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      Americans Debate Concept of Evil in Relation to Terrorism, Shootings

   by Jerome Socolovsky

   Many people in the United States, including the president, view violent
   events such as school shootings and the Boston Marathon bombings as
   part of a struggle between good and evil.  This has led to a debate
   about whether that view helps or prevents Americans from understanding
   why these things happen.
   A few days after the marathon bombings, President Barack Obama spoke at
   an interfaith service in Boston.
   "You've shown us, Boston, that in the face of evil, Americans will lift
   up what's good," Obama said.
   He is not the first U.S. president to use the word "evil."
   Ronald Reagan used the word to label the Soviet Union. "To ignore the
   facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire," Reagan
   said.
   President George W. Bush used the word to describe Saddam Hussein's
   Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea. "States like these, and their
   terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil," Bush said.
   During the recent National Prayer Day sponsored by groups from the
   religious right, devotees gathered on Capitol Hill and prayed to God to
   vanquish what they see as evil in Washington and the world.
   "We can all do things that bring harm, and when you take that on a
   worldwide level, you have some pretty massive evil that can take
   place," said Dave Butts, president of [1]Harvest Prayer Ministries.
   But what about the religious left?  Evangelical pastor [2]Jim Wallis,
   an anti-war activist during the Vietnam era, criticized the invasion of
   Iraq.  But, he says the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the
   United States were evil.
   "Evil is real.  Evil is very real.  How we respond to it can help
   overcome it, or just extend it and make it grow exponentially," Wallis
   said.
   It may be correct to describe horrific violence as evil.  But some
   people worry that it prevents Americans from having a serious
   conversation about the causes of terrorism and gun violence.
   "For me, evil is what I call a 'black hole' concept," said [3]Phillip
   Cole, a professor of applied philosophy at the University of South
   Wales and author of "The Myth of Evil."
   "It kind of blocks our understanding.  It prevents us from going any
   farther.  It brings the conversation to a halt," Cole said.
   Some scholars say that evil as a category can be useful.  They say it
   can help the human mind know whether to respond to something it does
   not like with moral outrage or ordinary displeasure.
   But Cole says when people attribute evil to an event, they mythologize
   it and turn it into a Hollywood-like epic struggle.
   And that, he adds, can make perceived opponents appear to be monsters.
   "Therefore, it's enormously dangerous to identify people as evil,
   because it opens the door to doing terrible things.  And very innocent
   people have been harmed by that," Cole said.
   Cole says even in the Holocaust, the real horror was that it was
   carried out by ordinary people.
   For many Americans, the more that becomes known about the two brothers
   accused of carrying out the Boston bombings, the more their motives
   seem to defy categorizing.
   President Obama also referred to evil in a 2009 speech when he accepted
   the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
   "The general theme of the Nobel speech says that this is a dangerous
   world, where real evil exists out there," Obama said.
   He later appeared on the television program [4]PBS Newshour to explain
   his [5]remarks. Critics said his defense of America's military response
   to terrorism in the Nobel lecture was the same reasoning his
   predecessor used to justify the war in Iraq.
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   [6]http://www.voanews.com/content/us-evil-terrorism-shootings/1658208.h
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References

   1. http://HarvestPrayerMinistries/
   2. http://sojo.net/jim-wallis
   3. http://www.newport.ac.uk/Profiles/VistingProfessors/Pages/PhillipCole.aspx
   4. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/
   5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize
   6. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-evil-terrorism-shootings/1658208.html