According to David Frankfurter, professor of religious studies and history at the University of New Hampshire, evil does not exist. It is merely an idea people have made up to describe acts they cannot otherwise make sense of.
“People have been obsessed by evil for centuries—obsessed with what evil is, who is evil, and how to avoid evil—and the 21st century is no exception. President Bush famously dubbed Iran, North Korea, and Iraq the Axis of Evil in his 2002 State of the Union address. In casual conversation and media stories alike, terrorists, politicians and criminals are labeled evil. With all these accepted references to evil, it is time that its true nature is exposed and thoroughly examined,” Frankfurter says.
“We become lost in these large-scale terms for evil, invoking them for every anxiety, every criminal suspect, every political maneuver,” he says. “Those who have become wed to large-scale schemes of danger and conspiracy have sought to root it out by any means necessary.”
“One imagines the view of Tutsis in 1994 Rwanda, the view of Jews in 1939 Germany (and often in European history), and the view of Christians in second-century Rome. They represent predators, obstacles to safety and success,” Frankfurter says.
When society labels people as evil, it places them outside humanity where others don't have to think about motivations or context in any critical way. “Use of this label amounts to intellectual laziness and has led, consistently, to the worst atrocities we know about. Speaking of ‘evil’ leads people to evil,” Frankfurter says.
But wasn't Adolf Hitler genuinely evil? Was Stalin not an evil murderer of 20 million people?
What do you think?
www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789 www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2006/september/lw_060908evil.cfm?type=n