I.                DISTANT DRUMS

Having hoisted anchor and set a course, let us consider some of the earliest manifestations of evil, or how we might contemplate it at this stage of our journey. In order to keep the search confined to familiar waters, we limit our search to western thought. Fair warning, some accounts may include references to concepts that we no longer call evil. Concomitantly, we shall find some practices considered normal by our ancient ancestors, and their gods, that we find abhorrent, if not purely evil, in our modern lives.

Early accounts emerge from literature, not history. Possibly, the earliest literary source of evil resides in the Babylonian creation myth called the Enuma Elish. It is a story ranging from classic conflicts of “hatred, envy, envy, fear, and murderous rage, to grandchildren getting on their grandparents’ nerves enough to generate murderous intent.[i]

In other words. The Universe itself is a breeding ground for evil.

Moving forward to a more familiar current, we come to the account of creation in the first chapter of the Hebrew Bible. In contrast to the percolating discord of other creation myths, the Genesis account is smooth and swift. All is good, pleasant, and harmonious. Some modern adjunct contributors to the scriptures even avow that dinosaurs were gentle vegetarians, somewhat akin to pets, during that era.[ii] At any rate, all was calm. All was bright.

Until.

It seems that the potential for evil lay not-very-well hidden in the Garden of Eden. All it took to release its cosmic destruction was a simple act of disobedience occasioned by a sweet talker passing through the garden.

And, as Dr. Bart Ehrman points out, disobedience weighed heavily on the mind of the Hebrew creator of the world.[iii] In fact, much, if not most, of the Old Testament finds disobedience, and the punishment for it, a central and dominating theme. As for the requisite punishment, the creator doesn’t rely on “time outs” or withholding of privileges for a short time. No, he isn’t above stoning an entire family—man, woman, children, and animals—because the father disobeys an order.[iv] Nations can find themselves exiled into bondage and slavery for recalcitrance.

Here we fact a mental squall that will threaten us for our entire journey: Is disobedience, or the chosen method of retribution for disobedience, the true evil?

In summary, the earliest entrances of evil give birth to some interesting questions.

Is succumbing to an implanted and appealing temptation evil? In modern times, we might call that entrapment.

Is disobedience of proper directives an evil in itself?

Is non-disobedience of proper directives an evil itself? (See: Adoph Eichman.) Veterans of the Mexican, Spanish, Vietnam, and Iraq wars would find this particularly interesting.

At what point does “sin” become an evil? Are there moral gradations and tipping points?

Are individuals to be punished for the sins of a nation or cult?

Can history cleanse an ancient evil, such as the eating of pork or shellfish as well as the ridiculing of a bald man?[v]

Can history darken an allowed and ancient practice such as polygamy or slavery and reclassify it as evil?

We now find ourselves sailing into troubled waters indeed. Best gird with a lifeline. Meanwhile, all is peace and harmony in the Garden of Eden.

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[i] Casey, Bary, Evil: Ancient and Modern Spectrum, May 1, 2018

[ii] From the so-called “Creation Museum, Petersburg, Kentucky

[iii] Ehrman, Bart D. God's Problem : How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer. Harper Collins, 2009

[iv] See Joshua 7. Other scripters in the Old Testament decry this treatment, creating one of many contradictions therein.

[v] 2 Kings 2:23–24

A Study of Evil

 TIGHTENING THE RIGGING

 As we sail into troublesome philosophical waters, a precursory look at the essence of evil leads to a precursory finding: Nobody agrees. Not only that, we find diametrically opposed beliefs as to the very foundations of evil. We read of witnesses at the Nuremburg trials recount how Nazi guards threw live babies and children into a fiery pit in order to save on gas or bullets.

“That’s evil,” we say. “That’s an evil act if there ever was one.”

Then we close our eyes and hear the sound of water-soaked bodies—babies, children, adults, and animals—thudding into the hull of the ark in which Noah and his family ride out the flood.

Where is the tipping point between “I know evil when I see it,” and “His ways ain’t our ways?”

Can we depend upon our numerologist friends? Is evil quantifiable? We read of Joseph Stalin overseeing the execution on nearly 800,000 of his countrymen (not including deaths attributable to imprisonment, starvation, disappearance, etc.) during his reign, under his “no man, no problem,” view of leadership.

“That oughta do it,” we might think.

But wait. What about the character in the Charlie Chaplin film, Monsieur Verdoux? His most famous line stops us in our numerical tracks. Henri says, “Wars, conflict - it's all business. One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow!”

