What is Evil?

[dbsousa]

The "Evil Race" topic suggests to me a wider (and perhaps more interesting) topic. In your fantasy games, how do you represent evil, if at all?

 

I have, in the past, represented evil as:

[*]A faction of elves. When the fairie lands were corrupted by an Evil Dragon, the inhabitants fled to the Mortal Coil, where they took either the innocence of fairie land, or the taint of the dragon with them. Each elf or pixie or sylph became good or evil upon entering the Mortal Lands, and when the last elf appeared, (a PC, of course) The battle to determine the final fate of Fairie Land began.)

[*] A virus. Fallon Anglo was created aeons ago by ancient sorcerers who grafted a thought ("worship me") to an "animalcule". This virus would infect people, who would then worship the sorcerers. The virus mutated, so that people began worshipping the virus itself. In the present, the virus has subsided in the old world, but a virulent strain from the new world had re-created the cult of Fallon...

[*] Prejudice. In my current game, the conflict between the species is the only evil, and the world itself will decide to turn its back on the sun unless a brave group of Men, Beasts, Changelings, and Angels can complete a quest without tearing each other apart...

 

I am interested in hearing how you define good and Evil in your games, and how you feel about personifying (or not) the conflict...

[Nyrath]

Re: What is Evil?

 

I saw one campaign where the deity personifying "good" was the Maker and the deity personifying "evil" was the Breaker. It sort of equated evil with entrophy.

 

I also saw a description of the alignments from Dungeons and Dragons which opined that a person of evil alignment would answer the question "Do the ends justify the means?" with a resounding "Yes."

[keithcurtis]

Re: What is Evil?

 

An interesting question indeed.

Currently, I do not have a model of good evil in my game. There are people who are opposed to the main characters goals and are fairly ruthless, but they probably treat their kids well, love their country, etc.

The morality I have tried to portray is more or less modeled on the Ancient (Western) world. For example, the Roman Empire was by any modern objective crtieria, just plain EVIL. Slavery, torture and brutality were pretty much daily events. Civil rights? Human rights? Hah!

However, I have found through experience that this does not translate well to a gaming environment. Players want to be the good guys. Who were the good guys during the reign of Caligula? Even during the supposedly enlightend rennaisance of Shakespearean England, heads were routinely placed upon pikes on London Bridge for what would not even be considered a misdemeanor or even improper behavior these days.

 

Players seem to want to model the behavior of their characters on a modern model of morality, though. Slavery is bad. Torture is bad. Excessive punishment for crime is bad. Very well, we work from that basis.

 

In the past, I have run fantasy campaigns which contained a definite source of supernatural evil, an evil god or even god of Evil, if you will. This can be fun if you want a Lord of the Rings model of Good and Evil. In this model, evil is eternal, supernatural and fundamental. It is a quality that a person, race or even object can possess. The Ring is Evil. Orcs are Evil. Sometimes things can become Evil, but these are rarely differences of degree. They become fundamentally different people. Sauron became a disembodied lidless eye, a spirit of malice and cruelty. He was not created that way, but fell from grace. There is a spirit of Good (Eru), from which he turned to embrace the spirit of Evil (Melkor/Morgoth). But evil is a quality. You have the sense that you could walk into Middle Earth with an Evilmeter and get readings on people. ("Sauron? I'm getting a reading of 37 megahitlers.")

 

Good and evil would only be labels in my current (Savage Earth) campaign. There is no such thing as an Alignment, or objective criteria of good/evil. There are gentle people and brutal people, even gentle cultures and brutal cultures, but they are all difference of degree. The nastiest Sea Raiders can show mercy and the most enlightened civilizations have degrees of citizenship and even limited slavery. I'm not sure if the terms "good" and "evil" have even come up during role play. An enemy tribe might be referred to as a "pack of vicious killers" but there would be no connotation of a supernatural source. People have agendas and a sliding scale of what they would be willing to do to accomplish them. Some are more ruthless than others. This is closer to what I envision as a real world model. Individual people are capable of forming opinions on what is evil behavior, but there is no objective criterion. Evil is at best a relative adjective. It is certainly not a monolithic noun. I might add that it has been (for me) a far more difficult world to write games for.

 

Keith "my 2 cents" Curtis

[Eosin]

Re: What is Evil?

 

Evil is one of the core concepts in The Last Dominion setting (A work in progress).

