I owe greeneggsnham an apology. I never responded to his last set of questions for me. It wasn’t one of my typical “get distracted by a shiny object and then forget that I was talking to somebody moments (which are common for me)”. I didn’t respond to him because I couldn’t find a good way to respond to his question about my opinions on how the media portrays evil. The reason that I can’t find a good way to respond is because, in my opinion, it’s a bigger question than that, and there’s lots of corollaries to consider. “So why are you top-posting this, then, idiot?” you may be thinking right now. Well, I’m top posting it because I think it’s a worthy topic to discuss, and will hopefully generate some interesting discourse.
The first thing that came to mind for me was the debate (not the right word) that Rick Warren hosted last year during the Presidential race. One of the questions that he asked both candidates, if you recall, was something on the order of “Do you think there is such a thing as evil?” I distinctly recall finding that question to be an odd one to ask a presidential candidate. Why should I care if the President believes that there is such a thing as evil? Doesn’t a question like that require clarification: what kind of evil was he asking about, the evil of individuals, the evil of groups, existential evil, or the concept of Satan? Superficially, a pastor asking such a question would indicate that he was asking the candidates about Satan, as Satan is the cause of all “evils”, in the Christian mythos. But even this raises problems.
Milton’s Satan was cast out of Heaven for his vanity, and refusal to bend to the will of God. Both of those “sins” are distinctly American cultural attributes – being prideful is a positive attribute within our culture, and refusal to bend to authoritarianism is as well. Our culture shares Milton’s Satan’s sins. Yet substantial parts of our culture would never admit to supporting Satan, and still identify the concept of Satan as “evil”. Those same portions of our country would, and have, elected individuals who possess those qualities. So maybe Satan isn’t a good example of evil.
What is evil, then? The most convenient answer would appear to be that which violates cultural norms. Killing is evil. Except, of course, that murder is not evil if your life, property, or the lives of loved ones is on the line. Then, taking another’s life is no longer evil: it was necessary. Theft is evil. Unless you’re starving. Adultery is evil. Unless you’re in a loveless marriage. Exploitation is evil. Unless there is a profit to be gained. None of these things should be ground shaking to anyone beyond the age of 17, and this post is not meant to be a high-school dissertation upon the hypocrisy of what we deem evil. However, it is probably necessary to mention this aspect because it brings me to my central thesis.
Evil doesn’t exist. Evil is nothing more than a flexible construct that we use to define those things that we aren’t, and don’t strive to be. This function of evil also contributes to our habit of making caricatures of those whom we consider evil. Hitler stops being a damaged, insecure racist, and instead becomes this devil possessed with the sole intention of world domination and genocidal eugenics. Stalin goes from being a ruthlessly driven man, who seeks success at all costs, to becoming a mass-murdering psychopathic lock-step Communist. The interesting thing is that you probably pass by, interact with, work for, and possibly are even friends with people who possess very similar traits to either of these “evil” men, and yet you probably don’t view your cohort as evil.
Of course, those you know aren’t defined as evil because they haven’t performed evil acts. It’s unlikely that you know a mass murder, or a serial rapist, or a genocidal tyrant. There are problems with viewing actions as evil, though. The judgment of “evilness” is not subject to reality testing. In other words, evil doesn’t exist as a real-world thing for you to compare actions against. We base our judgments about what is or is not evil solely upon social comparisons – what others from our in-group view as evil. The Holocaust was an evil action because the social consensus says that it was so (note here that I’m not making a value judgment on whether or not the social consensus is “right”, because I need to use social consensus to arrive at such a decision). This point is furthered by the fact that some actions, like the killing of soldiers during war, are not viewed as evil. Fighting a war is functionally no different from mass murder, and yet the social consensus is that if it is done for the “right” reasons, then it must be different.
All of this brings me back to greeneggsnham’s original question regarding the media’s portrayal of evil. The portrayal of evil in pop culture helps to build those social constructs under which we are allowed to redefine evil to be not-so-evil. This is the reason that you’ll never see an antihero in a movie who believes in the systematic destruction of a certain race. This is the reason why the anti-hero of the Saw violence-porn movies kills people “so they can really live”. This is the reason why Hannibal Lector never kills and eats Clarice Starling. The media isn’t portraying the real social consensus of evil; the media is actually portraying the socially acceptable versions of evil. That is the evil that we can enjoy without that icky feeling that we’re corrupting ourselves by condoning “real” evil actions.
And I should end this by making clear that I’m not condoning “real” evil actions, either. I’m not really calling for us to abandon the social consensus of what actions can be deemed evil. This is an academic exercise for me, but is one that I find useful because it helps to illustrate both the human desire for concrete social markers, and the utter futility of that desire.
* I’m also saddened that the person for whom I voted to become President of the United States answered this question as “Yes, I believe there is evil in this world”.
