Evil in its sense can manifest in many forms. Universally, some of the actions in the world have attracted the attention of many people, and they have been considered to be evil. Most people have universally viewed actions such as genocides, terrorist attacks or even fraud as evil (Romke). Hence the multimodal text seeks to explore the reasons behind why people commit evil acts and what is our responsibility towards them. Consequently, the primary aim of the book is to inform and not to entertain or persuade. Additionally, the text unravels the causes of evil and what makes us evil and the differences between individual evil and collective evil. Hence, evil is the opposite of good. Moreover, evil can be categorized into different forms such as the ignorant form of evil, the idealistic evil, the instrumental evil and the demonic evil (Romke).
The demonic evil is the evil that normally occurs in the mind of an individual at the first instance. It is doing evil for evil’s sake. However, it is rarely practical in the normal day to day life hence it has been deemed majorly to be fiction. However, instrumental evil is the type which is committed with the intention of achieving a good goal or objective. Most of the perpetrators of this form of evil normally justify themselves with the assurance that the end justifies the means. The evil that is committed backed by the belief that it is justified is the idealistic. The most common examples of such acts are persecutions and even terrorism. Then the ignorant form of evil is normally committed by people who fail to realize the consequences of the impact of their actions.
In society and life in general, people are either good or evil based on their day to day actions. However, understanding why people commit acts of evil gives us a better understanding of how to approach them and to deal with the situation (Saxton). For example, serial killers do not just commit such acts. There are certain drivers in their life that lead them to such a situation. Most of the convicted serial killers are people who were either abused in their childhood or were abandoned by their parents at a tender age. Hence, they are people who have pent up emotions and as a result, they turn to be anti-social and develop psychopathic disorders which lead them to commit such acts (Romke). Hence, they commit acts of evil with the intention of harming others in order to promote themselves since all their life they have been feeling dejected. Additionally, serial killers are deemed as evil since their actions inflict harm or pain to the other people.
Evil is dependent on free will. Hence a person is termed to be evil if they chose to commit the act though they had other alternatives. However, some people are driven to commit the acts of evil because of the mental issues that they have. The other form of evil addressed in the text is collective evil and the premise of this argument is that human beings are situationally evil. The basis of the argument is the fact that some people are essentially good while others are essentially evil. The Milgram experiment that was conducted revealed that most people would actually commit acts of evil if they are encouraged by the people in authority. Hence the proper example of collective evil is a genocide (Saxton).
The text successfully succeeds in informing the audience on the causes of evil in the society. Additionally, it also gives an overview on the views of different scholars about good and evil together with their reasoning about the causes of evil. Moreover, the exposition on the different types of evil committed by individual’s factors in the cultural aspect of the understanding of good and evil. As a result, the acts which are deemed to be good are not evil and they aim at enhancing the lives of individuals or the members of the society around us (Romke). Hence, the key objective that the author sought to achieve was to unearth the underlying causes of why people commit acts of evil. The approach has been synthesised into two building blocks which are mainly collective evil and only evil. From an individual perspective, anyone can commit both evil deeds and good deeds. Hence, most people who commit good do so because of their family or religious background which teaches them to focus on acts which are morally good. Additionally, some of the people commit good acts mainly due to the fear that they may suffer the consequences of the evil actions.
However, people in the society need to take into consideration that the term evil must be used carefully. The fact that the term should be used cautiously should not prevent us from condemning evil acts (Saxton). Also, by condemning evil acts we portray ourselves as the ambassadors and protectors of good. Moreover, for individuals to effectively overcome evil they need to realize that they also have the potential of committing evil. The awareness ensures that we are consciously ware of the sources of evil. Finally, no form of comfort can be achieved by calling others evil since the acts of evil can be committed by anyone.
References
Romke, Anna. The Line Between Good And Evil. 1st ed., 2012, pp. 1-23.
Saxton, Calvin. "The Social Psychology Of Good And Evil". The Journal Of Nervous And Mental Disease, vol 194, no. 4, 2006, pp. 306-307., https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Citation/2006/04000/The_Social_Psychology_of_Good_and_Evil.12.aspx. Accessed 23 Apr 2018.