 

Here is a snippet from the guide I share with folks who are writing for the setting.

 

The Themes of The Last Dominion.

I don't have an easy answer for all of the Themes of The Last Dominion nor should there be an easy answer. The Last Dominion is a parable; it is about the nature of evil and the ability to face evil. It borrows heavily from Star Wars, Babylon 5, Arthurian Legends, and the visual aspects of Lord of the Rings. The setting itself is inspired by books such as The Silmarillion, Deryni Chronicles, A Song of Fire & Ice, and the Wheel of Time series.

 

This is a brief summary of the themes that I see as being critical to the setting.

 

War

War defines humanity but it also reveals our darkest moments. It creates heroes and villains, legends and myths. Good men are always willing to go to war for what they believe but they never stop striving to find peace.

 

Redemption

One of the moral quandaries of our age and of others is redemption and forgiveness. What does it take to forgive a man who killed your friends and family? What if he was controlled by spirits - is forgiveness necessary? Is he still guilty? How will that person feel, regardless of societal acceptance?

 

What makes men great?

Why do some men rise to a challenge while others crumble? Why are some men or women elevated to greatness in the eyes of their fellows for actions and what does this do to ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances? What happens when an ordinary person is hailed as a messianic figure or a king or a prophet of change?

 

Conversely, what makes men evil?

It is not enough to describe "evilly actions" villains become far more terrible when we understand their motivations. Magneto, Alanzo from Training Day [Denzel Washington], Roy Batty from Bladerunner, Mr. Mordin from Babylon 5, Bester from Babylon 5, Dr. Doom, Boromir from LotR, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are all examples of villains in this vein. They are people who became villains because of the choices they made. None of these people started with the intent to become evil but that is just what happened.

 

The second type of villain (one who needs to be used a little more sparingly) is the insane villain. The “evilly†evil character is evil for no discernible reason. This list includes folks like Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs, The Terminators, The Borg Queen, and Aemon Gothe from Schindler’s List [Rafe Finnes].

 

The Enemy

What is the nature of the enemy? Mythological monsters are creatures rife with violations of social taboos --- take a look at a brief list: Animalistic behaviors (vampires, freaks [Lizard boy], werewolves, zombies, mummies), Artificial Creation (terminators, Frankenstein, vampires), Attempted Immortality (cyborgs, Frankenstein, vampires, mummies) Cannibalism (vampire, psycho, werewolves, zombies) Child Abuse (Frankenstein, Psycho, Freak), Destruction of Nature (Cyborgs, Godzilla, King Kong, swamp men), Family Strife (Frankenstein, freak, psycho, zombies), Intimacy with strangers (vampires, psycho, swamp men, werewolves, mummies), Isolation (Frankenstein, freak, psycho, swampmen) Violation of Gender Roles (Frankenstein, vampire, freak, psycho).

 

The Nature of the Ennwrathi

--Removed long babel but you can look up some of the topics I started here in FH within the last 6 months and get a good idea of what they are about---

[ghost-angel]

Re: What is Evil?

 

Falling into the "Morally Ambiguous" camp personally .. I have a hard time defining Good and Evil in games I run, and even more so in characters I play.

 

Everything I tend to touch is infused with both qualities, especially considering I don't believe in abolsute good or evil - I even have a hard time grokking it really.

 

That said, Evil is the opposite of what you define as Good, Good is the opposite of what you define as Evil. Several people coming together and deciding "X" is Good and "Y" is Evil for a basis for society where "X" is the standard for Goodness and "Y" the standard for "Evilness" upon which others are judged.

 

To quote a character of mine: "A Montser is a who, not a what. Sometimes I'm the monster." -The character overall wants to do "good" by helping society out - obeying laws, capturing criminals lawfully, generally playing nice. The character however sometimes forgets that people aren't a food source.....

 

I derailed myself ... what is Evil? hrm. The other side of Good. Same coin.

 

How do I represent it? Individualized acts, I can't bring myself to create an Evil Race in most cases. Murder tends to top the list, mostly because I can't see going around killing people for reasons only you and not society at large believe in can help anything. Other things are measured on a sliding scale.

[Kensei27]

Re: What is Evil?

 

It's a well-known fact that the quality of heroes is measured by the quality of the villains they face. After all, Luke Skywalker, a whiny farmboy, couldn't have become the hero he did without a villain like Vader. So, assuming the heroes of a given campaign are "Good," a GM should pay attention to what exactly "Evil" is.

