Skip to main content

The Roots of All Evil


              I recently took a trip down an emotional rabbit hole. Between a book I finished, the next one I started, and a new binge-worthy TV series, I came in contact with the three categories of evil that exist in the world. I was overwhelmed by it. Part of me is still. There is too much of it, and it seems the people fighting it are losing the war over the heart of humanity. However, the first step in solving a problem is understanding what it is.

              I finished reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This is a book that is profoundly sad, and a book everyone should read. I had considered myself sympathetic to the plight of Black Americans, but I had no idea how much one racist act, unconscious though it may have been, reverberates throughout the community. This book does an excellent job of illustrating the evil in the world that exists through decades of historic racism and the institutions it created. This evil cannot be combated effectively until the infrastructure that promotes it is torn down and rebuilt.

              I immediately started reading Dopesick by Beth Macy afterwards. This was the next book in my night time reading shelf, so it was accidental that it followed The Hate U Give. Not even three chapters into this journalistic overview of the nation’s opioid crisis, I was broken. Corporations can make millions off of the pain and suffering of others. They can shield their evil because most people see the evil in the world as out of sight, out of mind. Or so it seems. The grief of hundreds of people who have lost loved ones because of greed, for both money and power, is too steep a price to pay for the current state of things. Adam Smith said that corporations will always work for profit, and not for the public good. This truth is centuries old. If corporations are going to ignore what is good for people, why do we let them run the country?

              The final nail in my coffin of infinite sadness came from the TV series Outlander. It just so happened that my mom and I needed a new show to watch together, and the soundtrack intrigued me. I quickly reached the end of the first season (going far ahead of where my mom and I left off), which featured the culmination of machinations by the most Evil. Individual. Ever. I was broken, along with his victim, to my core. The fact that such evil could exist in one person was too much for me. I operate under the assumption that there is good in everyone, and that good need only be nurtured in people to make the world better. This man, fictional though he is, almost took my hope in humanity away.

I have now started climbing back out of the rabbit hole, though I am forever changed by the journey. I cannot see the sources of evil in the world: historic hatred, corporate greed, and truly evil individuals. However, I will not sit quietly and watch the war be lost. I have an idea, and I will see it through. If no one listens, or is brave enough to try, at least I did my part. Dopesick included a Chinese proverb, which I will paraphrase to end this chapter: It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Musing on the News - Book Bans

                 Time published an article on 4/20 titled “New Report Finds That Book Bans Have Reached Their Highest Levels Yet.” As an avid reader I am immediately bothered by this, but I think it is worth explaining why.               First, over half the country is functionally illiterate, and even more don’t like to read, so who are we banning books for, anyway? It’s not like online ads that subliminally change your thinking. If you want to read a book, you have to physically get it, let someone else know what you’re reading (checking it out of a library or buying it in a store), and spend hours reading the material, depending on how fast you read. Reading is also self-selecting, as you can figure out by the book cover and back if you want to spend the time to decipher its contents. Reading social media and news is anonymous (except for the data points being collected on ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Viral Candidate - Kids

Kids               I don’t want to run for public office, I never have, but if I did, I would focus on our children and how to set them up for future success. As a member of the first generation in this country predicted to be worse off than their parents both physically and financially, this is particularly important for me . Kids are our future, and we need to do a better job taking care of them and enabling them to have the quality of life we wish for them (which I’m assuming is better than the one we have made for ourselves). I’m a public-school teacher of middle and high school students and have been for over a decade (since before the iPhone came out and teaching fully metamorphosed into an exercise in frustration). As a public servant and one who has a heart for the future success of our nation through the next generation, I find it important to address what we are going to do for our descendants (while figuring ...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Hold

  The Viral Candidate – On Hold               I really don’t want to run for office. I’m an idea person, not an implementation person. I have a lot of ideas that I think would do a lot of good. I realized that all the political candidates have done something “noteworthy” in politics or life before trying to run the country. This feels elitist, but also ensures intelligent, capable people are the ones running. Or maybe those are the people who refuse to run because our political landscape has gotten so toxic. With that thought, I want to finish some of my ideas and do something larger than being a high school teacher before I try to imagine a national political campaign. Therefore, I am putting the Viral Candidate project on hold for a year.               I have been trying to find a way to build a platform and have done so with little guidance so far...
Post a Comment
Read more