The Devil’s Notebook.
I have been thinking recently about the evolution of evil.
How innocently it begins, how invisibly it grows.
The D/evil is in the details
His first trick is to encourage a sense of entitlement.
I deserve it. It is my just due.
Add to this a touch of envy. Memetic desire.
I want it (and deserve it) because you have it.
Why should Bill Gates have so much and I so little.?
When my (impossible) expectations are not fulfilled I become resentful, my sympathy turns into antipathy.
Resentment morphs into paranoia. I imagine that the other –my neighbor, my mate– is hostile to me, withholding, a cheating, not giving me my just share of cash or care.
I give more than I get.
Paranoia leads to creating a fortress —the self puts on its character armor, the nation builds its defenses, the quest for revenge emerges as a perverted demand for justice. Defeating, humiliating or killing the enemy sets the world right, balances the scales. Withholding love and punishing the other allows me to get even. You only got what you deserved, what was coming to you.
Once established the cycle of resentment and revenge becomes autonomous of its origins, a self-reinforcing feedback loop in which hostile expectation become self-fulfilling prophecies.
To escape the grip of the Devil I must practice living with a sense of gratitude for what has been given me. My life is a gift, not an entitlement. You—my mate, my child, my neighbor do not owe me love (although I am entitled to civility and justice).
This is the best and most logical definition of D/evil I have ever come across. Thank you. Between personal unformed, chaotic ideas and resistence to those propounded by organized religion, it has been difficult to come to any rational or spiritual method to address the existence of that which I perceive to be not “of god”. Antithetical to love or justice. I have long failed to believe in Satan, father of lies, etc. and yet, do not deny the proliferation of injustice, dehumanization and economic inequity that exists.
Your book has given me a feast for thought and possibly guidance I have been seeking for some time now. Thank you
The unfolding of evil can be extended to groups. If individuals with similar feeings of blocked entitlement can connect, they reinforce the beliefs. They can find support and compassion within the group that affirms their emerging meaning in life. The extreme position of such a group can stimulate the growth of opposing groups. We can have Fundamentalists and Aetheists feeding off each other. One Fundamental group tries to lock in this conflict with the belief that any kind of mediator or unifier is the devil in disguise!! We end up with ‘local realities” protected by a fortress mentality. THe growth of the global web can support these groups but it is more powerful in exposing the pathetic paranoia and poverty of these fortresses in the age of enlightenment.
Not quite with you here. When real relationships are so imbalanced as they are in a society founded upon the imaginary notion of money, envy is not only natural but inevitable. Also, to attack a “sense of entitlement” sounds too close to the typical conservative argument against fairness and equality. We ought to have a sense of entitlement–we can organize society around sharing and equality if we so desire, rather than selfishness. After all, none of us ever asked to be here, and none of us need more than for our basic human and material needs to be met. Beyond that, your analysis is agreeable.