 

In the last campaign I ran, I wanted to take a good look at the nature of evil and what drives villains to do what they do. I had two major villainous groups the PCs were working against: an incursion of demonic creatures into their world, and a secret organization bent on world domination. It was hard to say which group was "more evil"; while the demons were naturally inclined to evil, the organization often came up with countless ways to justify their "evil" actions, usually through pretty twisted (but understandable) logic.

 

The leader of that evil organization was a mage of world-shattering power. Early in his life, his betrothed had succumbed to a deadly disease that no one, not even he, could heal. From that point on, he was looking for a way to restore her to life. When he finally thought he had done so, he discovered that he had only animated her corpse with one of the more powerful demons I mentioned above. By this time, however, he had grown so old that he was himself trying to find the secret of immortality. This drove him to try and destroy the mythic source of time in the universe--which was also the very thing keeping the demons from escaping their prison and overrunning everything. The demon-betrothed was only manipulating him into setting them all free.

 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that while naturally "evil" creatures or races are certainly ruthless and powerful, they're not nearly as interesting as "evil" people who still consider themselves to be "good." In the real-world campaign I'm working on now, the villain, a staunch Roman Catholic, is attempting to purge the world of depravity by bringing about the Apocalypse. This is almost inarguably an "evil" act, but performed with "good" intentions. (No offense is meant to any Catholics, by the way.)

[Logan D]

Re: What is Evil?

 

For an interesting discussion on Good and Evil and definitions of same - I recommend this thread on a fanfiction forum for Drunkard's Walk

 

http://p087.ezboard.com/fdrunkardswalkforumsfrm13.showMessage?topicID=3.topic

 

Some of the relevent quotes I'll repeat here -

 

"One key identifying characteristic of evil is that it sees all other living creatures -- sentient beings or not -- as objects to use, abuse, and discard in order to achieve its goals. Empathy is alien to it; it has no care for others' feelings, except when it delights in their manipulation."

 

"Evil -- *real* Evil -- is convinced it is Good. It is, in fact, *far* more certain that it is Good than Good is -- and that's how you can often tell the difference. Good doubts itself -- it's a necessary mechanism that *keeps* it Good. Evil never doubts itself, its motives or its methods. It deludes itself, or lets itself be easily deluded by others, that it is always in the right. It is always convinced that what it does is Good. Of course, it usually redefines 'Good' to mean 'what *it* wants'."

 

"If you ever have doubts about the rightness of a course you have set yourself on, you are at the very least redeemable. Only the irredeemably evil are ever *absolutely* sure of their actions."

 

Another defining element of Evil - true Evil - is that it cannot laugh at itself. The only humor it knows comes at the expense of others.

 

Good people can enjoy a laugh at their own expense, they can even specifically make jokes about their own weaknesses. True evil admits no weaknesses, so cannot abide jokes about itself.

 

Ah - good example - excellent example, in fact - would be the climactic sequence in the movie "Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker", when Batman/Terry outjokes the Joker. The Joker has plenty of fun at others expense, but cannot take a joke at himself, and completely loses his cool when Terry turns the tables on him.

 

If an otherwise evil creature is capable of even a little bit of self-deprecating humor, it could be taken as a sign that it is not totally irredeemable.

[Nyrath]

Re: What is Evil?

 

A science fiction writer muses on the nature of evil here

[Doug McCrae]

Re: What is Evil?

 

In your fantasy games' date=' how do you represent evil, if at all?[/quote']I'm not really interested in representing evil. In the fantasy world I'm working on at the moment there certainly are evil beings, but they're not symbols for evil, they just are.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: What is Evil?

 

I have a tendancy to have Evil with capital E in my games, but I do usually have it defined fairly clearly. I like the lack of moral ambiguity that comes from having an absolute right and an absolute wrong- but I don't make the absolute wrong such a big list of things that it doesn't leave room for grey characters.

 

Evil (with the big E) usually revolves around doing things that destroy freedom of will, or that ties into the power from supernatural Evil (such as demons/devils ect). In my spell lists, I have a number of spells that by thier very natures are Evil (zombification, raising demons or undead, mind enslavement). Buying one of these spells triggers the "Evil" clause in powers that only work vs Evil - the other bits to it are the "big two" evil creatures - Undead and Demons. So actions like slavery are a big "no" as well.

