What Is Evil?

Many people were horrified when Shirley Jackson short story ‘The Lottery’ came out, about a small town who annually practiced the ritual of stoning someone as a sacrifice for a good harvest. They cried, “How could that ever happen?”

But what if instead of the lottery being chosen by the town’s people, it was drawn by tradition itself? Or the church? By fear induced ignorance, or even by biology? Would it seem a little less crazy? What if the stones we threw were limitations, laws, and encouraging violence of other types?

When we condone bullies and vilify marginalized communities, whether we actively throw the stones or just stand by and watch them, we are equally guilty of the ‘stoning’, the ruination of someone’s life, the acts of violence committed against them. If you don’t help the vilified, if you silently or loudly support the bullying, the blood is on your hands equally. As we have all heard, if you’re not part of the solution you are part of the problem.

People were horrified (and some even outraged) at the portrayal of modern Americans as barbarians when the story came out, and that was in 1948. Yet at the same time, we were in the early stages of McCarthyism, we were not far past the Japanese internment camps, and black people were being lynched. And everyone who didn’t speak up is as equally guilty as our government, as our voters who voted to keep the people in place, as the people who tied the noose, and the people who looked the other way.

Of course, our current administration, who engages in just as much evil towards humanity as all the other ones did, want to erase history! They don’t want us to recognize that they are repeating it. We don’t need to look to Nazi Germany, or Stalin’s Russia or Mussolini’s Italy to see what our current government is trying to create, we only need to look to our own history and know if we don’t speak up, act out , and fight back, that we didn’t have to throw the stone to participate in the evil of doing so. You have to choose to not be a barbarian, to not be part of the evil, or you are.

At the opening of the musical Wicked, the good witch asks the question if someone is born wicked. So, let’s talk about wickedness – or in this case evil. How do we define evil? Are some people born evil, or has something in their life twisted them to be that way? What is evil? Is evil just a set of brain chemistry gone bad? A set of environmental factors and experiences? Are sociopaths or psychopaths or narcissists inherently evil, or is it just what they do that is evil?

Evil, according to the Oxford dictionary, is: “profound immorality and wickedness, especially when regarded as a supernatural force”. The true meaning of evil is complex and varied by context, but generally refers to a powerful force or profoundly immoral qualities that causes intentional harm, suffering, and destruction to others.

One of the things I look at is, does the intentional harm and suffering and destruction of another bring them some kind of joy, some kind of satisfaction? For if it does, then they can choose to be no other.

Even though we as a species have a great capability for reasoning, the ability to come to complex solutions, we don’t always do so. Some people, like those who were horrified by ‘The Lottery’, would immediately call out evil anywhere they see others being made to suffer. Yet many people use their religious beliefs to justify intentionally harming and suffering others, and in fact take great joy out of serving their God by finding joy and satisfaction in causing that pain and suffering, offering up people for sacrifice rather than lambs. How can that not be evil?

These same people would certainly call out the evilness of it if they were the ones in the crosshairs, the ones being thrown to the lions. They would scream “foul” and talk about the evilness, without ever once recognizing the irony. So how do those people go from claiming to believe in a god of love, to intentionally causing harm and suffering, calling upon violence towards another human being, simply because they are different?

The people in ‘The Lottery’, the villagers who are throwing the stones, who are participating in this barbaric custom, believe it will ensure a good harvest. It takes a whole lot of ignorance and willful hypocrisy to never be willing to check if their actions actually align with what they say they believe, or even to the oaths they took. In many ancient cultures, the term was oath breaker, and it was considered one of the most vile of insults, and now it’s just accepted as part of the job of many religious and political leaders.

We have spiritual people who claim to teach the followings of their spiritual leader or guru – all of whom taught about love and acceptance and taking care of one another – while preaching hate, encouraging – even sometimes engaging in – violence. We have political leaders who swear to uphold the constitution and represent all the people in their constituency, and then immediately (if not openly) breaking it, figuring out how to benefit their donors rather than the people they represent, not trying to create unity and what’s best for the people or their community, but focusing benefiting themselves, their donors, and the people who think and act like them, making those that don’t into the enemy. They throw stones and get their people to also throw stones, at the “others” – the disenfranchised, the minorities, or the vulnerable – giving them an enemy so they don’t recognize the politician or spiritual leader, as the true enemy of The People.

These people are oath breakers, when they intentionally and repeatedly engage in abusive behaviors for their own benefit, for wealth, for power, while speaking what has only become platitudes. So yes, they engage in evil. If they take joy in it, if they brag about punishing people, torturing people, if it brings them great joy and satisfaction in doing so, then they are evil. And when you choose to look away, to walk away from the actual teachings of your religion, to ignore the actions that make our democracy and constitution only benefit the “right people”, you are a passive participant in the evil. If you actively support – or even just tolerate – the hypocrisy of the people engaging in it, whether at the collection plate or the voting booth, without standing up for what is right, you are engaging in evil. And when you celebrate some child being ripped away from their parents, or the trans person being beaten to death, or the torturing of people who have committed no crimes, received no due process, who are here to escape being tortured in their homeland, you are becoming the evil.

Cults are evil, and you are a full card-carrying member of one when your leaders cannot be questioned, cannot be held accountable, and you actively chose to ignore all the inconsistencies in what they say and what they do.

Maybe you didn’t throw the rock, but you didn’t stop it either. Isn’t time we stopped throwing rocks at each other, take back our God of Love, our compassionate Democracy, and oust the oath breakers? And not just the ones that you don’t like, but the ones who have fooled you into thinking they were the good guys.