Years later, Bob Dylan voiced a similar thought in one of his classics when he observed,

“Steal a little and they throw you in jail.

Steal a lot and they make you king.”[i]

Let us forget numbers as well as stature. As the Galilean himself observed, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."[ii]

Would we be safe, then, in stating that evil, however we choose to define it, can be a phenomenon exerted upon an individual, a group, a sect, a nation, or an entire planet?

Good. Let us trim our rigging and sail on in our quest.

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[i] What’s a Sweetheart Like You Doing in a Place Like This? ©Universal Tunes

[ii] Matthew 25:40, 45, NIV

A STUDY OF EVIL

In addressing the subject of evil, the first sign of danger is the instability encountered in finding a definition, or a safe taxological harbor in which to drop anchor. Some even describe evil as simply the absence of good. Some classify it as a supernatural force over which the individual may have, according to creeds and shibboleths, a limited or even definable degree of control. Some go further and talk of “pure evil,” for which there exists the acronym BFE.[i] Thus we find individuals from comedians to supreme court justices (at the risk of repeating myself) who blame civilization’s miseries on dark forces: Beelzebub, Satan, the Dark One, or a society’s demon du jour.

Others don’t accept BFE and its reliance on extraordinary, or even paranormal, forces. They assign it to ordinary, if certainly complex, psychological causes. Hannah Arendt, in her work Eichmann in Jerusalem, even used the word “banal” to describe a subject on trial for his part in effectuating one of the most monstrous events in human history. From all accounts, Adolph Eichmann played the part well during his trial.

If intended, it didn’t work. Nonetheless, the “I was only following orders,” explanation for evil acts deserves its own library so we shall damn it with scant attention herein.

In rejecting the BFE thesis, we are left to pursue what Piercardo Valdosco described as persons exhibiting evil as “a product solely of their essence, their soul, as opposed to a more complicated combination of environmental and individual forces.”[ii]

Hence comes the first limitation in my admittedly amateurish look at the subject of evil. We shall analyze it in detail, but the emphasis, the final denouement so to speak, will be the multi-faceted look at how ordinary and decent people commit evil deeds, aid and abet evil deeds, countenance evil deeds, or simply approve evil deeds with silence.

In a personal and anecdotal sense, I’m aiming to find some explanation for the fact that we find former upstanding members of society now openly supporting a movement populated by neo-Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, the situationally ethical, racial, social, and sexual bigots, and those who espouse the killing of other Americans for less than heinous activities of which they don’t approve. It won’t be an easy journey. Fasten your seat belts.

Adolph Eichmann
Banal, Oder Nicht Banal? 

 

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[i] Valdesco, Piercarlo, “The psychological Power of Satan.” Scientific American Sepemeber 29,2013

[ii] Piercalo, op cit

Understanding

 Suffering. That’s an easy subject to be stuck on in our time. I started reading God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer. By Bart D. Ehrman. Maybe the fifth or so of his books I’ve read. In beginning the discussion, he rightly asks, “How can we discuss suffering without first discussing the Holocaust?”

Then he describes a specific horror about that moment in history, a time in which some 11 million people were murdered because of their race, religion, politics, physical or mental conditions, and other myriad phenomena considered evil by the Nazi regime.

I may have read of this, and perhaps subjugated its primal horror to that secret place I hide things that threaten my sanity. At any rate, I’ve lost the ability to be surprised by the accounts of a nation’s actions. It seems that when the Nazi concentration camps encountered logjams in disposing of families considered unfit, they would bypass the normal execution process and begin throwing live children and babies into pits of fire while still alive, leaving the parents with the soothing anesthesia of gas or a bullet. Survivors testified at Nuremburg that a person could hear the screams of children all over the camps.

I stopped in my reading and considered the fact that I now have acquaintances whom I once considered decent and ordinary people who, from all accounts, would vote for Adolph Hitler risen from the grave if he would only promise to get rid of abortions, abortions for any reason under any circumstances and regulated only by the decision of a small group zealots who think America should be ruled in accordance with certain of the Hebrew religion’s ancient texts.

Am I the only one who sees the ironic symbiosis here? Am I the only one troubled by the act of a sitting president of the United States of America, a figure now worshipped by more than a third of our voting population—the titular head of a once noble political party—who has described the modern members of the Nazi regime as “some fine people?” Am I the only one who thinks we are staring into the abyss as a nation? Am I the only one who has decided to attempt an understanding ere they get done with the priority groups and come for me?

