Tuesday, October 3, 2017

What We Do With Evil

"Evil" is a loaded word.

In his address to the nation following the shootings in Las Vegas, Donald Trump referred to the act as an "act of pure evil." I suppose I can get on board with that. The sentiment has been echoed in other quarters and over and over again I get the impression that when acts like the Las Vegas shooting are called evil, what is meant is that they were incomprehensible, unstoppable acts, the sort of thing that is the unfortunate and inevitable, the kind of thing you just hope and pray will never affect you, or the ones you love, directly.

Obviously, such a chaotic, random, overwhelming thing would be ludicrous to try to legislate against, right? How do you legislate against evil? So folks offer their thoughts and prayers, toss up a quick; "there, but by the grace of God, go I..." and walk on, saddened, but unchanged. How much more so must that be the case when what we face is "PURE evil?"

Which is curious, because that has not, in my experience, been the reaction to other things I have heard similar camps call "evil."

It must have been news to the LGBTQ community that evil couldn't be legislated against, as they have centuries of being called evil and centuries of resulting legislation to look at. Likewise, when we name terrorists evil, we raise our walls and write our laws against them, even if it means leaving refugees, the victims of the very evil we fear, out in the cold in the process.

When "evil" is queer, we act. When "evil" is muslim, we act. When "evil" is of color, we act. When "evil" concerns a woman's body, we act. When "evil" is a matter of speech or expression, we act.

But when "evil," even "pure evil," is a white man with guns... nothing. Over and over and over again.

I am very much aware that I have very different definitions of evil than many of the people I am referring to, here. I do not believe, for instance, that homosexuality is evil, nor do I believe that Muslims are. But here we are, finally in agreement. The shooting in Las Vegas is pure evil. We've crossed the aisle, we're on the same side... only to find that this is the kind of evil that no one wants to confront, the only one that legislating against would be "plainly ludicrous."

I'm sure you can understand why that would be frustrating.

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