It might be asked why it is potentially useful to have a differentiated understanding of evil? Why, in particular, it is helpful to be clearer about "Sorathic" evil?
I think it is helpful to anybody (of almost any religion*) to be aware that some evils of this world - including, I believe, the dominant motivation for current wars by Western powers against the Fire Nation, in and around Arrakis and potentially the largest polity of the Far East - are actually negatively motivated.
These are Sorathic wars+. These are wars that are ultimately - covertly, behind the self-enriching bribes, and geopolitical excuses - being provoked, sustained, escalated for reasons of destruction rather than for anything that might be gained from them.
In other words - such wars continue, and continue to grow - long beyond the point when those in charge might be expected to benefit from them.
The Sorathic insight is also potentially helpful from a Christian perspective; because Sorathic evil is not primarily directed against the salvation of Men. This can be confusing to Christians, who tend to assume that all real evil is directed towards the damnation of souls.
This took me until yesterday to get clear. If evil is assumed to be directed against Christian hopes primarily, it becomes hard to see why destruction should become a dominant goal...
Indeed, it might turn-out that Sorathic wars are less-bad for Christianity than is the current global-bureaucratic-totalitarian system of value inversions - because Ahrimanic-totalitarian evil is indeed anti-salvation, primarily.
(It is an interesting aspect of the ongoing wars that they are destructive of all kinds of people. Yes, the Fire Nation is Christian, but their more-slaughtered opponents are Western-ideologues and secular nationalists. The Arrakis conflict is between non-Christians (and numerous secular CHOAM). But all this makes sense when it is recognized that Sorathic evil is directed against divine creation, against any-thing and every "thing" created; rather than being orientated specifically against Christian salvation.)
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Many people have the attitude: "But what is the use of understanding evil, if we can do nothing practical about it?"
Especially given that destruction is so much easier than creation.
(It may be very difficult to win a war; but it is much easier to make a war more-destructive. And that is exactly what we are seeing...)
So; what is the use of understanding - even if it is true?
There are at least two answers (assuming an understanding is indeed true):
First is that we cannot do anything practical and effective, until after we first understand truly.
But second is that any true understanding is valuable "in itself" - in terms of the spiritual war of this mortal world:
True understanding is valuable for the first "understander" in his discerning quest to learn from experience in this mortal life;
And that truth is also potentially valuable for those who may subsequently choose to share that spiritual possibility - by direct knowing.
(Because all true learning is permanent and potentially accessible to all those who seek truth.)
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*I say "religion" because, although different religions explain evil in various ways, without religion there can be no coherent understanding of evil.
+While there have been Sorathic individuals in history, there has never been a Sorathic culture or civilization until the Modern West. Thus, in the past, the Sorathic phase of a war tended to be a brief and terminal episode, and the leader became consumed by a destructive frenzy that is rapidly self-destroying (like, apparently, the last days in The Bunker; or the fictive example of Saruman). But at a societal level, this end-phase of Sorathic evil can be, and is-being, much more prolonged. Prolonged partly because multiple people are involved, with overlapping influence; and partly because the people in charge are under supernatural demonic influence/ control; such that individual human leaders are "disposable" and may die - yet the strategy continues...
4 comments:
Luke has left a comment:
'Prolonged partly because multiple people are involved, with overlapping influence'
Apparently a major or the major material cause of the current war in Europe was that the arms industry was successfully lobbying representatives in government in the United States for decades to expand NATO and see/treat [post-1989 Fire Nation] as a threat so as to reap lucrative markets and contracts.
So you have a financial system where there is everywhere overlapping influence and no one has responsibility. The voluntary private pension owned by someone is really an investment fund which is really a portfolio of ownership in companies, companies that are owned where one's influence and responsibility is negligible except in the sense that one just influences (and so if just then greedily) that company to make more money in share price and dividend. And that influence is the single biggest influence on the CEO and directors to do what they do.
So who is responsible for the material cause of the war in Europe. It turns out everyone is but no one is. And evil swoops into this vacuum like a spirit wishing to possess a non self-possessed body.
With another example, my friend works for a large consultancy firm. On one job he was in a team that had to research how many married people would like an extra-marital affair in various countries, in order to assess the market potential of certain dating apps in the future. This was for a client, aka an investment fund, pension, etc. Again no one in that chain has real responsibility yet countless marriages, like lives in Eastern Europe, are destroyed because of a vacuous financial sysyem of overlapping influence and zero responsibility that seems primed for demonic manipulation.
@Luke - Yes. Overlapping/ nebulous interest groups are a significant half explanation, and an important factor in neutralizing potential resistance. But the long-term *direction* of their strategies must come from a coherent and external source. That's where the demons come in.
I greatly appreciate this framework for understanding evil. It's a spiritual guidepost.
BTW, the drama miniseries Baby Reindeer from your isles is a horrific example of a life without guideposts and no capacity for discernment. And a cry for help. Young people are absolutely adrift.
@AG - Thanks. I find it very helpful myself!
From a Christian perspective, I think it could make a difference if (or rather, when) the dominant form of evil loses interest in the recent Ahrimanic anti-salvation structuring of society.
When the institutions of Western society are being subverted and destroyed, that society cannot also be used as a totalitarian propaganda-machine for value-inversion and damnation.
This - potentially - provides increased "space" for Christians - if we choose to take advantage.
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