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In the Face of Evil
The word “evil” has become trivialized, particularly in this election season. Just like the words racist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, it is casually thrown around like a ragdoll: who gets to play with it next? When one person doesn’t like other people, or dislikes their positions, he or she just calls them evil.
In researching the origins of evil, I found religious definitions and secular definitions. One religious definition is as follows:
Evil is what is morally wrong, sinful, or wicked. Evil is the result of bad actions stemming from a bad character. Biblically, evil is anything that contradicts the holy nature of God. Evil behavior can be thought of as falling into two categories: evil committed against other people (murder, theft, adultery) and evil committed against God (unbelief, idolatry, blasphemy).
In Judaism, one aspect of evil is called the “evil inclination”:
The yetzer ra is more difficult to define, because there are many different ideas about it. It is not a desire to do evil in the way we normally think of it in Western society: a desire to cause senseless harm. Rather, it is usually conceived as the selfish nature, the desire to satisfy personal needs (food, shelter, sex, etc.) without regard for the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires. . .
The yetzer ra is generally seen as something internal to a person, not as an external force acting on a person. The idea that “the devil made me do it” is not in line with the majority of thought in Judaism. Although it has been said that Satan and the yetzer ra are one and the same, this is more often understood as meaning that Satan is merely a personification of our own selfish desires, rather than that our selfish desires are caused by some external force.
In contrast, a secular source explains evil in this way:
In human beings, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are fluid. People can be a combination of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities. Some people who behave cruelly and brutally can be rehabilitated and eventually display ‘good’ qualities such as empathy and kindness. And rather than being intrinsic, most cruel or brutal behaviour is due to environmental factors, such as an abusive childhood, or social learning from a family or peers.
In an article in the New Yorker, evil was addressed in this way regarding the mass shootings in Aurora, CO:
In the hours after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, last week, one word cut through the partisan responses to the massacre, and that word was “evil.” “Such evil is senseless, beyond reason,” President Obama said. Mitt Romney spoke of the lives “shattered in a few moments—a few moments of evil.” John Boehner described the killer’s act as “evil we cannot comprehend.”
What does it mean, in the twenty-first century, to call a person like James Holmes “evil”? In centuries past, “evil” was used to describe all manner of ills, from natural disasters to the impulse to do wrong. Today it’s used mostly to emphasize the gravity of a crime, trading on the term’s aura of religious finality. The meaning of “evil” has become increasingly unsettled even as it has narrowed, yet the word has proven to be an unshakable unit in our moral lexicon.
I think that the trivializing and thoughtless use of the word “evil” is dangerous. It makes us reticent in the face of irresponsibility and danger. To suggest in a morally relativistic manner that everyone has the potential for evil misses the point—so what? What counts are the people who behave in immoral and destructive ways. We need to identify them and their behaviors. We need to hold them accountable. As difficult as evil may be to define, we are called to face it, condemn it and hold the perpetrators accountable.
So here are my questions:
- What actions rise to the level of being called “evil?”
- Is evil driven by an inside force or an outside force?
- What concerns do you have about the misrepresentations of evil?
We have obligations. We must toil so that we can provide for ourselves and our families, and have something left over to give to the less fortunate. There is much good about the work we do and the provisions we make. The buildings and farms, cities and highways that we build as families and as a society are good.
But sin corrupts everything. Even our most loving acts are infiltrated by our own laziness or self-dealing.
In this we reveal the corrupted nature of the world in our own lives. G-d made us to be good, and we are good, capable of great acts of self-sacrificing love. But lurking in all of us is selfishness and dark thoughts. Sin hangs about, twisting our deeds and our words, and turning us to evil.
Be aware, and pursue what is good. Flee from temptations. Do loving acts. As you try to walk with G-d, you will find His power aiding you.
