"Necessary Evil"

[qos]

An acquaintance used the prase "necessary evil" recently, and it got me thinking -- again -- about its implications. The more I think about it, the less I like it.

Is there such a thing as an action that is indeed a "necessary" "evil"?

Is it "necessary" -- or are we suffering from a failure of imagination in being able to come up with other, better alternatives?

Or can we indeed imagine better alternatives, but are prevented from acting on them by outside forces that we can not in that moment overcome? Or by our own internal limitations?

Is the choice we make truly "evil" -- or are we using that word instead of something else?
Is it harsh, painful, unsatisfying, a source of grief?
Do we default to naming something "evil" when what we really mean is "painful from my perspective"?

Are there some situations which are so suffused with evil that there is no choice that is not tainted by it?


I don't have the answers, but I'm curious about other peoples' perspectives.

Comments

[wyldlingspirit.livejournal.com]

I don't like using the term "evil". It tends to signify something that we, as a culture and society, don't condone or like. But in another culture and society it might be perfectly fine, i.e. ritual headhunting. In America we freak out at the idea, but in other cultures it's a sacred act. Calling something "evil" is knocking on the door of discrimination, elitism, and an "us and them" mentality.

Of course, your mileage may very, there are exceptions to every rule, et cetera ad nauseum.

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. I tend to believe that 'evil' is a human concept that is strongly based on societal differences. There is no such thing as evil in the natural world. This thought actually came about when I sat back to consider what demons, Hell, and Satan were in my cosmology (I'm certainly not Christian, but I do believe those things exist. I just believe [almost] everything else also exists.)

[stiobhanrune.livejournal.com]

I would say that "evil" is in the eye of the beholder. That being said, I would also say that I prefer the terms "kama" and "mara" to "good and evil."

Kama, the god of desire and love in Hindu mythology, is also known as Madana, the Maddener of Spirits, essentially. He has the power to divert and charm even the Gods with his arrows, something which supposedly made Shiva very angry, and subsequently resulted in Shiva obliterating him.

(Don't worry, he was resurrected. It turns out that this universe is terribly empty and sad without Kama.)

But, to the Buddhists, he is called Mara, who in some sects was originally said to be Kama's twin. Mara is the god of all hollow obsession and empty deed. Like, every 30-yr-old man masturbating to porn at his computer, and every shallow 20-something desperate to find validation under the pinky-blue lights of a seedy nightclub. Every moment of buyer's remorse, every piece of chocolate you ate to console yourself, but found nothing of value instead.

Whereas, Kama is the opposite- same situations, but not hollowed out and empty. Virtue, fire, light and exquisite pain/pleasure.

The Vedas say that kama is one of the four goals of existence, one of the four "goods."

And Buddhism states that falling prey to Mara is the greatest evil one can embrace.


So, the connotation is there, but it gives a better perspective.

I say that evil does exist, but not as Westerners imagine- the universe isn't CS Lewis' Moral Objectivist reality. Morality is individual, and at the same time, the pursuit of good and the fight against evil is one the most valid things a human can do.

Without an understanding of what evil and good are, however... one loses their way.

I say that evil is madness caused by separation from one's reality. I say good is health and balance within one's existence, with a strong and equal presence of excess and moderation.

*grins* But that's me. And again, I also think that evil is within the eye of the beholder. :)

[sekhmetkare.livejournal.com]

My personal take is that true 'evil' is fairly rare. Someone who causes intentional harm to others because they take pleasure in seeing and feeling their pain is evil to me. However, I do not see an action as being evil, only the intention behind it. It's people, not actions, who have the potential for true evil.

Most of the time, I see choices as opposites, one more desirable than the others (or if both/all are negative, one less undesirable than the others). So to me, a "necessary evil" is really the final choice between several undesirable outcomes.

[oakmouse]

I would say there are a few such things, although not many. Examples?

Chemo and radiation to fight cancer. Chemo and radiation are both extremely toxic and do great harm to the body, and as such I feel could reasonably be described as evil in medical terms (first, do no harm). Normally, to a doctor, these things are the enemy because they cause illness and death, However, in cancer therapy, they can kill the cancer before they kill the patient, and thus they save lives if properly used in the right doses.

Execution of certain classes of criminal. Murder --- and execution is judicial murder --- is normally considered, and rightly, to be an evil act. However, when a criminal like Ted Bundy, who has no possibility of reform and no possibility of adequate treatment to render him safe to society ever again, makes it clear that he will do everything in his power to continue carrying out his horrendous behaviors, execution becomes the only reasonable option to protect his potential victims from him.

Finally, war. I think no sane person could describe war as anything other than an evil thing. After his victory at Waterloo, Wellington himself described war as a terrible evil and said he did not wish to ever fight another battle. Yet sometimes --- WWII comes to mind --- war is necessary to control a greater evil.

However, in most cases I think the "lesser evil" is not actually an evil, just a bad or unpleasant thing. The phrase originates in religious discourse and in its original context was meaningful, but in present usage I think it rarely has any meaning left.

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned above, I am of the belief that 'evil' is a creation of humanity, and often societal. Even is something one thinks as morally wrong, and does not exist in nature. Case in point: infanticide. Almost no one can argue that murdering infants and eating them is not evil. However, when a male lion takes over a pride, he often does just that because the females will not go into heat with the cubs around and he wants to insure the survival of his genes. Does this make lions evil?

Having said that, what a lion does is not meant as an act of cruelty, whereas humans can indeed and do commit similar acts for cruel reasons. Perhaps Cruelty is the only true universal Evil. Of course, cruelty is also not something that exactly happens in the natural world. I can't think of another animal besides humans that torments it's prey for the sake of it's personal pleasure.