Gnwmythr's Glossary: [Content Warning] evil

PPS - I have an updated set of links at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2023/07/post-no-2523-some-thoughts-on-legal.html.

PPPS - concepts that also consider evil are cynicism - especially about politics, as that allows the nonBPM open slather, and gossip - which is an incredibly damaging to its victims manifestation of jealousy and other character flaws.

My starting definition of evil is that it is whatever harms or hinders spiritual growth / evolution / development. There is another factor I will get to shortly, but first, let’s explore that starting point.

Now, we need challenges along the way, and some people have got themselves to the state where they will only learn something "the hard way", but, in general, people tend to learn better from “positive” ways of teaching - by which I mean ways of teaching that are in harmony with that person’s learning [1] and cognitive [2] styles. Also, although sometimes they have to go through experiences as a consequence of having created negative karma (which I think of more as reabsorbing the energy they created and sent out, than of “paying a debt”), in general, people tend to learn more effectively when they are no lacking in the basic needs of life (refer to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for an idea of what I consider these are).

Something which prevents that learning in a major way, a way that would disrupt the spiritual development of a “normal”, mature person in a ways that is significant to the totality of their life, or to their existence after this incarnation, is a good candidate for what I would consider evil -if it has been enacted through someone’s person. As an example, the actions of the organisation Da’esh at the time that I am writing this definition are an example of what I consider evil - as are ALL forms of control, which covers a disturbing amount of human behaviour that gets passed off as “that's normal”, or “that's just being human”, or “that's only . . . < insert excuse of choice >”. That may be so, but, if it is control or contributing to something like “learned helplessness” [3] (and what would do that needs to be assessed for each individual and situation), it is WRONG, and we are here, on this planet to grow beyond that.

If people are showing hostility or lack of acceptance to people who are different but not doing any harm (for instance, members of other races or religions, or LGBTIQ people, or various forms of consensual sex, or people who vote differently, etc, etc, etc), the hostile / unaccepting people are acting in a way that is evil, and are showing a complete failure to come to grips with the fundamental spiritual reason that physical reality came into existence - which I discuss in my post "The Origin of Evil" (see http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2012/01/origin-of-evil.html).

On the other hand, people can lose their life as a result of a natural catastrophe, perhaps an earthquake for instance, and that is just an example of the power of Nature, not an act of evil. (Such events are why one should never seek to be an instrument of karma: if no-one does that, the Universe will still find a way -and the would be vigilantes will have most probably saved themselves from being subjected to future negative karma of their own.) They may well have enormous suffering and fear to work through in their next lives, but that is part of coming to terms with the fact that we are mortal, and Nature (including comets, black holes, solar storms and stray planets bumping into each other) is more powerful than we are.

Still on that other hand, other people may have their life disrupted by an event such as the ending of a (romantic/intimate) relationship. That is not necessarily evil - in fact, in most cases it isn’t, and the reaction they are experiencing is a flaw in their character, perhaps one of insecurity, or of jealousy or possessiveness, that needs to be fixed to make them better people. The normal ups and downs of life are also matters that I would exclude from the category of evil - with the exception of all attempts at control, as mentioned.

I'm just not sure how I would define all this, which is where matters get complicated :)

There are many views on what is “evil” that I disagree with - such as most of what the neochristians consider to be evil - and others which I consider simplistic, but not totally without merit, such as the views portrayed in the Star Wars [4] series of films, or in Zoroastrianism [5] .

We now get on to the second aspect I wished to cover: harm to the human rights, dignity, or wellbeing of others caused through lack of humanity or lack of empathy, compassion, as was discussed by Hannah Arendt [1] after observing the trial of eichmann [2] , and made apparent also in the famous Nuremberg trials [3] after World War (part) Two.

This gets partly into the legal history of human rights [4] , which have been codified over the last few millennia [5] , but also into the motivation (e.g., see https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-do-we-mean-by-evil) and extent of harm caused.

I’m not going to try to create a hard and fast definition of this category of evil here - rather, I will defer to experts in the area, such as the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (see https://www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx), organisations such as Human Rights Watch (see https://www.hrw.org/) and Amnesty International (see https://www.amnesty.org/en/), and experts such as Geoffrey Robertson (see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Geoffrey_Robertson&oldid=1053368763 and https://www.amazon.com/Geoffrey-Robertson/e/B001HOS9DI/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1).

I will, however, provide some examples of what I consider evil:

[1] See https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hannah-Arendt, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/, & https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hannah_Arendt&oldid=1056833280, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eichmann_in_Jerusalem&oldid=1057256078 & https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/hannah-arendt-adolf-eichmann-banality-of-evil.