Well said
It comes as a collective, a mob where otherwise normal people loose accountability and go along with the mob or do what they’re told or lose accountability because they enjoy power that insulates them. While evil people exist, sociopaths, people who feel no shame, have no conscious so are not accountable to themselves but the real problem is otherwise normal people who for one reason or another are not accountability for the consequences of their actions. I came to this conclusion viewing up close a really nasty dictator, his wife and the people closest to them. Dead and soulless, evil. But since then, I’ve concluded that all government or even private institutions move toward evil if remote enough and not accountable. That is why Hanna Arendt could call evil banal and that is why are all capable of evil.
Evil is binary. Something evil can happen to someone (evil event = EE). Someone can act with evil intent (EI). Think of it as a two part adhesive. When you have someone with evil intent visiting an evil act on someone else, it results in what we perceive as the strongest of evil events. But when something evil occurs to someone by someone without evil intent, or when someone acts with evil intent but the object does not suffer an evil event, the results are not perceived as being as evil as when both elements are present.
Examples: The kidnap and sexual slavery of Elizabeth Smart was EI+EE. An assassin who happens to swiftly kill someone in the latter stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease is EI. Death through contaminated food at a Thanksgiving dinner for aged and indigent is EE.
I’m so intrigued by your comments, MJ. But they don’t ring true for me personally. It is too dark to represent the world I experience and live in. Yes, there is much darkness and evil in the world. Your description suggests to me that it permeates everything, and that doesn’t speak to me. I see goodness every single day, and to say that sin or evil is present to trample that beauty doesn’t make sense. I also believe (and other Jews may not agree) that Judaism focuses more on what I would call a balanced view of the world. There is so much to contribute, so much to be grateful for, so much good work to be done. But I’m fascinated by your belief even if I can’t identify with it. Thank you.
This makes sense to me, Rodin. Especially because I think there are levels of evil, which we haven’t yet discussed.
So true. It’s a bit unnerving to see how people who are around these evil rulers can be so easily corrupted. Do you mind if I ask who the dictator was?
Susan, These questions are hard, and I’m just waking up today, but I’ll take a crack at it.
Actions That Rise To The Level Of Being Called Evil
murder, stealing, slander, adultery, knowingly doing harmful things to human beings in God’s name, knowingly tempting others to do harm to themselves or to do any of these things
Is evil driven by an outside force or an inside force ?
The spirit of evil, wanting to destroy us, tempts us to let it in to do so by playing on our pride and self-centeredness. Out of pride and self-centeredness, we let in that spirit by choosing to do what we, at least, sense is wrong.
Concerns About The Misrepentations Of Evil
I’m most concerned about our tendency to think and act as if we can read the minds and judge the souls of other human beings. I hate the idea of hate crimes, for instance.
Not only this point, Ansonia, but the Left feels it is entitled to force their ideas upon the rest of us. I don’t have a problem with ideas being put out there for others to consider, but when people demonize us because we refuse to accept their ideas (and of course, they know our minds and what we need and want) they are the ones who are evil.
I’m still struggling with the idea that there is a “spirit” that tempts us to evil. I don’t object to the idea. And I don’t know what I would call that potential or inclination, if you will. Maybe I’m afraid to admit that it is “something” that can have an impact one me, yet I’m willing to take responsibility for evil I might commit.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Re # 39
More than the right does, the left encourages our tendency to go beyond our place to where we’re playing God. (We always end up doing evil when we do that.) The left begins by tempting us to worship ourselves and ends by making us slaves.
Here’s a short video from a British chap I follow on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWbtN1mwgkU
Evil has a certain panache. (c.f. Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Suicide Squad, et al.) Lindybeige (Nikolas Lloyd) suggests instead that we call terrorists “stupid” instead of “evil.”
If the headlines looked like this:
Moron Blows Himself Up
Instead of this:
Suicide Bomber Kills Twenty
How much harder would it be to recruit the idiots who are willing to do such things?
