Recognizing Evil
“Is there a way to have recognized and aborted baby Hitler?” At first is an hilarious question, because it is seeking to alter the past based on what we know adult Hitler actually did, but a reasonable one with a bit more pondering. Would we, by eliminating baby Hitler, have saved the millions he killed? Maybe, we will never know for sure, but taking such a chance is worth every inch of it.
However, if we are interested in making the future better, we should be more concerned with: how do we recognize and kill “today’s baby Hitler”? An idea which would be impossible to put into practice without severe ethical violations, as it presumes knowledge of the future, which nobody possesses. However, the spirit of the question is way more important, for I think what the question seeks is: How shall we recognize evil men or women? Or inversely: How shall we recognize good men or women?
Alhaji Buba
Alhaji Buba speaking to his sons Fati and Babi, “go work today in my workshop”, Fati replied “I will not”, Babi replied “I will my dear father”. At the end of the day Fati had gone and Babi had not. Who actually did the work?
If you picked Babi, go straight to heaven, do not pass Hell or death, go straight to heaven.
Note: the above is an adaptation of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 21 : 28-31
Words or deeds
Lenin preached a utopian vision for the working class, he believed in Marx’ idea of a classless society, where no class dominates or controls another class. In execution, Lenin would resort to mass murders to bring about a naïve vision – it never took human nature into account.
Shall we judge Lenin’s goodness based on the words he declared or the acts he executed?
Gandhi sought independence for India, he wanted his nation free from servitude to a foreign nation. In execution, he would go through personal pain, suffer several imprisonments and hunger strikes to see his vision come to pass.
Shall we judge Gandhi’s goodness based on the words he declared or the acts he executed?
A potentially infinite number of sentences can be stringed together by the human mind, but a finite amount of work can be executed by the human body. So that evaluating the goodness of a person by the words they speak would require waiting for infinite time to “end” and finally making a decision.
Clearly no man goes about with a megaphone declaring his intentions as evil, even if they are, he finds words to coat them as good, making words a bad criteria to make sound judgments on the goodness of a person, as also seen from Fati and Buba.
Demarcation
Thanos, in a bid to end suffering and make resources abundantly available to all life, would love to snap his fingers and eliminate half of all life in the universe, Interestingly though Thanos himself was not interested in being one of the half that will be eliminated. He wanted others to sacrifice for the greater good, but he was not interested in sacrificing for the greater good, he did not want his skin in the game, but he wanted to dictate the game.
If a man really believes he is doing good, shouldn’t he also want that same act he classifies as good done unto him? Herein lies my demarcation:
The good man is willing to execute that which he considers good on himself first, hoping that by example others would willingly follow. The evil man does not eat his own dog food, his real interest is bringing about his vision by controlling others willingly or not.If you think all property should be owned equally, have you distributed all your belongings first?
If you think slavery is for the good of all, how about being one first?
If you think killing others serves a higher purpose, why not die first for that higher purpose?
Embedded in the demarcation above are two separate concepts, first is the will to inflict that which one considers good on oneself, second is the lack of the use of force to get others to follow suit.
Jesus was a great example of this, giving his life in the name of doing good, hoping that his disciples would willingly follow and oh boy did they. Today, there are still people who will die for the gospel – willingly.
Lenin set up several institutions to carry out his plans by, if necessary, the use of force, the secret police being one, an institution he used to execute those who would dare criticize or oppose him, one which Stalin and Hitler would later use with greater effectiveness.
The good man or woman, like the good lover, seeks the consent of others to come of their own free will. The second you notice coercion, have no doubt something evil is up, irrespective of the “good words” you might hear.
One constant trait of wicked men or women is that they make themselves seemingly indispensable for the attainment of their grandiose dreams and visions, casting themselves as the “called” one to bring about the future, without which the beautiful future will not be. Thus, using their self-crafted “called” status as a validation to crush all opponents who criticize or oppose the “called” one.
What then?
In the early stages of execution, a man or woman who does not put their skin in the game, who will not eat their own dog food, who seeks to control others against their will (all the men and women that in retrospect we consider evil had these tendency at the very early stages), is one to resist before they gain too much power to carry out irreparable damage. This can be an essential demarcation tool both on a personal level of relationships and in the broader context of leaders in the society.
Thank you for reading.