A Brief Take on Good and Evil

Throughout the course of human history, the word "evil" has been a constant. Men and women wielding pitchforks chased down witches in the late 1600s out of fear, for a witch was an evil being who used black magic for evil purposes. Pagans and their gods were written off as evil and slaughtered under the Church for centuries, some of their most important symbols being changed into symbols of the Devil, the ultimate culmination of evil itself. For example, Poseidon's trident was revised a pitchfork, Saytyrs and the nature god Pan's hooves and horns as the Devil's goat-like characteristics, and the Pentagram as the Devil's complete symbol); in George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode IV, the second sentence written in the opening crawl states that "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." The word "evil" has been thrown unto countless people, organizations and actions since as long as anyone can remember. Before we start on why this is so wrong, it must first be defined as to what evil actually is.

Webster's dictionary defines evil as such: "1a: morally reprehensible: sinful, wicked // an evil impulse. 1b: arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct // a person of evil reputation."

So it can be agreed that when someone says the word "evil" it is the implication that the person on the receiving end of that is of wicked character, and does sinful things. So, witches, pagans, and stormtroopers all apparently possess these traits. Well, let's look a little deeper into each of these three examples and decide whether or not each is really evil.

I won't bore you with the details on the first and silliest example: stormtroopers are just doing their jobs. Many of them most likely had families that they were providing for, or simply lived where they worked since a young age and had friends and relationships within their stations. Sure, many of them fought and plundered, but it was under the orders of others, who were under the orders of more powerful people, leading up to the Emperor, a man with a thirst for power and little care for those under him.

Next, pagans were and still are simply polytheistic peoples who hold nature as holy and practice worship how they individually see fit. They do not and never have worshipped the Devil, as was claimed by many devout Christians at the time, leading up to the leaders of the Church and monarchs who wanted everyone to believe in their divine right to power.

Finally, witches were most often just women with land, people who knew medicine and how to use different herbs for their healing properties. The main reason for witch burnings and prosecutions was the simple reason that in those days, in that part of the world, men were supposed to own land and have power over others. When women showed themselves to be both capable with medicine and have the power of owning land, people felt threatened. Most specifically, men who owned property felt threatened, and wanted more on the side anyways. So, they claimed that women this powerful must be magic, and must have used their wicked powers to steal all of this from men, the rightful owners. The fact that the women in question were knowledgeable in healing was what strengthened people's cases against them, and is consequentially why so many modern depictions of witches involve cauldrons and bubbling potions.

And so, the evil witches were burned, the pagans slaughtered, the stormtroopers... well, storm troopers are beloved, iconic symbols, but they still got blown up a lot. The point being that each group was hated and called evil, when the orchestrators of the hate were really individuals who wanted more: the Kings with "divine right", the property men who wanted the land owned by women, and the power-hungry Emperor. Land, power and control, individual rulers scaring those below them into carrying out their dirty work. It's a very common thing: thugs and assassins are hired by rich bosses and scheming corporation owners in countless spy and crime films, yet no one feels bad when Mr. Bond strangles an unsuspecting guard, because he's just some evil guy. But this ideal goes further into real life than we might think. Many wars fought in history, for example, involved two kings who paid armies to go kill each other because the two individuals wanted more power. The opposing soldiers and generals weren't evil, they didn't hate the other side, but they were paid to—that was their job. During the Civil War, countless soldiers couldn't care less if the Confederates did or did not succeed from the Union- they just wanted to go home to their families and be done with it, and many deserters did just that. And, of course, they were called traitors and cowards, and many were punished as such. But don't you see the pattern? As we get more and more specific about why BOTH sides are in conflict, the line blurs on who is right and who is wrong. Each time, there's no wrong side. If you were a pagan, it did not make you evil, but neither was being a Christian or a subject under the king make you evil. The stormtroopers were just doing their jobs, and the rebels were just trying to be free of tyranny from the Emperor's policies. The people who hunted down witches were wrong, but they were just scared, scared of what they'd been told by the men who wanted more. If you turn to Disney, you can see that theme repeated countless times. In Beauty and the Beast (1991), the towns-people go after the Beast because Gaston tells them that he must be evil and that he's a threat to them. In the song "Kill the Beast" the chorus "We don't like what we don't understand, in fact it scares us, and this monster is mysterious at least." This fear was not found in Belle after spending time with the "monster", and is only inspired by Gaston's words, his greed. Similarly, in Pocahontas (1995), the conflict between the white men and the Native Americans stems from Ratcliffe's want for power, as demonstrated in the song "Savages"— "...their skin's a hellish red, they're only good when dead, they're vermin as I said, and worse!... they're not like you and me, which means they must be evil..." As we full well know, the Native Americans in the story are not evil, they are not demons, they are not from hell, they are just people. The Beast is not a monster, he's a kind creature who can be reasoned with. The orchestrators of the fear and hatred are the men who want something that their opponents have. Whether it is land, faith, allegiance, wealth, someone else's love, or power, it is the same. If there must be a placement of the label "evil" on anything, it's on the people who put the word out there in the first place. People who kill for power, who commit genocide for land and control over others, those people are the true bearers of evil, and they bear it with a vengeance. Despite this, evilness is not the root of their actions—desire is. That is the perspective with which we can look at both sides of a conflict with and realize that nobody is truly evil, and that everyone believes that what they're trying to do is right. Even if what someone does is immoral, a person never does something evil for the reason that they are JUST evil. There is always a motive. I think that if we remember this more in every situation and on both sides of the coin, even if we agree with one side more, we can take a calmer approach to conflicts, and work towards a better way of handling disagreements- as well as exposing the true people who commit evil actions, and setting each record straight.