Evil
Contents
Definition
Applications
Evil is a Process, Not a State
People presume that evil is a state rather than a process and the state might be aggression or cruelty or jealousy or you know we can list a whole bunch of motivational states that people tend to value negatively. So I say, well, you know, people produce social conflict because they’re aggressive and therefore if we can socialize boys in particular to not be aggressive, then the capacity for war will vanish which I think is like truly an idiotic theory. But that’s what happens when you confuse the process of evil with…… when you make an idol of evil, fundamentally. You say, “well it can be identified as this set of phenomena”, which basically turns it into an idol. Well it’s just as bad as, it’s just as significant a philosophical error as doing the same thing to good in the reserve, saying, well “peace is good” or “happiness is good” or “contentment is good” because those are all context dependent evaluations. Sometimes happiness is very bad so to speak like if you’re experiencing it well torturing someone else for example, which is certainly a possibility. Conceptualization of good is the capacity to admit to the existence of anomaly when it manifests itself and then to act accordingly, then evil is the precise opposite of that. Which is not aggression or hostility or jealousy or anything that people normally sort of label evil. But the process of refusing to admit that something has changed. You can say, “Well that leads to aggression in situations where it might not be desirable , it leads the hostility” and that’s fine but it’s still a process not a state.[1]
Why Would God Allow Evil to Exist in the World?
There’s an old theological question: "why would God allow evil to exist in the world?" I think it’s like that. Something like, "well, you can, but you shouldn’t. But if you couldn’t, then there would be no free will. You’d have no agency. You’d have no choice. So the possibility of evil has to exist. That doesn’t mean you have to actualize it." One of the things I thought through—and I wrote a lot about this in 12 Rules, maybe even more in Maps of Meaning, my first book: "what amount of the evil of Being can be laid at the feet of God?" My conclusion to that was, "maybe none of it." Earthquakes, cancer, disease—all of that is built into the structure of reality, and there’s no doubt that that’s terrible. But malevolence? To me, that looks like something that people choose, and that we could not choose. We could actually choose not to do that.[2]
Just How Much Trouble Are You Trying To Cause?
It’s a question worth asking. Just exactly what are your motives? Maybe they’re purer than mine were and it’s certainly possible. I don’t think that I’m naturally a particularly good person. I think I have to work at it very very hard. And I don’t necessarily think that everyone is like that, but some people are worse than that and everyone is like that to some degree. So it’s worth thinking about, just how much trouble are you trying to cause? And the other thing you might think about is, that if you’re not doing something important with your life, by your own definition, because that’s the game that we’re playing, you get to define the terms, at least initially, maybe you’re prone to cause trouble just because you don’t have anything better to do. Because at least trouble is more interesting than boring. That’s something you learn if you read Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky knew that extraordinarily well. And so if you’re not doing something, if you’re not pushing yourself to the limits of your capacity than you have plenty of leftover… what would you say? Willpower, energy and resources to devote to causing interesting trouble. Also I would say, this is also an archetypal scenario. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That’s something to meditate on. And it’s not self-destructive because what it is, is an attempt to. It’s like the diagnosis of an illness. It’s like if that does happen to be the case for you, or to some degree, maybe it’s only 10% of you or something, or maybe it’s 90%, well, then, coming to terms with that is excellent because then maybe you can stop doing it. And what would be the downside to that? You’d have to give up your resentment, obviously, and your hatred and all of that. And that’s really annoying because those emotions are very… they’re easy to engage in and they’re engaging. And they have this feeling of self righteousness with them that goes along with them. But you’re not doing this in order to put yourself down. You’re doing this in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. And to leave everything that you don’t have to be, behind.[3]
Interpretations
The evil doesn’t lie elsewhere, it lies in you, because you are not all you could be.
See Also
