THE MYTH OF EVIL

Evil has been a subject of analysis and interpretation since the year dot as it is part of everyone's experience in some way. Philosophers, theologians, psychologists and others, have in the past and do in the present grapple with this concept, and theories abound. Phillip Cole's work takes an important stance against the belief that we are helpless in the face of evil. Cole rejects this impotence point blank and his book is a comprehensive analysis of the theme with a cool, direct and no-nonsense approach. 'My rejection of the discourse of evil is complete: we should treat it as it urges us to treat its victims – no negotiation, no reform, or redemption' (p236). Phillip Cole PhD is Reader in Applied Philosophy at Middlesex University and in his book he takes a secular approach to show that 'evil is a black-hole concept which gives the illusion of explanation when what it actually represents is the failure to understand' (p. 236). Although he covers a vast territory of human experience, Cole weaves his way through it skilfully, holding on to the strands of human nature and psychosocial/political reality. His writing is very accessible, and complex concepts are cleverly unpicked. He proposes that 'the fundamental problem is one of explanation, and whether the concept of evil can play a constructive or useful role in explaining human action. Is 'because she was evil' ever an explanation, even a partial one?' (p. 18) To answer these questions the author draws on philosophical ideas, theological perspectives, historical analysis, psychological theories, mythical representations and current affairs. Cole explores at length the figure of Satan, commonly understood as the source of absolute or pure evil. In a detailed exploration of The Holy Book, the author examines its historical journey, which I found extremely interesting. Translation upon translation, version upon version, the Book comes together with an ideological as well as doctrinal agenda, and the figure of Satan himself may have had an ideological or doctrinal role to play. In the Old Testament, Satan is the accuser, opposer etc, but he is not yet the principle of evil, for he is still one of the heavenly court and does nothing without God's consent and command. However in the New Testament, Satan is indisputably present as a much needed and major opponent of Christ, ruling over the kingdom of darkness. Here he has a distinct personality. The template for this character lies in Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic faith which includes elements of a radical dualism. To understand why Satan emerged when he did we are taken on a political tour of the Middle East around the time of the rise of Christianity. We are shown that the figure of Satan emerges at its most intense within communities which consider themselves to be under threat, not from an external enemy, but from an internal one, the kind of enemy who threatens to transform the identity of that community and change it into something else. The same theme of internal social strife is followed in the, investigation of the witch trials in Europe and North America in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the vampire epidemics of Eastern Europe in the 18th century. These historical events give us an understanding of how the political philosophy of evil has been used to marginalise and oppress. Christian Europe was experiencing famine, plague, general warfare and financial instability throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, which gave rise to a generalised sense of fear and anxiety. The Christian Church was also experiencing crisis and instability. An overview of the craze of witchcraft throughout Western Europe shows that the sense of a terrifying Satanic assault was accompanied by the struggle of the Church to establish its authority in regions of Europe where older traditions and beliefs were still strong. Moving to the 20th Century, Cole examines the Holocaust with courage and insight. He shies away from blame and judgement and explores the social-political circumstances of the time, minutely examining the winds blowing through Europe in various directions.

In evil as perpetrated within society by individuals, Cole explores Moral Luck, a concept defined by Thomas Nagel 'where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control' (Nagel 1993). When, as in the case of James Bulger (the toddler killed by two 10 year old children in Liverpool in 1993), the word 'evil' is used to 'fill the gap of incomprehension', the principle of Moral Luck is a useful way of going beyond judgement and condemnation towards understanding the background that allowed young children to become murderers at such young age. The book is a dispassionate examination of the phenomena of evil and fear, and Cole's message touches on many familiar aspects. Rather than focusing on a possible philosophical coherence in the discourse on evil, Cole attacks it on moral and political grounds, arguing that the idea of evil does not explain anything; in fact it clouds the issues and obstructs our understanding of the underlying forces which bring it about. Returning to the figure of Satan he makes the important point that trying to understand Satan's character and motivation is a hiding to nothing. What we need to understand in a plot is the role Satan has to play. Satan can only be contingent: he is the adversary and as such is a function of another – he is not an independent entity. In his conclusion Cole summarises the three arguments that run through the book: first, that there are good social and political reasons why we should dispose of the narrative of evil, which allows it to be manipulated to justify horrors such as genocides. The second argues that rather than a philosophical or religious concept, evil is in fact a mythological one and Satan is a meaningful character only in the context of Christian mythological world history and makes no sense outside it. And the third one is about fear: we are most scared of what we don't know and the myth of evil takes root and grows in the gap between what we know and what we fear. As Jung, Campbell and others have argued before, myths are important for they give us a framework to understand our experience of the world in which we live. We need myths but we need also to be able to discriminate when a myth is useful and when it is downright dangerous.