Low-level evil is the ordinary, everyday, evil exemplified by politicians, managers, journalists, doctors, professors, lawyers etc in the modern West - and by most of the passive, irresponsible, non-thinking and manipulated masses.
Low-level evil is atheist, materialistic (disbelieving in the realms of soul and spirit), this-worldly exclusively; and devolves towards hedonistic selfishness.
This means that the bottom-line "morality" for Low-level evil is how "I" (currently) feel about things; and how I can feel good about myself/ people/ things, and avoid suffering - whether physical, social or psychological.
In this sense; for Low-level evil "myself" is God - or takes the place of God as the bottom-line reality, because there is nothing higher or other than how I currently perceive the situation from "my" perspective.
As I implied: this morality of self-gratification is currently the normal state of values for most people in The West; and characterizes almost-all people who have some kind of leadership role, wealth, power, and high status .
The Intermediate level are the Satan-worshippers, the demonic practitioners.
Satan is their god - or, at least, the patron to whom they look for protection and favours.
Intermediate-level evil beings may or may not believe in God as the Creator - but they do believe in the spirit realm; and they believe that this world is ruled and controlled by the devil and the demons - the powers of purposive evil.
Consequently they are focused on appeasing and pleasing Satan* - by whatever means they regard as effective.
High-level evil is the evil of Satan and "senior" demons.
These at the High-level know that God is real, and they know God created this reality. They are therefore theists.
Approaching the Highest-level of evil, therefore, the goal is partly positive: to retain creation but to take-over creation and remake it in accordance with Satan's wishes: to make Satan explicitly the sole god of this-world.
At the very Highest-level, however; the goal is to subvert, corrupt, and eventually destroy all of creation - because God is hated, and all God's work is hated.
So; at the Low-, Medium- and High-levels of evil; we have
1. Self-worshippers
2. Satan-worshippers
3. God-haters
*My best guess is that there is only one Satan at a time, at the top-of the hierarchy of evil and providing its cohesion and direction. But that there may have been more-than-one Satan through history. Indeed, I think this is likely, and that the role of Satan has probably more than once been usurped (and the first and perhaps other Satan's deposed) - given the nature of demons.
5 comments:
regarding the note at the end, this is one of the plot points of my novel, and pivotal to the whole story, and I got the idea from you.
@Laeth - Thanks! I don't remember actually writing that before today, although I've thought it for a while - of course I could easily have forgotten. Maybe you drew your own conclusions from similar assumptions, without it having been explicitly stated.
Ah, that might be the case, but i think even if not explicit, it is heavily implied throughout your work.
Isn't that what happened with Morgoth and then Sauron, and Saruman would have liked to have taken over but failed.
@William - That could be a way of looking at it; and Tolkien said in some of his letters that in the Third Age Sauron pretended to be Morgoth, and (if he got the One Ring) intended to become universally worshipped as God.
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