Calling out evil for what it is… (Part 1)

Not long-ago Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey gave a speech in which he said that to be silent in the face of evil is to be complicit with that evil. He was challenging his audience to oppose evil where they encounter it, rather than to ignore it and hopes it goes away.  If we don’t oppose evil, it won’t go away. To fail to act against evil is to lend it strength, to become part of the evil. I find Senator Booker’s statement both timely and challenging and would like to explore their implication over the next few weeks.

I spent a wonderful month of July in the CNMI doing some work as a canon lawyer for Bishop Ryan and getting the process started to have another cycle of men begin the formation process for the permanent diaconate. I also enjoyed the opportunity to greet old friends and get to know some of the newer faces.

Within a day or so after my return to Erie, there was a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, and then a few hours later a similar shooting in Dayton, Ohio. While there was the usual outpouring of condolences, there was a different tone to much of the reaction to the shootings. There was an undercurrent of anger directed at Trump. Commentators have been blaming such speech for enflaming the violence that resulted in the deaths of some 30 people and the wounding of another 30 by mentally ill young men. Even if one admits that the killers have a weak grasp on reality, this is even more reason to be careful about what one is saying. Such rhetoric stirs up poorly controlled emotion in people who are alienated or resentful.  This tactic might get support from his political base but can also stir up a hornet’s nest.

When I was in high school, I was a member of the school debate club. Afterall, what other school activity was more likely to attract someone who would eventually become a lawyer? Well, to be honest, the theater club was even more attractive to me and turned out to be a much longer commitment but that is another story. One of the things I learned in the debate club was that the purpose of debate is to critically analyze issues of public policy. You attempt to look at all sides of a public policy issue and come to some sense of truth about that policy based on facts. The debating skill related to how you presented your facts and reached a reasonable conclusion.

A fact is something that can be proven and is objective; the data is the same whether you are for or opposed to a specific policy. You present your facts and then logically build to a conclusion based on those facts. Debate respects that reality is very complex and the same facts can lead to different conclusions depending on the perspective of the debaters. Like the Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels, people can agree on the shape of an egg and that it is a good breakfast food but still come to different conclusions on which end of the egg to open first. 

Critical analysis involves presenting facts about an issue and carefully questioning the assumptions that we make about the facts, as those assumptions usually shape the conclusions we reach. Critical analysis sharpens our understanding of the policy issue and makes the debate over that issue more in depth and fruitful. Debate is a good thing and leads decision makers closer to the truth of the matter.

Rhetoric, at least in its popular understanding, is the opposite of debate. It refers to those techniques of public speaking meant to persuade the audience of your position on an issue. One of the most powerful aspects of rhetoric is its tendency to stir up the emotions and use them to get people to agree with you.  Rhetoric is manipulative. While debate seeks the truth, rhetoric seeks followers, with little concern for the truth. 

The cynical might even suggest that there is no truth to seek but only different opinions.  If all is merely opinion, then debate is a waste of time according to them and we should only be concerned with building a large base of followers.   We often see this play out in politics, where the goal is a large group of followers in order to carry an election and achieve power. Sometimes this tactic is applied to policy issues such as immigration, climate change, and cybersecurity, where there appears to be a great deal of opinion and rhetoric, but little debate focused on a rational understanding and response to the policy concerns. This is an approach to policy that is irresponsible.
I began this reflection with a quote that challenged us to not be silent in the face of evil but to confront it and to name it for what it is…evil. Before going too much further, it might be helpful to consider what we are talking about when we use the word “evil”.

Why am I using the word “evil” to speak of an approach to social policy? When social policy is designed to do harm to people and comes from a malicious intention, it is fair to call it evil. Though we should distinguish between different types of evil.

Last weekend a fire broke out in a home in Erie. Five children between the ages of two months and eight years died in that fire and two adults are in the hospital in critical condition.  That fire and its consequences were evil, innocent children died. Yet, there was no malicious intention behind the fire. It was the result of faulty electrical wiring and not enough smoke alarms in the house. This is natural evil. It was an event that did great harm to several people, so it was evil; however, that evil cannot be attributed to the actions or intention of any individual. It simply happened and must be endured.

Christianity is built on a few fundamental truths. We are created by God in the divine image and likeness. God is love. God is compassionate towards humanity and through Jesus Christ has redeemed us from the scourge of the human condition known as Original Sin (see recent Along the Way on Original Sin). We are called to be compassionate beings, as is God. Everything else in Christianity is simply the consequence of these fundamental truths. 

We can think of evil as anything that is contrary to love and compassion. Love and compassion is the ability to empathize with others; to feel their pain.  It involves seeking the well-being of others. So, evil is striving after our own well-being, at the expense of others. It involves a refusal to perceive the pain of others and to do anything about that pain, even when it is in one’s power to do so. Indeed, evil would be to inflict pain on others for one’s own profit. There is a high degree of malicious self-centeredness in evil. This type of evil is different from natural evil. While natural evil arises from the contingency of life, this type of evil is the result of the malicious intent of a person or those structures of sin that we have allowed to develop within society.