The Nature of Evil

Evil is a strange concept.

We know it is the opposite of "good" but what exactly does "evil" constitute?

There are some actions, thoughts and intentions that most human beings can agree are "evil" at their core, but even this is problematic... Because evil requires a confluence of actions, thoughts and intentions.

If someone performs an action that is heinous but had no negative intentions, is this an evil deed or simply an accident?

Similarly, if someone thinks something terrible but does not act upon it, does this constitute evil?

What if someone has negative intent in an action but no harm comes of it?

The answer to the above would often fall into the gray area of uncertainty that makes most of our lives, things are not black and white... but for many people the final of the above scenarios is likely the worst. If one has negative intent towards another and means them harm - even if no actual harm occurs - this seems worse than the others.

The world has been made to exist with poles and polarity, for every positive there must be a negative, and between the two there lie varying degrees of each. This is because the world is by nature subjective. Everything that exists must be perceived to exist to exist. By this I don't mean that I subscribe to the naive belief that things outside our perception do not exist, but they cannot exist for us if we don't see them.

If there is a major conflict on the opposite side of the world, unless I make an effort to see it or discover more about it, or it makes an effort to make itself known to me - it doesn't exist for me. It obviously exists for the people living it, but we all have bubbles around us that shelter us from what is outside our perception. What happens elsewhere to all intents and purposes, simply doesn't exist...

Maybe that's the true nature of evil...?

Maybe evil is ignorance... maybe that's why it is impossible to eradicate evil from this world and why it is so pervasive. When another is suffering and we do nothing, that is wrong... but when another suffers and we don't even know of the event... that's a more subtle flavour of evil.

It's impossible to know everything, that's a given, a person cannot be expected to know of all the harm happening to every person, but, not making an effort to try to inform oneself is wrong. Passing by a crime without taking some action (be it calling for help or reassuring the victim after the fact) is wrong. Speaking out about one form of violence while blatantly ignoring another is wrong. The point is to make oneself aware of what is out there and to try and help... and if you feel helpless to do anything... then pray. Prayer is the least and the most that you can do to help someone in need.

There will always be more ignorance than knowledge in the world, ignorance like knowledge spreads easily from person to person, but ignorance cannot stand in the face of knowledge. Let us all try to think critically and interact with information we are given, look outside the facts to find the truth. That is possibly the only way to make a small impact on evil in this world.

After all, the "good society" the Greek philosophers spoke of is today known as our "knowledge society" isn't it?