I’m embarking on a study of evil. I’ll keep you posted on the results of my journey. 

Friendship

 Each day I resolve not to be abrasive. Then I see utterances from people I once knew to be kind, generous, educated, and thoughtful. Somewhere, something or someone flipped a switch and a horrible transmogrification took place. I Don’t know how to respond. Let me just say this.

If your cult has convinced you to hate Dr. Anthony Fauci and love Kyle Rittenhouse, your soul needs a greater level of forgiveness than I can provide.

If your cult teaches you that slavery was okay but committed love between two people of the same sex is not, your sense of morality needs a greater level of support than I can provide.

If your cult makes you believe that only white Americans deserve the right to vote, your sense of America needs a greater level of education that I can provide.

If your cult convinces you that women only have the rights conferred upon them by men, your understanding of democracy requires a new meaning of community than I can provide.

In the words of the immortal Woody Guthrie, “So long, it’s been good to know you.”

Daylight Savings Time

 The Old Curmudgeon: I’m a progressive liberal. I believe in the ability of a well-managed government to benefit our lives. I believe in the efficacy of carefully regulated restraints on capitalism. I believe that the U.S. Constitution is wise when it separates church and state. I believe the females of the species are genetically wiser than the male and should be left to decide decisions relative to their bodies. But to allow something as universally despised, palpably ineffective, physically debilitating, and easily scorned as changing the time by an hour twice a year stretches my support structure to the limits. Tell me who is to blame and I’ll know who to castigate.

I've only heard one group in support and that consists of  highway departments. That begs the question: When is the last time you saw your highway department make a decision that benefited the planet as a whole? Why, let them rule and you'd have 12-lane freeways running through residential neighborhoods.

Uh.

Let me get back to you on that one. In the meantime, if half the population of a political party can refuse to wear masks that might save lives, couldn't we refuse to abide by the time change?

Just asking.

Feelings

 Today I awoke with the news pundits expressing the total annihilation of the political party that my family supported for, oh, two generations. The third one back was from Illinois, and the local wisdom back then was to support the political party in office, or likely to be in office, due to job patronage considerations. Politische Partei nicht Mann. Oh, and not all of my family. Some now embrace nihilism for odd reasons. Anyhow …

 I’m in a strained position. I still earn some money on small jobs for organizations I love and for work I enjoy. My continued success is important. It keeps me doing paying work in urban planning which I love and for which I get paid instead of doing farm work which I abhor and for which I don’t get paid. I need to understand all viewpoints.

 My first reaction on reading this morning’s news was to begin imagining how I would feel when I heard the boxcar’s scraping metal doors opening. and a voice yelling, “Raus raus und anstellen.” Oops, sorry, “Out, out and line up.”

 Then I started thinking. While the dreadful direction in which our country is headed primarily rests upon the shoulders of one political party, I’ve landed in “a plague on both your houses” paradigm. If our country doesn’t get back nearer the center, we are doomed.

 For the left, it prevailed somewhat in the last election. Despite the usage of the worst choice of a political slogan in my lifetime, i.e. “defund the police,” it managed victories. How many millions voted for the other party because of that one statement is beyond imagining. Sadly, they are keeping it up.

 Now, for a political minefield. Whether we “progressives” wish to admit it or not, such an issue as that involving transgender persons frightens some people. Wait wait. Educated people such as you and I understand that it is a biological phenomenon and should be treated as such. We reason that as taxpayers, do we prefer acceptance and understanding, or are we willing to face the costs of mental care? That was the choice upon which the U.S. Military based its decision. That decision finally came out well, by the way.

 On the other hand, we must try to understand that for some of our brothers and sisters, the prospect of having a young daughter enter a restroom where the sex of others within it is flexible is not a prospect easily accommodated from an emotional viewpoint for many. Cursing and reviling them for their feelings is not productive.

Now that I’ve read all the hate mail, one recurring theme is, “You think you are so [insert adjective of choice] smart, and you think you are never wrong.”

Allow me to disabuse you of that notion. Back when the long-time minority political party of our state became the majority party, they first elected some of what I considered the worst miscreants imaginable to office. My soothing thought was, “Once they are in power and realize the complexity and potential good of government, they will elect better people.”

There. I was dead-assed wrong. Enjoy your gloat.