I believe I have experienced evil at least three times, once in a friend, and once in a mentor, and once in a boss. And three times they weren’t transparently evil to me or others. Only on reflection, looking at the consequence of their actions, trying to impute their intentions, have I seen their evil.
It is not modern, better yet post-modern, to believe in evil. It is the current conceit that people are not evil, only injured and misunderstood. “To understand all is to forgive all.” But, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”.
The Harry Potter books are successful because they are not only a good read, but also because they are a classic good versus evil stories. Voldamort and his Death Eaters really are evil. Evil enough to kill and worse. Dumbledore, Harry, and his friends really are heroic. Heroic enough to fight and die.
The main literary comparison that comes to mind is “The Trilogy of the Rings”. The evil there was just a specific, and just as horrific. But it is not as personal. In the Trilogy the evil that is done is rather impersonal, with a few exceptions (e.g. Frodo). Evil is done more because people are in the way than in a sense of retribution. Sauron has nominally non-evil allies (southern mercenaries), and the Aragorn has nominally evil allies (Dead Men of Dunharrow)
Where as in Harry Potter the evil is highly personal. Voldamart wants revenge against Dumbledor, Harry, and Hogwarts. He enjoys torturing people, uses fear exquisitely, and injuring innocents seems to provide an aperitif. And he surrounds himself with similarly twisted people.
I don’t want to make more or it than it is. Both authors descriptions of evil are more similar than distinct. It is commonly known that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote his series during World War II, and ended up much darker than the its predecessor “The Hobbit”. What is not as well known is how J. K. Rowling became acquainted with evil at a much later date.
I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
We have made an art of blinding ourselves to the evil that is being done, and mixed up the actors in their roles. One small example, the purpose of the U.N. has become (perhaps always has been) to enable dictators and tyrants to oppress their people and neighbors.
So, while the U.S. Treasury is trying to tighten sanctions on Burma’s thug government, the United Nations has been busy funneling millions of dollars to the Burmese regime — thanks to a classic artificial foreign-exchange rate dodge, which the UN finally acknowledged in public only after weeks of questioning by Inner-City Press (see post below).
This latest in the long list of UN gifts to dictators came about as part of the relief mission launched in May to help Burmese victims of Cyclone Nargis.
It’s as if we mixed up the roles of Harry and Voldamort, and everybody pretended we couldn’t tell the difference.
updated 8/3/08 for content.
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on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Commentary, Society.
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Evil
I believe I have experienced evil at least three times, once in a friend, and once in a mentor, and once in a boss. And three times they weren’t transparently evil to me or others. Only on reflection, looking at the consequence of their actions, trying to impute their intentions, have I seen their evil.
It is not modern, better yet post-modern, to believe in evil. It is the current conceit that people are not evil, only injured and misunderstood. “To understand all is to forgive all.” But, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”.
The Harry Potter books are successful because they are not only a good read, but also because they are a classic good versus evil stories. Voldamort and his Death Eaters really are evil. Evil enough to kill and worse. Dumbledore, Harry, and his friends really are heroic. Heroic enough to fight and die.
The main literary comparison that comes to mind is “The Trilogy of the Rings”. The evil there was just a specific, and just as horrific. But it is not as personal. In the Trilogy the evil that is done is rather impersonal, with a few exceptions (e.g. Frodo). Evil is done more because people are in the way than in a sense of retribution. Sauron has nominally non-evil allies (southern mercenaries), and the Aragorn has nominally evil allies (Dead Men of Dunharrow)
Where as in Harry Potter the evil is highly personal. Voldamart wants revenge against Dumbledor, Harry, and Hogwarts. He enjoys torturing people, uses fear exquisitely, and injuring innocents seems to provide an aperitif. And he surrounds himself with similarly twisted people.
I don’t want to make more or it than it is. Both authors descriptions of evil are more similar than distinct. It is commonly known that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote his series during World War II, and ended up much darker than the its predecessor “The Hobbit”. What is not as well known is how J. K. Rowling became acquainted with evil at a much later date.
We have made an art of blinding ourselves to the evil that is being done, and mixed up the actors in their roles. One small example, the purpose of the U.N. has become (perhaps always has been) to enable dictators and tyrants to oppress their people and neighbors.
Claudia Rosette:
It’s as if we mixed up the roles of Harry and Voldamort, and everybody pretended we couldn’t tell the difference.
updated 8/3/08 for content.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Commentary, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.