What is Evil? The word is tossed about as if we all know what we're talking about when we use it. Bush caused a stink when he referred to nation states as Evil, the so-called "axis of evil". What did he mean by this other than a categorization of those political entities that resist American hegemony as evil? People refer to Charles Manson as evil, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Other people refer to Jews as evil, capitalism, communism, racism. People speak of the "evils/ills of society", child molesters, CEO's, Pat Robertson, white sharks, pitbulls, saturated fats, should I continue?
Here I challenge Christians to formulate a precise definition of Evil. Will it include notions of "sin" (what exactly is "sin"? how is it different than "evil" or is it?), of the devil? Of what substance is Evil? Does it have substance apart from human action or thought? If not, does it have any being at all? Well I'll leave it to those who would try a definition to flush these things out.
To get the ball rolling I will offer a brief definition here following my glorious Badiou. This is not a Christian definition I might add, though there's no reason why Christian interpreters couldn't appropriate some aspects of it (with some limitations). The following propositions should be taken together:
1) That Evil exists
2) This Evil should be distinguished from the violence human beings use to persevere in their own being (this violence should not be categorized as either Good or Evil).
3) Evil is a simulacrum of truth. It is therefore the exercise of terror directed at everyone.
An example from the field of human sexuality: There are certain sexual passions which imitate the amorous event. It is precisely for this reason that they bring with them terror and violence not just to the individual human subject, but the human subject universal (the torture of even one small child is an act committed against humanity).
4) Evil is the betrayal of an ethic of a truth at the critical moment.
5) Evil is to want, at all costs and under condition of a truth, to force the naming of an unnameable.
For example: The Nazi naming of the community and collective as "Jew", a naming done for the purpose of persecution and murder. Another example might be the naming of "Indian" (not PC) or "Native" in popular discourse. Is it often not a false designation for a large and diverse group of people for the purpose of labelling and control?
These comments are preliminary. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you thank you thank you! SOO wonderful to have the coordinates of your blog; to once again be able to exercise my few remaining brain cells with your challenging thoughts... On that note, i might have to read this one a few times. But in the meantime, i have a question: Which form of evil is it that makes a lion start eating a zebra's guts out while the zebra is not only still alive, but even watching?
ReplyDeleteThis is related to point 2) Evil is not a category that applies here. It would be a mistake to anthropomorphize the zebra, as if one can empathize, as if the lion should obtain its meat from a supermarket and eat it with a knife and fork. As if doing anything else is a form of evil.
ReplyDeleteEvil is purely spiritual. Humans, being both physical and spiritual, are capable of evil thoughts and actions. Animals, I believe, are not. An evil thought is selfish desire plus potential to harm oneself or another. So, an overly simplistic formula:
ReplyDeleteSELFISH IMPULSE + HARMFUL POTENTIAL = EVIL
Both of those need clear definitions but I won't offer that now. The above formula defines an evil thought, and when acted upon results in the type of evil we see all over the news. War, murder, robbery, rape, suicide, wall street corruption because of greed, etc.
Hmm. Have either of you read Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals? In it, he makes a very interesting case for the idea that "evil" is a relatively recent concept, one that arises from what he called "ressentiment." Not to go to far into it, but he asserts that before the "slave revolt in morals" [my quote] there was no such concept as evil. There was simply what was "good", which was what was noble & right & beautiful, pleasurable, vivifying, and so forth. Opposed to this there was "bad" (not evil). What was "bad" was what was ignoble, ugly, displeasing, harmful, et cetera. The concept of evil came about as the slave mentality's reaction against the former oppressor.
ReplyDeleteI may not be describing this right, i am not much good at this sort of thing. But my point is, what if "evil" is simply a thought, a word, an idea, and one with a historical origin? (Nietzsche was a philologist first and foremost.) What if, like all ideas, the concept of evil has an origin, carries meaning for a time, and perhaps someday will cease to exist? It might sound odd, but I look forward to that day, for reasons which are too complex to explicate here.
Have a look at the Genealogy. It is a magnificent and challenging read.
With tremendous respect to you both,
Eric
Thanks Eric great comments.
ReplyDeleteYou're right in that "Evil" can be deconstructed in this manner, especially as far as the Western conception is concerned. However, other ancient conceptions of "evil" (not -bad-) existed, if not before, at least concurrently with the ancient Greeks (Nietzsche's forte) and their conception of "the Good" etc. In Persia, for example, evil had long been personified as Ahriman, or we shall say: Satan. The notion of evil personified is therefore quite ancient, and influenced exilic Judaism as well as Christianity. Western conceptions of evil were influenced by Christianity and therefore could be said to be "recent", though these notions are almost 2000 years old in the West. I think one must go much further back than the Greeks or Persians before notions of evil cease to exist. I'm thinking Neanderthal and early Homo Sapiens.
