We Still Need The Word ‘Evil’
By: Taylor Foreman
Tags: Humanity, Philosophy, Love, Evil, Life

We Still Need The Word ‘Evil’

Not just a superstitious idea

Photo by Максим Власенко on Unsplash

I didn’t believe in evil until I saw it in my own life.

Sure, people did bad things. But they just had wrong ideas, I believed. Somewhere along the way, they just got confused. No one is truly born bad.

It’s easier to believe in a world without evil. It’s hard enough to make sense of life as it is.

“Everyone is just trying their best!”

One day, I accidentally pissed off a resentful man that I met on Craigslist.

I sublet my apartment to him. He stopped paying. I got annoyed and told him to “be a man and just pay the rent.”

That must have hit a nerve.

He made it his mission to ruin my life. He hurt my credit, went back on a contract, tried to sue me, and attacked my character online (and appearance). He told me he would kill me.

Faced with a real malevolent force, I had to rethink my outlook.

What is evil? How is it different from “misguided?” Why can’t animals be evil — even though they are capable of violence?

All I had to do was ask the questions and I started finding them everywhere.

Evil Vs. Bad

The fruit that Adam and Eve ate taught them the difference between good and evil. It also made them notice how naked they were. Wait — huh?

For most of my life, I just assumed it was a weird old story and people made up weird shit a long time ago. I never thought it had much to do with dealing with people on Craigslist.

To be clear, this is a non-religious point of view. I am talking about the story from a psychological perspective. There must be a reason we all know this story. It must be resonating on some level.

For me, it clicked when the man on Craigslist went after me. It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to hurt me — it’s how he tried to do it.

Knowing you can be hurt is a curse and a weapon.

Being human, he is very aware of his own vulnerability (narratively, his “nakedness”). That means he is cursed to know that he could be hurt, will die one day, etc. That sucks.

It also means that he knows how to hurt. He can think of plenty of ways to hurt me. That’s not just bad — that’s evil. That’s the knowledge of good and evil! When you know how you can be hurt, you can hurt in really creative ways.

Pure violence is just a force of nature. A gorilla will tear you apart, but it won’t torture you based on its knowledge of how pain works.

Only humans could invent waterboarding.

The Unabomber, Cain, and ‘Gone Girl’

What happens when someone becomes convinced that the human condition is unacceptable and they decide to lash out?

The second story in the Bible shows us. Cain kills his brother out of jealousy and resentfulness.

What if that person is a genius?

You get the Unabomber. If you want a deeply disturbing and well-researched reason to be evil, read his papers. His IQ was nearly 170.

In fiction, I recently watched Gone Girl, which did a great job of showing this phenomenon. She decides reality isn’t fair — makes an intricate plan to punish it, and then carries it out ruthlessly.

To make sense of these people, we have to have the word evil in our vocabulary. Otherwise, we will constantly gape at mass shooters, stupidly saying, “I just don’t understand!”

Maybe you just don’t want to understand.

Evil Is Often Boring

Hannah Arendt famously coined “The Banality of Evil.”

Evil Nazis were mostly just ordinary people “following orders.” That’s another reason we need to understand and use the word “evil.” Otherwise, it slips by our attention too easily.

The man I met on Craigslist seemed like the stapler guy from Office Space. He was obviously meek, low status, and felt put-upon. When I met him, I never would have imagined what he was capable of doing.

He seemed harmless — boring, even.

We all have the capacity for evil, and no one is born evil — or is even purely evil. But knowing when someone is being pushed to the edge is a good thing to be able to recognize — and steer clear of.

Evil Must Have Its Opposite

If evil is real, that must mean humans can be truly good.

A gorilla will tear you apart, or hand you a banana — depending on its mood. Neither action is good or evil. It just depends on what the gorilla wants.

Human beings can do evil — as we have discussed. But they can also do good. We can do acts that don’t benefit us at all. We can strive for higher purposes. We can be altruistic.

It only sounds naive if you don’t understand evil.

Without a true understanding of evil, we can’t understand the unique goodness of humans, either.

Love After Being Burned Is True Love

Humans can be burned and betrayed.

In Dante’s inferno, the lowest level of hell is for betrayers. The word “betray” connotates “to give away,” as in, “I betrayed my emotions by frowning.” When other people trust us, they are taking a leap of faith — knowing that we could hurt them by “giving away” their vulnerabilities.

When we talk behind someone’s back, we are taking advantage of the good faith lent to us by another human being. The same when we cheat on the partner, lie, steal, etc.

Despite all of this, humans can still trust.

Trusting someone despite the knowledge of evil is true goodness.

Love after a betrayal is true love.

Humans are capable of amazing beauty because of the deep opportunity for evil.

If we deny that evil exists, we deprive ourselves of this beauty.

Not only that, we leave ourselves vulnerable to evil, because it is real — whether we like it or not.

Stay in touch.

(This is where you get first dibs and deeper dives.)