The same thing could work for mass shooters:
Numbskull Loser Shoots Little Kids, Boy That Takes a Lot of Skill
Evil is cool; stupidity will never be. This tactic has the added advantage of being true. As one of my police trainees said after a particularly idiotic farrago, “I thought when I became a cop I would be arresting a lot of bad people. Instead, I’m arresting a lot of stupid people.”
Thanks for your comment, Jose, and the video. But I can’t agree. It’s an odd way to look at the subject of terrorism and evil; I think the fellow in the video was trying too hard to be clever. In fact, I wonder if you’re pulling my leg. Still, anyone who becomes a terrorist doesn’t care what we call him, whether we call him a terrorist or evil or an idiot. He only cares what his potential cohorts or new buddies call him. If we call him other names, it’s not going “improve the reputation” of evil. That damage has been done.
So terrorists may also be stupid or they may not. But I will continue to call them evil.
I’m sorry if I sounded a bit flippant, but I am very serious. Yes, they are evil, but they are also stupid. The evil part is always emphasized in media reports; the stupid part almost never is. Evil has a great deal of cachet, stupidity has none. Ridicule is a powerful tool and we use it all too seldom against our enemies. This is especially effective if we contrast the intelligence of the leaders to the stupidity of their followers. “Do you think the Grand Melenah of Emesisastan is dumb enough to blow himself up? Of course not! That’s your job, you moron.”
One of the traits of “disaffected” youths is a grandiose self-image. Faced with the reality that they are ordinary (or less than ordinary), they opt for the outrageous. Evil is a lot easier than the hard work of being a good person. If instead of presenting these people as being evil, we ridiculed them as being stupid, the evil ideology would be a lot less inviting. And we do this all too seldom. Michael Medved and his Islamic Looney Toons are one of the few exceptions.
The Marcos. The people around them differed. She had a large handful of groupies who had to respond to her beck and call, in return they received access that enriched them. They were pathetic. He had only three key cronies, each in charge of a different economic sector. These guys gave us the name crony capitalism. One of them would have inherited the country if Marcos had died with his kidney failure and were probably responsible for killing Aquino in collaboration with General Ver and Imelda, They thought Marcos wouldn’t survive. He survived, but lacked the energy to hold the place together. The Philippines looked like a market economy and representative government but it was it’s own unique thing. He had fooled Americans for years. The cronies were not pathetic like Imelda’s groupies who were soulless, purposeless, empty products of evil. The cronies were interesting but scary. They had absolute control in the areas where their basic product sector dominated, sugar, copra, timber.
That must have been something to witness. The epitome of corruption. Thanks, I.
What a happy new Avatar @susanquinn!
My husband picked it out. I like it, too. Definitely me.
Yes it is.
Of course you see goodness every day. G-d made the world to be perfect. You have loving thoughts all the time, and occasionally you even act on your good impulses. You see it when others do kind and loving acts. The world and the people in it were made by the Author of Love, and that love continues to show through.
But you cannot deny that you fail to act on many of your good impulses, and you do have selfish motives for some of your words and deeds. You cannot deny that the world is full of misery and evil.
The Doctrine of Original Sin provides a simple and logical explanation for why we find the world and ourselves in this condition.
We have learned from iWe that most modern American observant Jews categorically reject the Doctrine of Original Sin. So I am not surprised that you disagree.
I have read iWe’s explanation that ‘G-d made a world that includes evil because He wanted us to finish His work’ (my paraphrase). I think it to be an inadequate response to the Doctrine of Original Sin. It denies the holiness of G-d, and it expects humankind to be able to accomplish a work that I believe is impossible for humanity, whether individually or corporately, to advance.
@iwe
Yes.
Though, I would also say, Free Will means a choice between Good and Evil.
We do make choices. G-d cares about our choices. If we were not free to choose, then there would be no sin and no evil.
We are also in G-d’s Providence. We are predestined for G-d’s Kingdom.
Are these two propositions in tension? Yes. Are they mutually exclusive? Assuredly not. Do we understand how both can be true? No; it is only for us to “let G-d be G-d.”