The trouble with evil
I’m sick of hearing about evil in reference to world events. A major U.S. news magazine recently put wicked dictator Kim Jong-Il on the cover asking the question “North Korea’s Dr. Evil?” In his oversized shades and oil-slick hairdo, Kim looked about as menacing as an aging Roy Orbison. Granted, the mean man should evoke feelings of fear and disgust in freedom-lovers everywhere, but aligning him with a Mike Myers comedy caricature is hardly my idea of productive political discourse.
After Sept. 11, Bush was praised for his ability to characterize the emerging world order in a “clear-cut” good vs. evil paradigm. If by “clear-cut” they mean divisive and counterproductive, then they were right again. Last I checked, global politics wasn’t a Star Wars movie, and no one elected George Skywalker. Although Saddam Vader does have a nice ring to it.
In the fine tradition of Reagan before him, Bush dressed one face of humanity in a dark cape and a mustache (well, in some cases the mustache was provided- “Bush . . . I am your father . . . “) and created a mythic enemy, instead of acknowledging the real one. Fighting against an “Axis of Evil” in my mind means something entirely different than resolving real, tangible conflicts that have no such preternatural origins.
We need to understand world events in concrete, pragmatic terms, not as a fantasy battle between monsters and flowers in some hyperbolic fairytale. Evil, while a useful and illustrative term for poets and songwriters, has abstract, ethereal and archaic overtones. Childish oversimplification of an enormously complex problem will never breed resolution.
Identifying evil as the force that brings about tragedy and danger in the world dismisses all sociological factors. It polarizes human behavior and it mystifies its origins. Suddenly, there is no need to consider poverty, disenfranchisement, oppression, indoctrination or retaliation. It’s just evil. Evil precludes understanding and requires extraordinary, superhuman powers to counteract. We can stop thinking about it now; it’s evil. You can’t figure it out; it’s evil. Any measures taken against it are justified because it’s evil.
I’m of the opinion that language colors our ways of thinking and acting more than any other medium. It does so in a subconscious and annoyingly surreptitious manner. The way you talk becomes the way you think, whether you fully realize it or not.
Bush’s attempt to engage our support appeals to some primordial aversion to the faceless dark forces that have always plagued the world. And it seems to be working. In a self-proclaimed enlightened and highly advanced civilization, there’s no excuse for this irrational mentality.
What we have to remember is that no silver bullet or ash stake through the heart is going to vaporize global threats in their tracks. We’re not fighting evil. We’re fighting people – people who face wrongs, ills, and deprivation that can culminate in nothing but violence and destruction. Nothing can excuse terrorist acts, but willful ignorance will not prevent them. For the sake of our own security and the global security we claim to be interested in protecting, we’d do well to choose our vocabulary carefully.
