Evil is in the Eye of the Beholder

09.09.13

Select a passage from the homework and analyze it.

“The fact that the evil power is not identified with any specific nation on this earth means you’ve got an abstract power, which represents a principle, not a specific historical situation” (Campbell page 144).

I find this passage very interesting because it is saying that evil has always lived, and always will live in the people. We do not identify a specific nation as evil; therefore it is an abstract power. We can’t see it; we can’t point our finger at evil, which means we can’t get rid of it either. The abstract power is in humanity. Another reason for us not being able to fully unite evil is because of the different perceptions of it. If someone commits an action of evil, it may be perceived as heroic to the one doing it, or the people he is doing it for. Take a member of the army for example. For the people he is protecting, he is the hero. For the people he is fighting against, he is the enemy. He is the one doing harm and killing people. So is he evil? Yes and no.