There is no arguing that "evil" as a word or concept undergoes development. You're quite right here. I also fully agree that the notion of evil has a historical origin. Of course it is a "thought, a word, and an idea," but it is a thought, word and idea that have been personified, have been projected from the subject and had consequences outside of words and ideas. Perhaps someday it will cease to exist, but somehow I don't believe it will. It's too useful.
Thank you for your replies to my silly questions. I am really just tossing about here, since i have a hard time keeping the focus, philosophically /intellectually speaking, on an idea like evil. Which to me is just an idea. Maybe i am just falling short, but the problem for me is that the notion "evil" seems to stem from something other than what is natural. Like, a universe can grow a lion that will eat a zebra and that is not evil because a lion has no idea to be evil, but if a man kills and eats a man, he's Jeffry Dahmer, and that is evil. But the process of life, the universe & everything itself has "done" both of these things. Regardless that the former process is not "aware" of it's doing in the sense that the latter (perhaps this is debatable also) is, it seems to me that from a grand perspective both of these are emergent properties of a total universe, doing what a total universe does. Now, we may stand back and say, how horrible, how evil, that is a perfectly valid (and also, natural) reaction, but from a wider perspective, does it have any basis in "reality" unless we give it that reality? Do thistles grow on fig trees?
ReplyDeleteNot evil is, but the mind...
These are good comments and we do not disagree.
ReplyDeleteYou've wonderfully captured the spirit of the blog's title: "Defining Evil" when you say that evil has no reality unless we give it reality, unless we define it. For the Christian (for example), on the other hand, evil is believed to be personified, to be -completely- evil, in the person of Satan. This is consistent with Dr. We's position that "evil is purely spiritual", here in the person of the spiritual being Satan. The implication (and Dr. We can correct me if I'm wrong) is that no human being can be pure evil in the Christian tradition. Only the devil can fully BE that purely spiritual evil.
Well one could argue that these categories, these characters (devils, Satan) are products of the human mind (in line with what you're saying Eric). The ironic thing about this view is that it unveils the true mystery of evil, that it was a human brain that came up with the idea of a purely evil being like the devil. In that sense the human is the devil (the devil being no more than the product of human mind). The very being that stands in opposition to humanity, hating it and accusing it before God, is humanity itself.
But let's take what you said one step further. You said that we "give it that reality" (evil). This is quite profound. Can one not argue that your position contradicts itself in that on one hand you say humans create a particular reality, while on the other hand you give the impression that this reality has no (forgive me) reality. Could it be that Evil really is a legitimate category precisely because humans have called it into existence and given it reality?
Jeremy: Haha yes! Yes yes. I recognized that even as i wrote it. But how to avoid a hall of mirrors?!
ReplyDeleteOr as Whitman says, "Do i contradict myself? Very well then, i contradict myself...I contain multitudes..[Isn't that a whole other subject; heh!]"
Gaha!
Now then, as you say, "Evil really is a legitimate category precisely because humans have called it into existence and given it reality?"
This brings me to what perhaps i have been driving at all along: The idea that it is possible to define evil out of existence. To banish the bogeyman, the idea of a "dark otherness" once and for all...
Mmm
Don't know
This is all just thinking isn't it?
Speaking of which, not to burden you further, but might i have your thoughts on the evil of war? Jane Goodall i think it was, was the first to document that whole chimpanzee tribes in Central Africa often made unprovoked, systematic war on each other, also committing infanticide, etc, etc..
What am i getting at here is, that grey little line between "evil" & "natural" in our definitions..
Once again to remind that, "not anything is, but thinking makes it so."
Highest respect,
Eric
not really trying to define it... but maybe my perspective could help.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with Eric's analysis, but contend on the Lion/Zebra scenario. A lion eating prey is doing it to survive, not to torture the zebra.
A lion breaking a cub's neck to get it's share of the food would evil.
but, Eric touches on an important concept the idea that bad is not wrong, it is not good. Therefore being not good (lacking in a virtue) is not evil, merely bad. Evil is the antithesis of good. If two people conspire to commit a transgression, that is when evil occurs. Evil is the perversion of virtue. Dr. Evil is not evil because he wants a billion dollars. he is evil because he tricks people into doing wrong things in his name or corrupts them towards doing evil. Remember in the dictionary evil always comes after devil
Thanks for your thoughts Scott.
ReplyDeleteI've had a few comments via email (people too shy to post) about this notion of Evil. One commenter suggested that Evil was nothing more than the absence of Good. Is this similar to what you're saying? What do you think about this? What are the strengths and weaknesses of a definition like this?