Trollheart

Introduction: What is Evil?

It’s a question that has been asked for centuries now, and really we’re no closer to defining what we consider to be evil than we were in the Dark Ages. The nature of evil - or rather, our perception of it - changes with each few generations. Not all that long ago, in certain parts of the world homosexuality was seen as evil; further back, women getting the vote was viewed with the same distaste, and moving forward a hundred years, equal rights for women was not only frowned on by men but also many women, who believed it would lead to anarchy and chaos. A century ago, even rape was tacitly condoned, as long as the man was rich and powerful and held the fate of the woman in his hands. A gentleman - or that gentleman’s son or sons, or even his friends - was quite free to take any servant girl that took his fancy, whether she was willing or not. Refusal would result in dismissal, no reference being given and therefore the unfortunate woman would be cast out into the streets, where she would have no way to make her living other than by selling her body. Which would then make her an, to quote ELO, evil woman, showing the ridiculous and distasteful hypocrisy of the times. While the “romantic attentions” of rich men towards the lower-class women who worked for them was not actually encouraged, they wasn’t discouraged either, and with the legal profession, the courts and the police all exclusively male, a woman who brought a complaint against an employer stood little chance of any sort of success, and even if she somehow did manage to secure a conviction, she would be blacklisted and would never work again.

Murder, in general, has always been seen as evil, but of course there are exceptions. Killing to save yourself, or to free someone from the attentions of another who seeks to do them harm, while still illegal is again looked upon as being acceptable, and will often form the basis of a defence and acquittal on those grounds. Killing in a time of war is generally not seen as murder, though here the waters are a little murkier. Stick to what are rather laughingly and ironically called the rules of conduct and you’ll be okay. Nobody is going to call a soldier who kills another soldier or a pilot who drops bombs on a city a murderer (though they are), no more than they would accuse the generals and commanders who send such men on these missions of such crimes. But step outside those bounds - commit rape (maybe, not always), assault children, shoot an unarmed man - and a soldier may very well be opening himself up to a charge of homicide, or even war crimes. In these cases, such men would be looked upon as evil.

Our conception and notion of evil has changed to suit the times we live in. When everyone went around armed with swords and you could be jumped on the way home, or knocked off your horse by thieves, defending yourself - even if you killed your assailant - was praised and not condemned, and as long as you were of a highborn status, anyone who displeased you could be killed without any ramifications, and would not be seen as evil in the slightest. Torture, now seen as vile and evil (and useless) was once the tool of kings and queens, a legitimate mechanism for extracting information. Tie someone to a stake now and burn them alive, you’re most definitely evil, but back in the mists of history it was not only legal but applauded. Burn the witch! Burn the heretic! Burn the traitor! And so on.

And of course, one man’s evil is not necessarily that of another. It’s notoriously based on your point of reference: the evil Islamist terrorist will be seen by his own people as a brave freedom fighter, and those on the losing side of any war are almost always characterised as evil, while those who win are the good guys. Many studies have been made and books written on the belief that good and evil are two sides of the one coin; many others claim there is no such thing either as good or evil, and that both are false constructs made by humans to try to make sense of an otherwise baffling and terrifying world. And of course evil is a label that can be attached by those in power to their enemies, or by one group to another in order to demonise them and legitimise their own views and actions.

Evil is, in the final analysis, unquantifiable. What you or I think of as evil may not be what someone else sees it as, and you could spend your life going round and round in circles, arguing the toss and never getting any closer to a true understanding, or even definition of the term. But for the purposes of this journal, we accept the basic definition, which is that evil is that which is unacceptable in society, that which diminishes or tries to diminish society, the practice of which requires the offender(s) to be removed from society, and that which breaks the laws of society by threatening the status quo, law and order, and life itself. I just made that up, and it’s a completely inadequate definition, I know: much of what’s mentioned above could include the likes of bank robberies or joyriding, which technically don’t qualify as evil in and of themselves, but you try coming up with a better one. Evil used to be defined as that which was against God, but what happens if you don’t believe in God, if you can’t whine “the Devil made me do it!”?

Anyway, for this journal I’m just taking the basics - murder, rape, paedophilia, white slavery, cults - all the sort of things the average person may be expected to think of as evil. War is certainly in there, and you’ll find Hitler sticking his ugly fascist nose into this at some point, as will others from various wars, but it would be disingenuous and unfair to tar all war leaders, and all those who participate in war as evil. Was Napoleon evil? How about Wellington? One was on the losing side; does that then make him evil? What about Julius Caesar? Genghis Khan? William Wallace? Clearly, not every figure in war can be described as evil, nor do they deserve to be, but some do, and we’ll meet these as we go along.

Murderers? Generally, and with few if any caveats, yes. While I don’t intend to feature every murderer in history here - I have two other journals looking at that - I will be featuring murderers, but only the worst of the worst, and that doesn’t mean they have to have killed the most. Ian Huntley only (!) killed two people, but I might indeed consider him more evil than, say, Levi Bellfield, the so-called Bus Stop Killer, who killed twice as many. So murderers definitely, but if that was all then I could just call this Trollheart’s Murders and we’d be done. It’s not though, so we’ll be looking back through history to find the cruellest and most evil men, women, perhaps even children; group, cults, organisations, anything that can be said to rise above the level of what we perceive or accept as “normal” evil. Oh yes, here, only the very worst will do.

Step this way, and be careful: I think the light is broken…

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018