 

On the other hand, evil (with the small e) every race and most individuals do a little bit, and the struggle is to follow your code not to do those things, and different races have different views of evil (as opposed to Evil which is an absolute concept).

 

This minimalist absolute Evil allows me to have the totally evil demon/mage/undead for the characters to be totally good against (just like Kensei27, qualty of heroes depends on quality of villians) but it also allows the "done the wrong thing, sorta on the line goodguy" kind of dark hero, without them sliding into Evil (with a capital E).

[Beetle]

Re: What is Evil?

 

Here's the excerpt from Lawrence Watt-Evans' "Rules of Fantasy" about good and evil that I referenced on the other thread. He's aiming at prospective fantasy authors, but I've found his rules helpful in being a better GM as well.

 

Watt-Evans' Second Law of Fantasy: People are never wholly good or wholly evil, and therefore characters should never be wholly good or wholly evil.

 

Characters, like real people, should be concerned with other things besides Good and Evil. They mustn't all be just good guys or bad guys; in fact, no one is perfect, eliminating your stereotypical good guy, and nobody thinks of himself as evil, eliminating your stereotypical bad guy. No one thinks of himself as a villain.

 

That doesn't mean you can't have villains, though. Adolf Hitler didn't think of himself as an evil man; he was trying to make the world safe for the master race, as he saw it, and that was, from his point of view, a very good thing, so that it didn't matter if a lot of people got killed in making it happen. He didn't think of himself as evil, yet I don't think anyone would deny he was a very satisfactory villain.

 

In bad fantasy stories, though, the villains are often evil for the sake of evil, proudly, arrogantly evil, proclaiming from the rooftops that they are the very epitome of evil, doing evil, rotten things just because they're evil.

 

I don't buy it. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me, and I don't think it would work for anybody else, either. I can't see a real person, even a wizard or demigod, saying to his henchthings, ''Hey, what can we do today that's really rotten?'' Doing nasty, rotten things for power (''What can we do today to make people do what we want?''), or vengeance (''What can we do today to make life miserable for all those people who mistreated me?), or spite (''What can we do today to make everyone as miserable as I am?''), or even for sexual jollies (''What can we do today that's kinky?''), I can accept, but not just for the sake of evil.

 

And being good for the sake of goodness doesn't work very well, either. Fighting the villains because they're evil doesn't work. For one thing, how do you know they're evil? Fighting the villains because they've harmed people, or threatened to harm people, or might harm people, or just for the sake of fame and glory, I can accept. Even simply out of the personal satisfaction in doing something well, I can accept. But not just because we're good and they're evil.

 

This excludes religious or patriotic crusades, of course, which are often based on ''We're good, they're evil,'' but where in fact neither side has a monopoly on either. In crusades, the characters can think they're acting purely because they're good and the other guys are evil, but only in a very weak story would they be right.[/Quote]

[Doug McCrae]

Re: What is Evil?

 

In bad fantasy stories' date=' though, the villains are often evil for the sake of evil, proudly, arrogantly evil, proclaiming from the rooftops that they are the very epitome of evil, doing evil, rotten things just because they're evil.[/quote']Yeah, crap like Milton's Paradise Lost, for example.

[UltraRob]

Re: What is Evil?

 

"So, you're working for the good guys, and you think we aren't?" -Quote from the Maximum Metal book for cyberpunk I always liked. Point being that indeed, as noted here, the vast majority of opposition the PCs or heros face in a game or story are in fact just people doing their job. (Or trying to survive, in many cases of Fantasy creatures.)

 

That said, I do disagree with Watt-Evan's rules of Fantasy a little bit, there ARE evil people in the world, the real world. However, these people don't think of themselves as being "evil" or even "good", such concepts never occur to them, they are so self-absorbed that they probably couldn't even think in these concepts. We call them Sociopaths, and the true ones, the Ted Bundies of the world, have no concept of what people here are even talking about. The don't do evil because they are being evil, they have no concept of it, they only have concepts of what interests them, what they enjoy, and what may give them pleasure. You could call it "absolute selfishness" or perhaps "narcissism" in it's most extreme form, but regardless by most social standards these men are "evil" by most definitions of the word. (Psychologists like to think of them as being "sick", but that's a whole other kettle of fish.) Really, they have the one thing that gives a person absolute freedom and perhaps power in society....they don't care. They don't play by the rules, and usually don't understand why you do, but since you do and they don't, they don't see the harm in taking advantage of you.

