Is it possible that in some sense evil has been good for mankind? I have written a fair amount on evil in the past, for example:
If one is rational … evil does exist. If one believes in God or a Supreme Being who created the universe then it is hard to deny that this God is the author of [some kinds] of evil. In the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament this is made clear:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7
To really understand evil we must understand that it does have a purpose. Without evil good could not exist. Without hate love could not exist. We live in a world of duality and whether it is an illusion [or not] is simply irrelevant.
Are Good And Evil Real?, May 3, 2015
For there to be purpose in existence there has to be a “purpose-er,” the one who has a purpose, an intention, and a goal in mind (and therefore intelligence). My belief, and you may share it, is that there is a greater life and greater intelligence that has a purpose in existence and what we call “evil” is part of that purpose.
Is Evil Necessary?, April 25, 2015
Life and human evolution has a direction, a purposeful direction, towards greater complexity and interdependence. We can see this as we look at the history of humanity. In pre-history there were small bands of hunter gatherers which evolved to tribes which evolved to even larger and more complex chiefdoms to city states and to nation states. In each case we have societies that are larger, and more complex than those that preceded them.
Currently we are on the verge of planetary governance (or planetary destruction if we don’t). Maybe not in the lifetime of everyone reading this, but in terms of human history we are closer than we have ever been before.
One of the most powerful forces leading to larger and more complex human societies was evil, a very specific kind of human evil, the evil of human’s robbing, killing, raping, and enslaving other human beings. Humans learned to organize into larger and more complex societies, where for example, some could concentrate on making better weapons. They did this for self-protection, banding together to defend themselves or to defeat their enemies . But as one group formed a larger group others imitated them. It was literally an “arms race.”
As far as we can tell humanity has been in an arms race for as long as their have been humans.
Without the evil that motivated humans to come together into larger and more complex groups many things that are good would not have come either. Trade, farming, science, mathematics, writing, and the list goes on and on are things that humans learned to do as their societies became larger and more complex, with more specialization, and especially more cooperation with the trick being to ever expand the sphere of cooperation.
This evil was one powerful force drawing people together. There was another force, not of evil, but of good that worked in the same direction. That was the good of humans learning that life did not have to be a zero-sum game (where one side is a loser and the other is a winner). A life of interdependence, cooperation, trade, and mutual support can be a “win-win” game for everyone, a non-zero-sum game.
Cultural anthropologists have characterized these as “push” and “pull” forces and argued over which was most important. The “push” force is the evil of human’s preying on others and the “pull” force is human’s learning how much more they can benefit from working with each other instead of killing each other.
Capitalism, whatever some may see as its defects, was undoubtedly one of the greatest “pull” forces of all time. If humanity is to survive it is the “pull” forces of global trade and cooperation that will largely determine that. A country deeply invested in building our iPhones and other toys is less likely to want to bomb us out of existence.
It will be interesting to see how this works out as humanity explores even greater forms of mutual interdependence . The Jesuit priest, philosopher, and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin theorized of an Omega Point, a point of ultimate evolution and divine complexity.
In a very real sense evil may have been necessary, and ultimately good for humanity if we can reach that point without blowing up the planet first.
Copyright © 2018 Lawrence W. Kennon
