The nature of evil

Evil is the opposite of the nature of good. It’s a subjective matter when it comes to the nature of evil. Everyone thinks and looks at things in different ways. To some people, what might be “evil”, to another person it might be the good. Freud believed, we have three parts to our mind, the ego, the Id and the superego. Ego is what we are aware of such as what’s possible and what’s impossible to do. The id is an important part of our personality because as newborns, it allows us to get our basic needs met. In other words, the id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation. When a person is hungry, he/she will get food as soon as possible in any way. For example when it comes to a poor person trying to steal something, it’s the id that controls his actions. It can be seen as “evil” by others, but for that individual it’s a need (something that will make him feel good).

In psychological terms, evil is an aberration of the ego. An evil ego has a strong desire to control other egos. An evil person knows that fear is the most effective way to rule other people because terror induces unbearable fear. People who are stricken with fear cannot take effective action to defend themselves and while they are in that state, an evil person can do anything they want to do to them. This aberration of the ego can be termed "sick" because the ego will inflict pain and suffering in order to experience the joy and thrill of being in total control. When someone is doing something “evil”, they are fully aware of what’s going on and very careful so they don’t get fail to do a bad deed. For example in 911, when Osama Bin Laden planned the terrorist act, he planned it very carefully and trained numbers of people to make sure the plan is successful.


Evil can be also defined as having a harmful intent. Knowing an action is wrong but wanting to do it anyway is also evil. In law, people still get charged if they have the intention to kill someone or to steal something. Having the motivation to do something and doing it, is the same. Sometimes if one particular thing of a group is evil, the whole group is “evil” as well. Germany can be considered "evil" because of Hitler. America can be considered "evil" because of bush helping with wars etc. England and France can be considered "evil" because of their many wars in the past.
Evil is a subjective term. It means different things to different people. China thinks the west is 'evil' because to them, individuality and even individual needs should take a back seat to the needs of the community and society. In china, conformity is prized while individuality is not very important. The West finds this strange and could not imagine living that way so we look down on them and when we examine the more dramatic examples of this way of thinking; we are shocked and call them an 'evil country.' It goes both ways.

In the end, we each define what we consider to be evil and who we think is evil. In most cases, we share most if not all of our ideas of what is evil with our peers and that is how we get a social understanding of evil, but regardless of if you are talking about individual ideas and concepts of evil or 'evil' countries and groups, the term itself is subjective and open for interpretation. In my personal opinion, evil should be defined as: Actions and inactions resulting from intentional and unrepentant ignorance, indolence, gluttony, bigotry, profligacy and cowardice.