Concepts of Evil

The Lord of the Rings is one of the most popular and enduring literary works of the 20th century. It was first published in England sometime 1954-55. It also became very popular in America during the l960’s. The continuing appeal of this trilogy is very evident today. People read it everywhere—in libraries, bus stops and cafes. Recently both young people and adults trooped to the movies to see this beautiful masterpiece come to life.

The significance of a literary work lies on the impact it has on society; on the values that could be learned from it. The Lord of the Rings books have within their pages insights on the world as it is and how we have in our hands the power to chart its course. The overwhelming interest in the books has inspired a quest for a deeper understanding of the concept of evil.

Evil

The term evil pertains to a quality which is attributed to objects, actions, and ideas. Normally, is evil is thought to be one which is harmful. It is basically viewed as the quality that is bad or wrong, or that which causes pain or misery.

Throughout history people have contemplated on the nature of evil. What is evil really anyway? Is it something which is truly existent or just a mere concept?

J. R. R. Tolkien never really intended to put any hidden significance into his works. He wrote in his foreword to the Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring: “..as for any inner meaning or ‘message,’ it has in the intention of the author none.” However, it cannot be helped that he had formulated his own concept of evil in his trilogy. But before we go into that, I have deemed it necessary to first attempt to explore how a few different prominent historical figures viewed evil.

Xunzi: Men are Evil by Nature

During the early years of Confucianism, a certain philosopher named Xunzi (Hsün-tzu) emerged as an important figure. Contrary to the postulations of his predecessors, Xunzi argued that humans are evil by nature, and that only law, order, and adherence to the rules of etiquette can lead humans away from the chaos caused by their self-centered desires. For Xunxi the nature of man is evil; his goodness is acquired. He writes man is born, first, with a desire for gain. If this desire is followed, strife will result and courtesy will disappear. Second, man is born with envy and hate. If these tendencies are followed, injury and cruelty will abound and loyalty and faithfulness will disappear. Third, man is born with passions of the ear and eye as well as the love of sound and beauty. If these passions are followed, excesses and disorderliness will spring up and decorum and righteousness will disappear. Hence to give rein to man's original nature and to yield to man's emotions will assuredly lead to strife and disorderliness, and he will revert to a state of barbarism. Therefore it is only under the influence of teachers and laws and the guidance of the rules of decorum and righteousness that courtesy will be observed, etiquette respected, and order restored. From all this it is evident that the nature of man is evil and that his goodness is acquired.”

He writes further: "If man's original nature is evil, whence do the rules of decorum and righteousness arise? All rules of decorum and righteousness are the products of the acquired virtue of the sage and not the products of the nature of man. Thus, the potter presses the clay and makes the vessel—but the vessel is the product of the potter's acquired skill and not the product of his original nature. Or again, the craftsman hews pieces of wood and makes utensils—but utensils are the product of the carpenter's acquired skill and not the product of his original nature. The sage gathers many ideas and thoughts and becomes well versed in human affairs, in order to bring forth the rules of decorum and righteousness and establish laws and institutions. So then the rules of decorum and righteousness and laws and institutions are similarly the products of the acquired virtue of the sage and not the products of his original nature.…”

“Man wishes to be good because his nature is evil. If a person is unimportant he wishes to be important, if he is ugly he wishes to be beautiful, if he is confined he wishes to be at large, if he is poor he wishes to be rich, if he is lowly he wishes to be honored—whatever a person does not have within himself, he seeks from without. But the rich do not wish for wealth and the honorable do not wish for position, for whatever a person has within himself he does not seek from without. From this it may be seen that man wishes to be good because his nature is evil. Now the original nature of man is really without decorum and righteousness, hence he strives to learn and seeks to obtain them.…”

Augustine: Bring Good out of Evil

Augustine was an influential theologian and writer of the Catholic Church during the fifth century. He wrote The City of God wherein he addressed a number of theological issues, including free will and the resurrection of the faithful. He affirmed the existence of evil as he asserted that God did not deprive people of their free will even when they turned to sin because it was preferable to “bring good out of evil than to prevent the evil from coming into existence.” Augustine understood that the human body would rise after death, transformed into “the newness of the spiritual body” and in paradise these new beings would “rest and see, see and love, love and praise.”

William Pitt: System of Slavery is Evil

During his tenure as prime minister of Great Britain, William Pitt sought to put an end to the slave trade. On April 2, 1792, he urged the members to recognize that there was no justification for slavery. Britain abolished slavery in 1807, one year after Pitt’s death.

Pitt implored: “The origin of evil is indeed a subject beyond the reach of human understandings; and the permission of it by the Supreme Being is a subject into which it belongs not to us to inquire. But where the evil in question is a moral evil which a man can scrutinize, and where that moral evil has its origin with ourselves, let us not imagine that we can clear our consciences by this general, not to say irreligious and impious, way of laying aside the question. If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see that every necessary evil supposes that some other and greater evil would be incurred were it removed. I therefore desire to ask, what can be that greater evil which can be stated to overbalance the one in question? I know of no evil that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil to exist, worse than the tearing of seventy or eighty thousand persons annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations inhabiting the most enlightened part of the globe, but more especially under the sanction of the laws of that nation which calls herself the most free and the most happy of them all.”

