Why I Don’t Use the Word “Evil”
… they asked me if I’d refer to a certain set of behaviours as evil, and, when I said no, they attempted to spin it to make me appear as though I approved of these behaviours, or at least find them somewhat acceptable.
With many other people, I’m sure this trick would have worked, but unfortunately for this person, they were stuck with me, and I wasn’t going to let a half-assed attempt at context-shifting manipulation leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth over that so-called discussion.
I want to make this clear: I see this as worth writing about because many people use the word evil to describe behaviours or even other people as a whole. To me, this has never been a problem, and I’ve never had the tendency to try to police someone’s language and to tell them to pick another word…
… but I just do not to use the word evil. It’s not part of the language of my thinking. It’s not built into the lens or the framework of my interpretation.
That is the main reason I tend not to call any behaviour evil.
When it comes to the word itself, I have a few reasons for not using it.
- I usually detect some generally religious connotations in the word.
- It’s a classification of behaviour that doesn’t explain that behaviour.
- It’s so void of insight that, the way I see it, it borders on shallow judgment,
- and, if it did attempt to explain any behavioural influence, then it would almost certainly rely on the existence of some external force: “The Force of Evil.” I just don’t recognise any such force in nature.
When it comes to the behaviours people might tend to call evil, in most case I’d find myself in agreement with them up until the use of the word.
For example: if someone tortured elderly people for fun or was a prolific cat-rapist, I’d agree with anyone’s classification that these behaviours are generally destructive, negative, “bad,” etc.
In a casual setting, I might say these behaviours disgust me — but that’d be more a reflection on myself than on the events and actions.
Personally I’d try to use words that point to a process or influence that describe the behaviour rather than simply classifies it.
Corrupted motivations. Impulsive behavioural tendencies. Lacking healthy boundaries. Moral debasement or deviance. Vicious, destructive propensities. Degenerate predispositions. Simply “violent” will often work just fine. Deceptive, distorted. The list can go on and on.
There’s no catch-all term I’d use to describe these behaviours, but I’d at least try to be descriptive in whatever I did refer to them as. For the sake of casual ease, I can settle with calling it “bad” or “negative” behaviour. If I were allowing myself to be real sloppy with my words, I might even refer to a person as a whole as “bad” or whatever else the case may be.
The most relevant thing here is why I’d prefer to be more descriptive in which term I’d use, and there are two main reasons. The first is that the word “evil” tends to evoke an emotional response to what’s being described, and not only could that conceal an attempt at trying to lead whoever I was discussing the behaviour with, but it’d also stand a fairly good chance at clouding their rationality — and that leads me to the second reason; a person or conversation whose lens of interpretation is blurred by clouded rationality is far less likely to be able or willing to address or even to discover the root causes of any given behaviour.
Whenever I’m discussing undesirable or destructive behaviours, which happens a fair bit, it’s never really for the purpose of just slamming them or judging the person acting them out — they are mostly attempts at understanding them, of trying to discover the root cause to see how change would be possible.
If certain corrupt behaviours can be prevented or reduced way below the danger point by a simple change in attitude or philosophy, or an “upgrade” to some part of our social systems, then it’s highly likely to be practical to, at the very least, understand this.
But not evil. Never evil — and it’s not because I approve of whatever the behaviour in question is. This is a false dichotomy, and not only has someone now tried this on me, but I’ve seen this scenario play out a dozen times in the past. Just because someone isn’t allowing you to define the terms of their interpretation does not mean you then get to decide what their interpretation actually is.
At best, this is an innocent misunderstanding. At worst, it is one of the slimiest manipulation of words that is used to smear people and discredit them over nothing more than not allowing you to put your words in their mouths.
In fact, I’ll go one further: at the very worst, it’s an attempt at brainwashing someone by superimposing your language of thinking onto them.
And that’s why I tend not to use the word evil.
