On Evil, Greed, Self, and Connection

This piece was written by Haeli, a good friend of mine (since kindergarten --- we've come a long way). Haeli argues that "Evil with a capital E" doesn't exist, but that human action characterized as such is actually a manifestation of human selfishness, and is thus not immutable.

I'm still chewing it over myself, and will post a response soon, but my initial reaction is one of combined agreement and skepticism --- agreement with the premise that horrific human behavior is motivated by selfishness, but skepticism over Haeli's belief this "‘evil' apathy" can be overcome. I do think that designating an action or event as "Evil" allows us to comfortably separate ourselves from a phenomenon that is actually far too commonplace --- far too banal, far too close to us all.

An article at Salon.com, "The me-first, screw-everyone-else crowd," resonated particularly with me tonight because of a conversation I had with my boyfriend last night. He was surprised when I told him I do not believe in Evil. He was understandably incredulous.

"No, I don't believe in Evil with a capital E-I don't think absolute evil exists"-and I certainly don't believe that there are external forces like the Devil provoking us to do what we know is wrong.

"I don't believe in Good and Evil;" I told him, "I believe in Selfish and Generous."

Over about 15 years of consideration, I have come to the conclusion that all things that I would classify as approaching "evil" can actually be boiled down to placing one's own good above the greater good or the suffering of others. The greater the disparity between good for oneself and bad for others, the greater the "evil."

It's simple when you deconstruct it.

1. Some people will hurt or neglect others out of a selfish desire for money.
(Examples: a hitman kills someone for profit; a corporation knowingly uses harmful pesticides around its farm workers to avoid paying more for safer practices.)

2. Some people will hurt or neglect others out of a selfish desire for power.
(Examples: a dictator rises to power through widespread slaughter; a husband abuses his wife or child in order to feel his own power and impact.)

These are obvious examples, but there is a more subtle level:

3. Some people will hurt or neglect others out of a selfish and misguided drive for self-preservation. Note the word "misguided" here. I think we can agree that real, personal self-defense is not a bad thing. When there is no real threat, or the threat is not as great/significant as it feels, however, acting out against the perceived threat is bad.

(Example: A straight, married couple wants to deny a gay couple the right to marry on the mistaken assumption that the gay marriage will somehow change the nature of what the straight husband and wife have between themselves; a high school student who is being taunted and tormented at school decides the appropriate course of reaction is to go on a shooting spree-the student has perceived the threat as great enough to warrant murder, and has decided this is the only way to cope with the abuse. Both of these examples illustrate an overblown sense of the threat posed, and an inappropriate reaction to the perceived threat.)

4. Some people will hurt or neglect others out of a selfish desire to force others to think and feel the same way they do. This is a big one, because these people often believe deep in their hearts that they are actually being generous in their actions. They believe the world will be a better place if everyone will just think the way they do, and they are willing to use violence, coercion, and other forms of injustice to meet that end.

(Examples: A suicide bomber blows him/herself up in a café in the Green Zone to scare people into bowing to the will of whatever he/she believes-This person believes that he or she is showing the ultimate selflessness by giving his/her life for the cause, but they do not realize that the cause is one of extreme selfishness-"all should believe what I believe."
A soldier in an invading army risks life and limb to spread his/her nation's way of living to another part of the world-again, this soldier sees his/her own sacrifice, but not the fact that the cause itself is rooted in ideological selfishness.

Most provocatively: A church-organized homeless shelter provides food and beds to the local homeless population, but does so on an exchange system (sit through a Bible study if you want dinner, come to worship services if you want to stay overnight, etc.). Here, of course, the shelter feels it is being extremely generous by providing care and the road to salvation, but does not acknowledge the fact that this is a selfish attempt to spread their own belief system. Certainly, this does not even approach the degree of murder, but it is rooted in selfishness, and it is wrong in its own way.)

I may have lost you on #4, but hopefully you are following and see my point, at least for the most part. If you look deeply enough into any action that harms another or ignores their needs, rights, or wellbeing, you will find a seed of selfishness.

If we consider selfishness the root of all "evil" actions that people take, then we can better understand the world. The persistence of Evil in the world has long confused philosophers and theologians, but it makes sense that selfishness has always been present and will always be present. Selfishness is a biological imperative. We all have the drive to help ourselves, to save ourselves, to protect ourselves and our own good.

But it doesn't have to be our fate to hurt each other.

The challenge exists in teaching every human being that helping someone else is helping ourselves, and that harming someone else is harming ourselves. We must understand the interconnectedness we share, and this will sometimes require direct action. For example, a child growing up wealthy in the United States could very well live out a contented life while a child starves across the highway or across the globe. It takes a direct action to introduce these children to each other, and to let them get to know each other. When this happens, when the children bond to each other and then understand their own situations, I believe sharing will come naturally, because as we connect to someone else, we redefine our extended concept of "Self" to include them.

It would take a most unusual person to truly look starvation in the eye, to get to know someone who struggles to get enough to eat, and not offer that person your spare sandwich.  Someone who is dead-set against universal health care will change his or her tune upon being introduced to the people who work incredibly hard every day and still cannot dig themselves out from under the weight of crushing hospital bills due to a deeply broken health care system. Anyone who has really allowed him/herself to get to know someone of a different race cannot hold hateful stereotypes, and people who hold hateful stereotypes can do so because they don't really *know* any of the people they think they hate so much.

I truly believe that people are not that callous. Our "evil" apathy towards one another comes from a major disconnect. We cannot feel each other's pain as our own because we do not know each other. We cannot feel the joy of helping another if we've never seen the good it can do in person, and felt the other's joy in ourselves.

We must learn that empathy, and we can only learn it through connection. Pardon the Bible talk, my fellow atheists, but if we truly learn to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves,' that rampant "evil" will fizzle, because we will be able to expand our hardwired selfishness to include the good of all. Our drive to help, save, and protect ourselves will be expanded and translated into a drive to help, save, and protect everyone around us (animals and plants, too!).

You can see it as the Buddhist "No-Self," or you can see it as the theistic "All God's Creation"-however you frame it, it requires a radical redefinition of the Self through expanding connections.

The No-Self, The All-Self. It all comes out the same. If selfishness is the evil, here is the good.

[Image of Picasso's "Guernica."]