In 1997, a strategic planning group at the CIA made a visit to my company in Washington. They brought with them a woman whose job and title were classified. I was not allowed to know them. She communicated throughout the meeting that she held my work and me in utter disdain. Upon listening to my presentation on how small business and communities in America could be strengthened, she looked at me and sneered, “You know what your problem is? You don’t understand where evil comes from.”
She was right. Forced by circumstances — arranged, I suspect, by her colleagues back at Langley — I spent the years after meeting her in a concerted effort to understand where evil comes from. Yet, here I sit many years later still not having an answer to this profoundly important question. Where does evil come from?
Our economic problems are symptoms of a problem we have with evil. So if we want to address our economic problems, we have to deal with the root problem — the ascendancy of evil and its effective use of invisible weaponry, including financial weaponry
How do we navigate in a world where it is impossible to obtain the information we need to see our way clearly? If the mathematics of time and money can not help me understand phenomenon, then I try to navigate through common sense and the human heart. I view events through a spiritual prism, trying to live with uncertainty — to know what I don’t know and embrace this ambiguity with faith and grace.
This is why I have always enjoyed Jeff Wells’ blog Rigorous Intuition. Wells has a masterful way of dealing with some of the darkest and weirdest aspects of life on planet earth. Here is a man whose search for truth is without censorship. There is little urge to seek a shallow certainty. There is courage here.
Wells just published a new book, Rigorous Intuition: What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Them. If you want to contemplate real life outside of any bubble, this book is recommended. In a series of short essays drawing from his blog, Wells gives you many more questions than answers, some profound insights, delightful laughs and the pleasure of spending time with a fine writer.
Wells can not yet answer the question, “Where does evil come from?” Rather, he invites us to explore with him and helps us to stare into the abyss of evil and unknown with integrity and humor.
“Some humans ain’t human
Some people ain’t kind
You open up their hearts
And here’s what you’ll find
A few frozen pizzas
Some ice cubes with hair
A broken Popsicle
You don’t want to go there”
Song : Some humans ain’t human
Artist : John Prine
1) I very much agree with Daniel Sauerborn: “It is very abstract to say evil. … Highly abstract words lead to confusion and lend themselves to long unresolved conflicts too.” Not only is “evil” a highly abstract word (a lot like “crime”), it has become highly politically and emotionally charged (though political and religious and leaders who act and talk with the assurance of God himself–this is often a wicked twist in itself). This latter situation makes it a bad word to convey meaning under many circumstances.
2) When one uses an abstract word one risks a serious category error: “Mistaking the map for the territory” (Alfred Korzybski, see also Gregory Bateson’s work also), but typically “evil” is so abstract or ill-defined that it is not even a decent map. Cannot evil can cover a multitude of sins? (Note a double interpretation which furthers the illustration.)
3) Catherine: I would bet the agent who was visiting you was pulling off a psy-ops (psychological operation) and was a specialist. In the type of high-level situation you describe, it is normal to study a person and then attack what looks like their weaknesses: purposes could be to confuse, divert attention, create self-doubt, and/or subtly, or not so subtly, intimidate. Consider yourself honored to get such professional attention. Time prevents me from saying more.
4) It seems to me that the major theme of Western “Civilization” is Power and Conquest. This is the stuff of murder, rape, plunder, torture, genocide–evil for short. This is our own history and in our characters. No one completely escapes their culture. An important step is to acknowledge it. (No easy answers, and answers vary with the person. It doesn’t mean you like it.) This inheritance doesn’t magically go away, although it seems it can lay low for a while. Will Rogers:
“You can’t say that civilization don’t advance…
in every war they kill you in a new way.”
Another example: The Chinese invented gunpowder and cannons, but they used them for fun and ceremonies (I expect). It was the West that turned them into weapons. Many of the native american cultures were exceedingly peaceful by our standards–some still are.
(I think Daniel’s entire post is valuable. The question of evil has been around a long time. Different cultures give surprisingly different answers. Must stop here. I have had personnal experience with point 3 above material.)
I wish there was something firm there, but as you try to grasp it, it evaporates. As far as “evil” goes, I don’t believe the nature of man is evil or fallen generally, although there may be evil men and devil or devils. I believe there is a tendency to simplify things and as a result distort that word of god.
Edward,
And where does the word of God come from? Trust in something that has so many errors and questionable origins contributes to further blindness. Now the parables of Jesus contain many things that can be understood differently by every person. So what is truth?
