When I was a child I used to worry that evil was stronger than good. After all, evil has no limits on its behavior. It cares not for harm caused or outcomes. In fact, harm is often the point.
As I grew up it occurred to me that this is too simplistic. Good is more complex and more difficult, but not weaker.
Here is just one example: Killing a human is possible in a few seconds. It can be done wholesale and given the appearance of being meaningless, as we saw in WW2 and every war since. As we see in the nihilism that came after the war. As we see in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Creating a human is much harder. One egg, many sperm, the timing, millions of years of evolution, and then nine months for a process quite dangerous for the mother to be. And then, birth. The astonishing creation of new life.
But which of these two processes holds any excitement or life force?
Evil is a dead hand.
When Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” she was writing about the Nazi, Eichmann. But the phrase touches on something basic to this discussion.
Evil is banal, boring even. It dulls the mind to the same extent that good, in its creative role, can engage the mind.
Think of a serial killer, or the violence of war, or even something like porn, which may not be evil at the same level but is nonetheless, dehumanizing, and it becomes apparent.
All of these evils have a mechanical property, which, if you remove the pain of the living things involved, would be as interesting as watching a washing machine rotate.
Destruction is mechanical, and ultimately, painfully boring.
Creation is much harder, and ultimately, fascinating.
In one way, my youthful idea about evil was correct. It can’t be fought directly and using the same weapons it employs, or it simply absorbs the ones doing the resisting. It has a powerful capacity to corrupt and absorb.
The only way to defeat it is to flood the space with good. Once we know where the edges are and have a full understanding of the situation, we must focus on creating a new edifice beside and on top of the old. And in time that will be what prevails.
Let us then grow a garden on the ruins and see what happens next…
Excellent!!!
Evil has seeped into the very fabric of the human civilization. In Syria and Turkey tens of thousands people, and pets, have died. It is because, in large part, we make high rises. Numerous life forms die because of the toxins that produce all sorts of diseases. The lies that we swallow for invasions and wars. And so on. Good still survives. Mangoes still grow, even if evil of pesticides do not escape them. Sun still rises. Moon still sloshes the waters.