“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
―Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What has helped you to understand someone who you wanted to denounce as evil?
One thought on “Understanding Evil”
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No one has ever denounced me as evil, though my 5year old granddaughter hated something I said last week that she screamed so loud I had to go outdoors.
I don’t believe in “evil.” For one thing, it has no antonym. ‘Good’ has an antonym…bad.
French and many other languages have no word for ‘evil.’ There are many French words for really, really bad but which is at the translators discretion rather than an actual synonym in most cases.
I see the American word “evil” as a dog-whistle word for enemy or bad person. You know, (s)he’s evil. There is no need to explain further. That’s an evil animal…kill it. That’s an evil thought…never mention it again. Think about who uses this word, and when. I was once in a Christian Sunday service in Tennessee where the minister called Yankees like myself “evil.” I asked him about his choice of words in the hand-shake line. Why? I asked. He smiled and shook my hand, and said “Be abuse that’s what they want to hear.