Evil's Place In Society
Created | Updated Jan 12, 2005
Evil's Place In Society
This entry deals with evil in our current society. This will not be an attempt to define it in the grand scale of history or it's rise over the ages and especially not to justify unethical acts.
What is evil?
In a modern society with an organization that sets global standards of behaviour1 evil can easily be defined as anything that doesn't conform to their standards. This is simply a catch all statement to imply stuff like "inhumane" treatment of people and such.
As you can guess, in today's society, with things like Gay Marriage, Religious Freedom and such, what is Evil is beinning to have quite a few grey areas.
Evil's Place In Religion
Throughout religious history "evil" has had a place in enforcing belief. Most blatent is Christianity's take on Hell. "If you don't follow our teachings you'll suffer eternal tourment." But there are effects of evil on other religions. Take a look at Hinduism and the concept of Karma. "Be good in this life and you will have a better next life. Screw up big, and come back as a dung beatle." Similar variations are rampant in any religion. If you know of one that doesn't have any form of reprecution, by all means, let me know. Mind you, the common thread linking all religions together is the cliche "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Evil's Place In Education
This isn't an attempt to prove school evil. But this does link with the topic above. How do people learn what is evil and what isn't? This is the key point behind early education, it's a mater of social conditioning. Many children can tell you what is right and wrong before they can read or write. They may not know why squishing Hammy is wrong, they just know it is. This means peoples actions are limited before they have any reasoning capibilities. This is another control tactic, both govermental and social. A person won't randomly start a snowball fight in the middle of Toronto for two reasons, 1) There's no snow. 2) More importantly, they were taught that throwing a snowball is wrong.
To be continued