Daniel said:
“If people believe all is connected yet not fated. That ‘choice’ is the real deal. Then every choice is an opportunity to create good. Every choice is important no matter how small. And hope and energy flow from this.”
Amen to that!
Catherine
I think if you define evil in a specific way you’ll be able to answer your question. It is very abstract to say evil. Ask where laziness, cowardice, greed, etc come from and you can think of specific people and experiences and start answering it. Highly abstract words lead to confusion and lend themselves to long unresolved conflicts too.
I think part of the answer is in global beliefs. If someone thinks for example, that everything is made of matter and energy and behaves according to laws of physics. That even the supposedly chaotic activity at the subatomic level is following laws that we can’t properly observe or understand and thus refute in our typical self-centric fashion (sun around the earth). Then it eventually follows to believe that everything down to the smallest thought or action is destined to happen. That from the moment the universe began or recycled through the Big Bang or however it did, everything was set-up and flowed with complete accuracy from there with no errors like an unimaginably complex clock ticking away. For them choice is an illusion. Life is a meaningless trap. Of course they cannot be responsible either, and an idea like evil becomes meaningless. Things just are.
Another example would be the evolved animal view. If I believe in evolution, and that humans are predators, then I can justify humans preying on each other. I can say, is it wrong when a spider traps and eats a fly? Is it wrong when a mouse eats the spider? A snake eats the mouse? A bird of prey eats the snake? Eyes at the front, likes to hunt. Eyes at the side, likes to hide. People are predators, the best of all on Earth. It is only natural that after dominating our environments we start competing with each other, and yes, preying on each other. It is naturally efficient. It is natural law. To this person, evil might become a largely irrelevant concept evolved to support tribal living and prevent people from destroying their immediate surroundings. Just something to guide us to more successful reproduction and survival within the tribal context in which much of our current DNA was shaped by default. (Evolution is often misunderstood as a system of active design rather than one of passive design or design by default)
I think another part of the answer is also in the formation of and relationships between global beliefs in the first place. I think most people do not carefully reflect and chose their beliefs but instead either take on those given/shown to them by others, or react to an intense experience (early-life ones especially) and form beliefs that explain that experience, or reassure them about it. When people do try to analyze and choose their beliefs they tend to feel very insecure, not knowing where to stand and fearing having no place to stand, no reference point to make the many decisions life forces upon them. So people avoid taking their beliefs apart for study. This gives incentive for the traumatizing of people so that they can be controlled, and is reinforced by telling people they are objects instead of processes so that they’ll stay trapped by failing to address their problems from a process perspective.
Most people’s beliefs are not parts of a sensible/rational whole and their conflicts cause stress, their minds tugging in different directions, decisions made difficult. And most people seek “truths” they find comfort in rather than observing and thinking with an open mind. I think this is reflected in how so many people desire a world in which THEY would thrive. So many want the world to be better for people like THEM, rather than thinking in terms of the diversity of desires, abilities and perspectives of others.
Short answer:
I think evil comes from a lack of belief in one’s ability to make meaningful choices and have real influence. This leads to a lack of hope and responsibility. That person wanders through life doing what is easy, looking for someone or something to hide behind (laziness, cowardice and greed) and constructs beliefs to justify their actions which are conflicting and thereby fatiguing. If only I had enough money, or was better looking, or met the right person, etc. They look outside themselves and get stuck in a state of what the Buddha called samsara which literally translated means “perpetual wandering”. And this in my opinion, leads to addictions. To avoid their suffering they try to distract themselves from themselves. (I don’t know about you, but everyone I know suffers from addictions of some kind) They need to address the unsupportive, draining, conflicting, and destructive beliefs first in my opinion.
If people believe all is connected yet not fated. That ‘choice’ is the real deal. Then every choice is an opportunity to create good. Every choice is important no matter how small. And hope and energy flow from this.
In light of our current situation, evil comes from greed and self-centerness. Greed is a moral vice, a failure of justice involving taking more than one’s due. Steve Forbes in the November 10, 2008, “Forbes” magazine writes: “Greed and recklesness always runs rampant during bubbles, and the mania that engulfed housing and much of the financial sector was no exception.” Greed may not be the only ingredient of evil but is certainly a part of evil. As James Madison wrote in “The Federalist Papers”, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”