"On Evil" - A Brief Reflection on Theodicy

I am not sure how I first became interested in evil. Maybe it was the repetition of the line in grade school from the Lord's Prayer, "deliver us from evil," that first alerted me to the concept. Evil - at least how I conceived the concept then - was something akin to supernatural power. Like a demon with wings. Or a nebulous force á la Freddy Krueger tearing away carpet and bedding (cum bodies) in horror movies. Certainly evil is akin to horror. However, I probably was propping up evil with dramatic flair by honing my focus on demons —  and by contrast, the good on angels. If there are demons, or so my logic foretold - there must be angels.

I wonder if it's common to have this original sense of evil as the bogeyman and it's only when we grow older that we ascertain other kinds of evil.

And for me, it was the realization that evil is just a scapegoat term for all that which exacts suffering in the world. Or - as some dead philosopher once said: "evil is a deprivation of the good."

A Painting of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath From the collection of Arthur Roger at the New Orleans Museum of Art (Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans)

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