About evil…

What drives a person to cause harm to his fellow human beings without his interest or the defense of his own life being at stake? Why do some individuals murder, attack others, steal needlessly, and commit all kinds of heinous crimes? In other words, What is the origin of evil, and why does it occur?

We can probably agree that most people would never commit criminal or heinous acts if they were not forced by a compelling need. However, The reality is that horrible crimes continue to be committed every day around the world.. Understanding the causes of this phenomenon is essential to be able to eliminate it at its roots.

Are we products of evil?

According to Catharism, a religious movement that emerged in the 12th century, spread especially in the south of France and born from ancient eastern pagan beliefs and which had the difference between Good and Evil as its main doctrine, The human being is a product of evil. His followers were so convinced of this that they even condemned procreation, because they understood that having children was adding new products of evil to the world.

One might think that it is insane to say that we are products of evil, but sadly it is enough to look out the window, read the newspaper or listen to the radio to verify that in the laboratory of life, if it were an experiment, our acts of evil would be more that proven. This can be used to show that humanity has a propensity for evil and if we were to be guided by our instincts, the consequences would be catastrophic.

Society tempers our aggressive instincts

Thank goodness that society, whether we like it or not, is not an entity foreign to us. The society It is made up of each and every one of us, and modifies and modulates our basic instincts. It is a machinery that has to follow a pattern for it to work. We depend on the next-door neighbor to “behave well” and not bother us at night with loud music so that there are no reasons for arguments.

However, the relationship between society, our instincts, and violent or evil acts is not entirely clear. Some authors, like Rousseau, think that human beings are good by nature, and that living in structured social groups simply brings out the worst in us. On the other hand, there is also the opposite theory, which argues that the only reason we are able to live in harmony is due to the existence of external rules and regulations.

The battle against the beast within

It is true that we can never forget that we have blood in our veins and that there are and will be many times that, throughout our lives and although we generally behave well, there will be situations that manage to alter our good behavior. This can happen with a bad answer, an insult or even attacks against our physical integrity.

However, this will not always be the case. In some cases we may be the ones who, willingly or not, alter the “harmony” that society should have. And negative emotions and aggression, unfortunately, have relatively “positive” effects in the lives of people who use them as a tool in their daily lives. Therefore, it is very unlikely that we will be able to completely eradicate them in the near future.

In a recent study by the Chinese University of Beihang, it has been proven that anger is the emotion that receives the most diffusion when transcribed on social networks, unlike texts that relate joy or happiness. This could explain why it is so common to find aggressive or harmful posts on the Internet: creating one of them will cause us to receive a large amount of attention.

Therefore, we must continue to not only be an example to our neighbors, but we must remember that our instincts are guided by our worst enemy, ourselves. Fighting against our “inner self” is a daily job. There will be times when we feel defeated by him when his fangs, his temper and his anger, his sarcastic tongue, his poisonous gaze show.

Losing this fight is something that damages not only our relationships with others, but also our own desires to be happy, our desire to live. The beast that some carry inside can be terrible. Many are even unaware of it, but if it ever comes to light, it will probably terrify more than yourself.

That is why those who have the so-called “inner beast” must make a special effort to be more careful, more cautious, doubly tolerant, so as not to make it howl and show its monstrous jaws that threaten to devour the unwary people in front of them.

I wish no one had an inner beast, but living with it makes us more aware of who we are, our limits and defects. Curiously, it makes us more deserving of all the positive things we have to share, because although Ernest Hemingway said that “everything truly evil begins with something innocent,” Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that “man must find the solution to any conflict.” human who rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation; and the basis of that solution is love.”