 

Hmm...am I talking about sociopaths or some gamers I've played with....

 

Rob

[Enforcer84]

Re: What is Evil?

 

A better question:

 

What is hip? Tell me tell me, do you think you know...

[ghost-angel]

Re: What is Evil?

 

A better question:

 

What is hip? Tell me tell me, do you think you know...

 

the part of the human body that connects the leg to the waist?

 

 

and me, of course.

 

 

As for the sociopaths .. one of the reasons they don't think in terms of good/evil in many cases is that they use a completely different measure of morality than everyone else. Narcissism is an excellent word for them.

 

Megalomania is a good word for "Evil Overlord" types..

 

Which is another reason I can't go in for Evil - especially the Evil that comes in the form of Evil Army - I mean it really depends what side you're on there, I bet Macedonia didn't think Alexander's Army was Evil .. Persia on the other hand had a really different view..

[Markdoc]

Re: What is Evil?

 

Actually, I use the same evil-o-meter in games as I do in real life. There are people who LIKE to do bad things. I don't think of sociopaths as being evil - they are, as already pointed out, incapable or uninterested in what other people think.

 

That makes them dangerous and/or nasty, but it doesn't necessarily make them evil. However, there are some people who are perfectly well aware of what society and other people consider evil but who get some kind of twisted jollies out of inflicting that on other people, or (if they lack the guts) on small animals.

 

So I define evil as the willing infliction of pain or suffering on others for amusement. Makaku in Alita: Battle Angel expressed it thus: "Consider pain and suffering like a river - it flows from a higher place to a lower. By inflicting pain and terror on everyone around me, I can assure that I am never subject to it."

 

cheers, Mark

[Logan D]

Re: What is Evil?

 

A better question:

 

What is hip? Tell me tell me, do you think you know...

 

 

"I"m so cool, you could store a side of beef in me for a month! I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis!" - Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Beetle]

Re: What is Evil?

 

"I"m so cool' date=' you could store a side of beef in me for a month! I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis!" - Zaphod Beeblebrox[/quote']

"You're so unhip, it's a wonder your bum doesn't fall off."

"My what, sir?" - Zaphod Beeblebrox and a waiter

[Nyrath]

Re: What is Evil?

 

There does seem to be a tendency to equate extreme selfishness with evil and extreme self-less ness with saintliness. That is, a thief selfishly wants money, and doesn't care that they are stealing it from you; a saintly person might spend all their free time ministering to the sick.

 

In this light, "vengence" is sort of an enforced education in not being selfish. Kind of making the selfish person "walk a mile in your shoes", at gunpoint.

 

"You murdered my father! Well, let's see how you like having your father murdered!" *chop!*

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: What is Evil?

 

And being good for the sake of goodness doesn't work very well' date=' either. Fighting the villains because they're evil doesn't work. For one thing, how do you know they're evil? Fighting the villains because they've harmed people, or threatened to harm people, or might harm people, or just for the sake of fame and glory, I can accept. Even simply out of the personal satisfaction in doing something well, I can accept. But not just because we're good and they're evil.[/quote']

I guess I agree with most of what Watt-Evans says, but I don't quite understand the distinction here. What's the difference between: "We fight them because they're evil. Evil being defined by the tendency to harm people." and "We fight them because thay have a tendency to harm people."? The only difference is that the former have a word for "tending to harm people," namely "evil."

 

This excludes religious or patriotic crusades, of course, which are often based on ''We're good, they're evil,'' but where in fact neither side has a monopoly on either. In crusades, the characters can think they're acting purely because they're good and the other guys are evil, but only in a very weak story would they be right.

And he seems to contradict himself here. After saying that no one is wholly good or wholly evil, in this paragraph he seems to imply that for religious/patriotic people and causes, they must have a "monopoly" in order to be considered good or evil. People and societies can be good or evil independent of what they think of themselves. And good and evil are real concepts even if a particular individual or group believes in an imperfect or even bass-ackwards definition of them. An evil society may have some good points and vice versa, but when a good society goes to war against an evil society, they can very well be right depending on whether or not they really are good, and more importantly, on whether their enemy really is evil.

 

"We're good and they're evil because we wear fancy clothes and they run around half naked." In this case, they would be wrong, because they have confused their cultural traditions with morality.

"We're good and they're evil because they have gold which we could put to better use." In this case, they would be wrong, arbitrarily claiming the moral high ground in an attempt to justify an economic desire.