The Dhammapada: Evil ought to be eluded

The Dhammapada is a collection of 423 Buddhist aphorisms or teachings intended to provide ethical guidance. The poetic and sometimes profound sayings of the Dhammapada, which can be translated as “Way of Truth,” are attributed to Buddha, who founded Buddhism in India in the 6th century bc. These writings, part of the sacred Sutra Pitaka, illustrate the Buddhist dhamma, or moral system.


Make haste and do what is good; keep your mind away from evil. If a man is slow in doing good, his mind finds pleasure in evil.

If a man does something wrong, let him not do it again and again. Let him not find pleasure in his sin. Painful is the accumulation of wrongdoings.

A man may find pleasure in evil as long as his evil has not given fruit; but when the fruit of evil comes then that man finds evil indeed.

A man may find pain in doing good as long as his good has not given fruit; but when the fruit of good comes then that man finds good indeed.

Hold not a sin of little worth, thinking ‘this is little to me’. The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the foolish man becomes full of evil, although he gather it little by little.

Hold not a deed of little worth, thinking ‘this is little to me’. The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the wise man becomes full of good, although he gather it little by little.

Let a man avoid the dangers of evil even as a merchant carrying much wealth, but with a small escort, avoids the dangers of the road, or as a man who loves his life avoids the drinking of poison.

As a man who has no wound on his hand cannot be hurt by the poison he may carry in his hand, since poison hurts not where there is no wound, the man who has no evil cannot be hurt by evil.

The fool who does evil to a man who is good, to a man who is pure and free from sin, the evil returns to him like the dust thrown against the wind.

Some people are born on this earth; those who do evil are reborn in hell; the righteous go to heaven; but those who are pure reach nirvana.

Neither in the sky, nor deep in the ocean, nor in a mountain-cave, nor anywhere, can a man be free from the evil he has done.

Neither in the sky, nor deep in the ocean, nor in a mountain-cave, nor anywhere, can a man be free from the power of death.


Ghandi: Good drawn out of the evil of nonviolent noncooperation

Mohandas K. Gandhi was one of the leaders of India’s struggle to gain independence from Britain. To achieve this goal, he advocated a policy of nonviolent noncooperation with Britain’s systems and laws. In 1922 the British government arrested Gandhi for his role in the civil disobedience that was sweeping India.

On trial, he told the court: “In fact I believe that I have rendered a service to India and England by showing in non-cooperation the way out of the unnatural state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. But in the past, non-cooperation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evildoer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-cooperation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-cooperation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge and the Assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.”

J. R. R. Tolkien: External and Physical Evil

The Lord of the Rings is set in a place called Middle Earth. It is one populated with various strange, mystical and mysterious beings. During the early days of middle earth, in a place called Eregion there were made many rings Elven-rings. These were basically magic rings.

But then there were also created the great rings— or the Rings of Power. These rings were very perilous. Then the Dark Lord, Sauron, learned the craft of ring-making and came up with a ring which would have power and dominion over all the other rings. Running along the ring of Power was the written, “ One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

The ring was a source of power. It possessed a certain force which brings out the dark side of a person. It enslaves its possessor.

Tolkien, speaking through the character of the wizard Gandalf, said, “a mortal…who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues until at last every minute is weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades; he becomes in the end, invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the Dark power that rules the rings. Yes, sooner or later—later if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last—sooner or later the dark power will devour him. “

“A ring of power looks after itself.” Anyone who had possession of the ring is enticingly drawn to it; engulfed by its power, he becomes isolated from the world of people most dear to him. The ring is evil; evil keeps people apart; evil fosters division.

From a close reading of the three books pertaining to the Lord of the Rings, literary researchers have found that there is a presentation of two aspects of evil, namely, the external and physical, and the internal and spiritual.

External evil pertains to those things that come upon us physically and concretely even though we do not want them to. Examples are disasters, tragedies and misfortunes. To deal with external evil, there must be physical heroism. We have in our hands the power to direct our live regardless of what may befall us. As pointed out by Tolkien, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Internal evil refers to those things which go on in the hearts of men. Evil is not really in things, but it is in the desire of man for power, prestige and other objects of vanity.

To deal with internal evil, there must be internal or spiritual heroism. There are numerous instances when the characters of the story of the Lord of the Rings strived with much difficulty to resist taking the ring as their own. The ring was to be destroyed only at Mordor and Frodo was the designated bearer of the ring. He thus had the greatest challenge of keeping himself from wearing the ring so as not to draw all evil forces toward him.

In the end, man’s ultimate enemy is himself even in the midst of his struggle against external evil forces in “middle earth.” To understand and transcend these evil forces “within” and “without” is very essential.

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