LITMIR.BIZ

      Paul Gustave Doré, Lucifer, King of Hell

      The name “devil” derives from the Greek word diabolos, which means “slanderer” or “accuser.” As a concept, the devil symbolizes all of the baser, negative emotions and desires such as temptation, evil, greed, and hatred, and is antithetical to the higher virtues. Most cultures have some kind of devil figure, a diametric opposite of the God/creator force.

      EVIL 101

      So…what exactly is evil?

      In simplest terms, evil is a label given to anything that is deliberately immoral, cruel, harmful, or unjust. Evil is different from “bad,” and that difference is entirely built upon intent. Easy examples: Losing control of a car and running over a puppy is bad. Deliberately chasing it up onto the lawn and running it over is evil.

      Most evil, however, is conditional on a point of view and situational variables. Take the puppy example. If the puppy is rabid and is about to bite a toddler in a sandbox, then driving a car over it is a good act, even a heroic one. But by this same example, is the puppy now evil for wanting to bite the kid? From one point of view it was deliberately intending to bite the toddler; from another it can easily be argued that the dog was not capable of normal behavior because of the active symptoms of a disease known to create erratic behavior.

      The sound you hear is a big ol’ can of worms being opened up.

      This argument can be extended in a lot of directions. If we replace the puppy and toddler with a man and a woman, then if the man stabs the woman to death is he evil? If he deliberately wishes to degrade and harm the woman, we’d all pretty much agree that, yeah, he’s evil. But what if the killer is a psychotic driven to violence by a brain tumor or an imbalance of brain chemistry? The evil label is hard to pin to that because “choice” seems to have been edited out of the equation, or at the very least the power of personal choice has been severely weakened.

      This is why most states will incarcerate and treat a homicidal maniac rather than execute him. Then you have the question of nature versus nurture. Is a person who commits evil disposed to do so because of the way he’s organically wired? Or does it require one or more negative influences to shove a person toward the dark side? Case studies of many violent and degraded serial murderers reveal that they were the victims of abusive childhoods. Is that enough? If we’re asked to accept a bad childhood as the gun from which the evil adult “bullet” is fired, then why aren’t all abused people evil? Or…even most of them? Why don’t all people with chemical imbalances or brain tumors turn to mass murder?

      The nature versus nurture argument, particularly as it relates to evil, seems to be lacking a crucial third component: choice. Choice is a central component to the unique makeup of the human mind. Even a person who feels a powerful call from his or her internal darkness can make a choice whether to answer or ignore.

      The Root (Word) of All Evil

      In Old English is was Yfel; in German it’s Übel, in Dutch it’s Euvel. The exact meaning is uncertain, though linguists and historians believe it dates back to early words for “transgression,” or sin.

      And it is choice, you see, that gives us an understanding of evil. Without choice evil does not exist because evil itself is a choice. Evil isn’t the action, it’s the intention behind the action.

      UNDER THE INFLUENCE

      In many cultures evil is something a person does only when under the influence of a negative spiritual force such as the devil or a possessing demon. This extends into most forms of supernatural belief. It’s easier to understand—and even accept—the reality of an otherwise ordinary person doing an evil act if we accept that a demonic force drove him to it. Especially if he was driven to it against his will, which makes the comforting argument that the natural inclination of people is to resist or oppose evil rather than perpetrate it.

      This logic can be broadened to accept that all harmful acts occur because an evil force makes it so. Evil is seen in disease and storms and catastrophes of all kinds, and for many people this is a strangely comforting thing.

      We can see it in the rationalization for infant mortality before sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was understood. Many of the world’s vampiric beliefs are built around the unexpected death of a child—a child who dies in the night with no visible marks, no preexisting health conditions, no other logical reason. For the parents of such a child, especially those in preindustrial cultures hundreds of years ago, the need to have an answer to this inexplicable tragedy was of first importance. The unexplained is unbearable; it erodes confidence and faith and sanity, particularly when it involves so significant a loss as the death of someone so innocent. There must be a reason.

      So what was it?

      In the absence of a physical cause—bite or disease or a bad fall—the grieving parents looked elsewhere for an answer. Simple folk could simply not accept that God had killed their young and sinless child. So…if not natural causes and not God, then there must be some unnatural cause that is antithetical to the loving and benign nature of God. In order to restore some semblance of balance, of justice to their world, they had to accept the possibility that there was something out there that wanted to do harm to their child, which had in fact done harm.

      Hence the birth of malevolent and predatory monsters.

      If they could accept that some kind of monster came under cover of darkness to do deliberate harm to the child, then this—however horrific and tragic—made a kind of sense. There are enough parallels in nature to give it sense: animals hunting and killing one another. The leap from the knowledge of animal predators to a belief in supernatural predators is not that big.

      Such beliefs even persist into modern days. After 9/11 some televangelists declared that it was God’s punishment on gays that led the al Qaeda to commit their terrorist acts.

      Yes, take a moment here to admire the scope of that stupidity.

      Which brings up another twist on the good and evil thing. For some individuals, the supernatural intrusion is on the part of a holy entity—God, an angel, etc.—against one or more humans who have embraced evil. This thinking has been the basis for every “holy war” in history in that one or both sides feel that they have been empowered and mandated by the Eternal to go lay a smack-down on the [fill in the blank—infidel, unholy, heretical, whatever].

      There is enough evidence to support the contention that many organized religions have fostered beliefs in evil. It’s good church politics and it’s a great sales tool. Depending on your own personal beliefs it may even be true.¹

      Good vs. Evil

      “The most effective good versus evil storytelling I’ve been a part of was Pan’s Labyrinth. So complex and so reminiscent of the wrestling of childhood demons we all had to conquer. Being involved with the Hellboy world has also involved fleshing out a struggle of an inherent evil within us that we have the choice to overcome or not…Good and evil battle it out in our hearts every day. Watching or reading fantasy stories where these forces have names and faces inspires us to go back home and finish that battle of our own.”—Actor Doug Jones plays Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films, among other roles.

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