"We're good and they're evil because we live peacefully with our neighbors and they frequently raid their neighbor's lands looting, pillaging, kidnapping, and burning." In this case, they would be right.

[keithcurtis]

Re: What is Evil?

 

Macedonia didn't think Alexander's Army was Evil .. Persia on the other hand had a really different view..

 

I don't really think of the ancient world as possessing the modern concepts of good and evil. I think "Us and Them" was much closer to their mindset. Likewise, Justice is a more modern concept; certainly Social Justice.

People in the ancient world were often total bastards to each other. Nobody particularly liked it, but I think it was a much more acepted norm. It's just the way it is (was).

The Roman Empire crucified as a daily policy. Torture was the accepted means to interrogation. Lesson: Terrible as they might seem, these are the Good Old Days.

 

Keith "Hard to get across to role-players" Curtis

[assault]

Re: What is Evil?

 

A good example of the problems of applying modern moral conceptions to the ancient world is the slave revolt lead by Spartacus (and the earlier Sicilian revolts, but few people know about them).

 

The slaves were, of course, the most nastily oppressed section of society (in general). Clearly, their revolt was morally justified - "Good".

 

I'm not stressed about their various acts of reprisal against their owners - sometimes chickens come home to roost. Fussing about their "Evil" acts here is really just siding with their owners.

 

The more difficult question is: what social and political conceptions did they hold? What kind of society would Spartacus have led if he had survived?

 

The answer, unfortunately, is that he would have probably wound up leading a society very much like the one he rebelled against!

 

Why? Because, ultimately, he would have had no choice.

 

Reality is rarely generous in such matters.

[dbsousa]

Re: What is Evil?

 

I don't really think of the ancient world as possessing the modern concepts of good and evil. I think "Us and Them" was much closer to their mindset. Likewise, Justice is a more modern concept; certainly Social Justice.

People in the ancient world were often total bastards to each other. Nobody particularly liked it, but I think it was a much more acepted norm. It's just the way it is (was).

The Roman Empire crucified as a daily policy. Torture was the accepted means to interrogation. Lesson: Terrible as they might seem, these are the Good Old Days.

 

Keith "Hard to get across to role-players" Curtis

I suspect Socrates would disagree with you. Aristotle would probably be right on board, though...

[SKJAM!]

Re: What is Evil?

 

If you want to have philosophy as a major theme of the campaign, then you could design the various societies of the world around their answers of "what is evil?"

 

For example, the player characters' "home" society might have a 21st Century North American style attitude, "Evil is what threatens the physical or mental well-being of others, including their freedom to do anything which is not evil." Even if that attitude is not exactly "period." For ease of play, there'd be a couple of modifications, say for example "Aggressive self-defense is not evil," and "slaying beings not considered 'human' is not evil."

 

The theocracy over in the next country has the attitude, "Whatever is specifically commanded by our holy book is Good. Whatever is forbidden by it is Evil. Situations not directly covered by our holy book are left to the judgement of the believer." Which is okay, except that they insist on applying their rules to unbelievers as well....

 

The elves to the south go with this definition: "That which threatens the balance of nature is evil." This tends to include most human ideas of agriculture and industry, a sore point with the humans.

 

The rapidly growing empire to the north has the attitude, "Evil is a word used by the weak to attempt to shackle the strong. It has no actual value." For some reason, everyone else on the continent refers to them as "the Evil Empire."

[cyst13]

Re: What is Evil?

 

I think there is a good reason that evil races or species or individuals are a staple primarily of the fantasy genre. (Space opera has gottem too, but space opera and fantasy are basically the same genre in different clothes) The concept of evil works best in a religious or supernatural sense. God and Satan can be described as intrinsically evil and you can't question their motivations because they are beyond human reality.

 

Down here on Earth, the closer we look at the brain/mind of real people, the more we realize how little control we really have over our actions. I know it's easy to dismiss all psychology as hoohah, because so much of it has been exactly that. But recent advances in brain chemistry and the ability to view brain activity in living people is providing good, scientifically credible evidence that sociopaths and child molesters and others whom we would consider to be evil often do have aberrant neural physiologies. As much as it impinges upon our ideas of free will and just retribution, we are eventually going to have to admit that not everyone is capable of restraining themselves from committing attrocious acts. I think the concept of evil is just a mask that keeps us from having to examine why people do 'evil' things.