The Secret of Evil

I’d been sitting on this concept for a while, and then I found myself relaxing on Youtube one night, watching a film reviewer’s analyses — and I was jolted from my comfortable mood and into a flurry of expository frothing.

Possible content warning for talk about cults, general acts of violence, the dark side of humanity, cops, abuse — you get the idea.

Now, I think Ryan Hollinger does a great job of analysing this giving the constraints of his expertise and knowledge. I generally love his channel, and would recommend it. However, the underlying concept of this movie bothered me so greatly that, well — here we are.

What is evil?

For our purposes, “evil” refers to socially unacceptable, transgressive acts that cause harm to others. Examples include violent acts, sexual assault, murder, theft, fraud, lying — you get it.

Now, as long as humanity has been living in groups, squatting near our little fires, we’ve quarreled and bickered and occasionally wronged or harmed each other — sometimes, more severely than at others. The call to understand both our own dark impulses and bad decisions and to understand those taken by others appears to be pretty universal. Narratives and folkloric tales about evil, good…