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What makes evil evil? ...

Saturday, Sept 13, 2014. What is it that makes evil to be evil? Are you clear about this question? What is it that is “bad”? What is “not right”? What should be punished? Where is the line and where is the starting point which creates the dark side?

The dark side …

In our modern time, in particular in some parts of the west, some people think that there is no evil at all. They believe that the concept of “evil” has to be dropped. At the same time they strongly condemn some ethics. If people think that some behaviour is right and other behaviour is wrong - and if they tell it others and act according to this confession, then there are others who say that these people are not allowed to do this.

Please observe what happens. Some say: “A is right, B is wrong - we do not want to support B”. Others say: “it is wront to dicriminate A from B - that is wrong and you need to punish this discrimination”. They discriminate as well, but just differently. This is a quite abstract version of the story, but this is what happens day by day if we talk about ethics and consequences of ethics.

Some say it is evil to have some type of ethics. But of course it is ethics, to say this - and you have strong ethics if you tell others how to think and how to behave. And you discriminate people following your ethics from other ethics. You have no option: when ever you want to think about what is good and what is not good, you need to discriminate. We all do it, left or right, liberal or conservative, what ever political colour you have …

The real problems …

Let us come to the real problems. The real problems start where we hurt each other physically. They start where war starts, where suppression starts, where violence starts. The real problem starts where suffering is accepted as a part of life - where it is ignored. We have war today, we have suppression. I am not talking about political differences, even not about political power. It is more severe if someone hungers, if someone is abused, if people die from bombs, from gun fire, from chemical or biological or nuclear processes caused by other people!

Evil is evident. You do not need to look far to see evil. Just watch the news, just observe what others report from many parts of the world. Perhaps you live there in one of these areas. Perhaps you are threatened by oppression, you are not allowed to freely say what you think without being threatened to end up in some prison or even dead. Evil is there, clearly visible, in so many parts of our world. And often evil tries to present itself as salvation, as fight for the good cause, even as liberation. The lie is at the birth of evil!

But the origin of evil is deep within. When evil is born, it is not so clearly visible. It starts with ignorance. It starts with “not seing the other as human”. It starts with desire or bitterness, which is no longer putting humanity, grace, friendliness and love into the center of our goals, our wishes and desires, our planning and our actions. Evil starts with very little things, have a closer look and discover your own evil features. You will be surprised, what you find! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts