In our times, we have witnessed the forces of darkness and destruction take over the Oval Office. Recently, I've had a few moments in which it seemed not only valid, but most illuminating, to understand this takeover in the spiritual terms of "the opportunism of evil." What greater target could evil choose in the entire world than to occupy the highest place of power in the most powerful nation on earth?
THE CONCEPT OF EVIL, RECAPITULATED
I've said many times that the most important deepening of my understanding in my two-plus years of this anti-Bushite mission has concerned the phenomenon of evil. It was toward the end of the summer of 2004 that I began thinking of the Bushite forces in terms of evil and I continued to grapple with the subject into the summer of 2005. My explorations culminated in my writing the essay, "The Concept of Evil: Why It is Intellectually Valid and Politically and Spiritually Important."
(That essay can be read at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=91 and the video of my giving a talk about those same ideas can be seen at http://nonesoblind.org/video3.html
I argued there that our religious tradition's vision of there being at the core of the human drama an ongoing battle between good and of evil is not, as many of us have supposed it to be, a case of "primitive," "black-and-white" thinking. It is, rather, a profound insight into a level of reality that is more vast and deep than we can generally perceive in our usual frame of mind.
My own envisioning of this battle of good against evil did not affirm the traditional ideas of God and Satan, i.e. of supernatural conscious beings who command vast forces in that battle. Rather what I believed visible --in the large perspective of human cultures moving through history-was the persistence of forces that work either to create those structures that serve the needs of life or to destroy those structures. "These forces seem comprehensible in naturalistic terms," I wrote, "but also so vast and enduring that they require an expansion of our usual narrow perspective for us to perceive them; so subtle and transcendent in their operation that they do seem of a spiritual nature-acting as if they were animated by benign or malign intention."
The phrase "as if" figured several times in my presentation of evil, particularly when I described the "opportunism" of the forces of evil. I described the breakdown in recent decades in America of many of the important moral structures of goodness, and then spoke of how that breakdown created an opportunity that "evil" forces and patterns have seized, "as if they were animated by some spirit of darkness looking to expand its empire."
Much of the time, this vision of things remains too deep and too vast for me to encompass with my mind. But at moments of what feels like fuller insight, I again see evil working in this way. It is in one of those moments that, a couple of weeks ago, I felt that I grokked a dimension of how and why it is that the evil forces of the Bushites have arisen in America in this time.
THE NATURALISTIC EQUIVALENT OF SATAN
On one point I would like again to be clear: I do not believe in Satan. At those moments, however, when I am most able to encompass in my mind the complex and interlocking patterns of destructiveness, and envision their interactions and unfolding over time, I believe I glimpse the naturalistic equivalent of the Evil One: an opportunistic force that plays to win.
If you were the Evil One, and your goal was to extend the dominion of the forces of darkness and destruction as far across the world as you could, what would be the most important points on the playing board of the world to control? Surely, a big part of the answer would be: those points from which the most power is wielded. That's because it is because it is the nature of power that –for better or for worse-it can impose its imprint upon what it touches.
The nodes of power are, therefore, central battlegrounds in the struggle between good and evil in the world. For that reason, if one grants the premise of evil's opportunism, one would expect that any governmental power anywhere in the world would be a continual temptation and target for any "naturalistic equivalent of evil." But this would be especially so with regard to the Oval Office in recent years, i.e. since the end of the cold war, when the United States was left as "the world's one remaining superpower."
With no power on the planet powerful enough to check that American power, the Oval Office presented evil with an exceptional opportunity to spread its broken ways across the world.
From the Oval Office, a great deal can be broken in the world, as we have lamentably witnessed.
And, such are the workings of the multi-dimensional patterns and forces that comprise evil that, in the United States, the Bushite forces coalesced, gathering forces on the fringe of the political arena, and proceeded to march their way into almost a degree of control over the American superpower that seemed for a time virtually unchecked.
Looking at the interlocking patterns of brokenness from the micro-level of the human soul, people suitable to serve as the agents of evil are always in adequate supply. There are plenty of individuals whose spirits have been damaged by their upbringings (their injurious socialization being itself part of the unfolding of social pathologies through the culture and the generations). And one of the natural manifestations of such damage can be the lust for power.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
what you are saying, and trying to communicate, and point out. I also understand that your insights have a lot of meaning to you, and that you want to pass this on. To 'normal' people, who can follow psychological process, and see how the victim and abuser are intertwined?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your article, and I think you are making some good points.
But do you understand the comment before mine? Do you understand the difference between him and you? Do you understand that this man is speaking 'mountains' compared to you, and way above and beyond your comprehension of 'reality'?
I understand the pages behind those two simple words. His soul has been where yours has not been, and I know that, because my soul has been where his has been.
There is so much more...so huge...so much bigger...so much more complex.
No point in even trying to get into it. It is difficult to translate one's soul into thought, and then try and communicate an impossible job.
But you are speaking from the mind about matters of the mind, and that is pretty simple. To someone like myself, your point is both a tiny segment of a much larger and deeper picture, and totally obvious. There is no mystery in 'evil'. They are not really the problem...not the ones that can really hurt you. They can only kill you.
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Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 657 comments [15 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 22, 2006 at 8:14:38 AM
"...I believe I glimpse the naturalistic equivalent of the Evil One: an opportunistic force that plays to win."
As I understand it, evolution is driven by the opportunistic force to win--in this case, passing on one's genes, and the expense of other organisms in incidental (I was rather surprised when Stephen Jay Gould spoke of the forces of 9/11 as "evil," a term I thought he had somewhat eliminated from his vocabulary earlier on).
Human cancer is a good thing from the point of view of any virus that may cause it. Ditto any microbial disease from the point of view of the microbe. Many Arabs cheered on 9/11 since it symbolized a standing up for their own people.
GB is doing "much good" for a rather small number of people, and they evidently don't see that as evil (even though his actions may collapse their own life support systems in the longer run).
From the other end of the looking glass, it is "evil," in that it doesn't look too good for us.
Which is why we need to become an opportunistic force that DOES win--and why Democrats who "go along to get along" aren't likely to accomplish much in our favor.
The sad part to me is that so many humans have such a narrow view of their "we" group, and don't seem to grasp that "we" are the same species who ultimately will either get along or else perish together on the same planet. (I admit I still have a hard time putting GB in MY "we" group, even though we share something like 99.98% the same genes).
Going a step further, "we" must also include the planet that we are intimately tied to, from the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, to all the natural systems that support us. So in a real sense, we all need to become part of an opportunistic force that plays "more seriously to win." And to somehow bring those who don't grasp this into the larger picture.
Or so it appears to me.
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 912 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Dec 22, 2006 at 11:50:24 AM
Right on, that's much to say about my view points. Bulldozing Bush's nonsense out of sight and allowing a America that can be trusted not feared by our war machine. Peace in Iraq can be resolved by peaceful communication if not it not our civil war and the presents of American troops are just fueling the fire within the Arab nations until we address these issues in a human sane matter. War is not always the answer sometimes we need to get to the heart of the anger they have towards us. I find it hard to believe its all religious and ethics of Middle Eastern people. I believe its corruption from oil rich American business and corruption from American officials that has caused death and suffering in there region from the past. We need to stop bulling our influences upon those people and find peaceful business relations with them.
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Fred F (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 361 comments) on Friday, Dec 22, 2006 at 8:27:03 PM
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