolf

circles behind you.

Hungry.

And the punchline?

One day you’ll finally turn around—

and realize, far too late,

your silence

fed it.

Jeremy Faivre]

This piece isn’t about monsters hiding in the woods.

It’s about the kind that sit quietly in pews, offices, friend groups, and communities — polishing their halos while avoiding anything that might cost them comfort.

The self-proclaimed righteous.

The “nice” people.

The ones who preach kindness but disappear the second kindness requires courage.

Because cowardice dressed up as morality is more dangerous than cruelty.

Cruelty is obvious.

Hypocrisy is invisible.

And invisibility lets it spread.

The Wolf in Wool

The central image of the poem flips the old “wolf in sheep’s clothing” idea.

These people aren’t sheep.

They just pretend to be.

They wrap themselves in softness — politeness, neutrality, “not my problem,” “I don’t want drama,” “I just want peace.”

But silence isn’t peace.

Silence is permission.

When you refuse to speak up…

when you refuse to take a stand…

when you watch injustice happen and tell yourself it’s not your fight…

you’re not staying innocent.

You’re feeding something.

How good people turn hard

One of the most tragic things I’ve seen — and something this poem wrestles with — is what happens to genuinely good people after long enough exposure to hypocrisy.

When kindness is ignored.

When truth gets punished.

When doing the right thing only brings consequences…

Even the gentle start to harden.

Even the patient start to snap.

Even the good start growing teeth.

Not because they want to become “bad” —

but because the world keeps teaching them that softness gets crushed.

That’s the irony.

Fake goodness doesn’t just fail to stop evil.

It creates it.

It pushes the truly kind to their breaking point.

The Bigger, Badder Wolf

The “bigger, badder wolf” isn’t a single person.

It’s what grows in the background when everyone stays quiet.

It’s the consequence of collective cowardice.

It’s the monster we pretend not to see

until it’s too big to ignore.

And by then?

It’s starving.

And we’re the ones who fed it.

Final thoughts

This poem is a warning.

Because it’s easy to think we’d never be that person.

The silent one.

The passive one.

The “good” one who does nothing.

But doing nothing is still a choice.

And sometimes it’s the most dangerous one.

If this poem feels sharp or uncomfortable, it’s meant to.

Growth usually is.

– Jeremy