The Problem of Evil & the Problem of Me-ville
“I don’t have any complaints.”
“Life isn’t fair.” (!)
People often make the first statement when things are going well for them. The second often comes to people as a surprising realization at some point in their lives when things are going badly for them.
Notice that in each case, there is an assumption that things ought to be going well for us personally. A billion people go to bed hungry every night, folks around the world suffer every imaginable deprivation and outrage from one minute to the next… But nothing bad should happen to me or anyone I happen to be particularly close to. That’s just not how life’s supposed to work.
We are troubled by the very fact that we should have troubles. We consistently compare ourselves with those whom we perceive as more fortunate than ourselves, not less. “Less” doesn’t count. Of course there are those less fortunate than us. Whatever… But the fact that there are those more fortunate, sometimes WAY more fortunate – well, that’s just not right.
It's an interesting perspective…
How much of the theological problem of evil might really be the problem of me-ville? (How much could these be related to the problem of bad puns?)
But really… notice that even Job’s crisis of faith came about in response to losing his own health and having his own roof cave in – and not after this happened to his neighbor across the way...
“Life isn’t fair.” (!)
People often make the first statement when things are going well for them. The second often comes to people as a surprising realization at some point in their lives when things are going badly for them.
Notice that in each case, there is an assumption that things ought to be going well for us personally. A billion people go to bed hungry every night, folks around the world suffer every imaginable deprivation and outrage from one minute to the next… But nothing bad should happen to me or anyone I happen to be particularly close to. That’s just not how life’s supposed to work.
We are troubled by the very fact that we should have troubles. We consistently compare ourselves with those whom we perceive as more fortunate than ourselves, not less. “Less” doesn’t count. Of course there are those less fortunate than us. Whatever… But the fact that there are those more fortunate, sometimes WAY more fortunate – well, that’s just not right.
It's an interesting perspective…
How much of the theological problem of evil might really be the problem of me-ville? (How much could these be related to the problem of bad puns?)
But really… notice that even Job’s crisis of faith came about in response to losing his own health and having his own roof cave in – and not after this happened to his neighbor across the way...
Posted by Paul at 12:34 AM Permalink
16 Comments:
1) the instinctive urge to survival, covering self and close family, prepared to defend itself against any who threaten that survival. In this context “evil” as adjective comes from Old English as an “expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement”; or as noun describes a source of “harm, injury, misfortune, disease”. It’s not judgmental, just a reflection of fact – this situation is bad for me.
2) in Western affluent society, the deliberate manipulation of this instinctive urge for commercial and political purposes. The “we” you refer to are bombarded with propaganda images and verbal ideas, many of them artificial, creating a false sense of anxiety which is then made real by the stresses of competition. There is a sense (whether true or false varies in each case) of being surrounded by enemies.
3) the tendency derived from religious conditioning to judge oneself and others; a) to posit an entity called evil which resides in them and makes them do bad things – thus defining evil as a cause (wickedness) rather than an effect (harm); b) to take conventional remarks such as “I don’t have any complaints” or “life isn’t fair” as evidence of the disordered view of life which you call “an interesting perspective”.
Personally, I don’t have any complaints, either. But life isn’t fair, too. Blessings and curses seem to rain down on us arbitrarily.
Vincent – You point to some of the important cultural and biological factors that can be involved with the tacit assumption that bad things somehow shouldn’t happen to us.
“Evil” and “the problem of evil” is the traditional western phraseology, but I share your reservations about implied judgmentalism. Our difficulty with "harm" or "suffering" coming our way would be a better choice of words, but it would have less readily conveyed what I was trying to talk about to people who grew up with a western theological orientation. (Besides, I’d have lost the bad or perhaps evil pun...)
That orientation, it seems to me, heightens the difficulty because it becomes necessary to try to reconcile a benign, intelligent entity as being in control of existence with the existence of suffering.
I try to remind myself that I'm somewhere in the middle - that though I feel disadvantaged, there are people less well off. It doesn't really help so much :) I guess I do compare my life as it is not to how it is for others but to how I want it to be for me - the thought of all those less fortunate than me isn't making me feel a whole lot better.
That strikes me as a major function of religion/spirituality for many people - one that's seldom directly stated but often easy to infer. I can imagine that it would be reassuring for as long as things are going well, but would think that it must throw people into confusion and self doubt in hard times.
I know what you mean about comparing your life to how you wish it were. I imagine it’s impossible for anybody not to do that sometimes.
One of my daughters has trouble keeping her weight down. She has to be very careful about what she eats...and she enjoys food. This angers her because she sees certain other people eat to their heart's content and never gain a pound. She'll say to me in her frustration, "It isn't fair." There is no religious teaching prompting her to draw that conclusion. It just seems unfair to her that other people can eat what they want and not gain weight, but she can't.
When my cousin Betty developed a brain tumor, I remember saying to her mother (my Aunt Sue, Paul), that it wasn't fair. Betty eventually died. What seemed unfair to me about her brain tumor and subsequent death, although it really doesn't make much sense, is that my cousin Betty was very health conscious. She took good care of herself healthwise. She followed all the health rules and so on. Then she comes down with cancer and dies. It does really seem unfair of life to do that to her, and, again, I know this is irrational.
Sometimes we do not give much thought to the pain and suffering of others, or get too close to it because we are very uncomfortable with the idea of pain and suffering. I know individuals who will not go to the hospital to visit a patient there,even a loved one, because hospitals are about pain and suffering. I know individuals who will not step inside a nursing home for the same reason. Nursing homes tend to be about pain and suffering..and DEATH. I have often wondered to what extent our dread of dying and leaving this life contributes to some of the problems we have in the world.
I’ve noticed that too – that people with no religious affiliation also generally seem to expect life to treat them fairly. The theological “problem of evil” just seems to heighten the complaints and objections that people are prone to make anyway.
With or without a God, people usually seem to expect life to treat people fairly – particularly themselves and their loved ones.
To me, this problem percolates through the conversation of fair /unfair and misfortune as well. We look for something bad enough to judge 'evil', and are frustrated when we don't find it.
Yet almost every one of us lives out of balance with the planet and with what is sustainable and "decent."
You are absolutely right. We insist that abundance and good health is our personal birthright, while doing nothing to insure that others are treated as well. Those who have less... 'don't count.'
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/05/29/how.fairness.wired.brain
Thanks for the link. Interesting to consider the role of the brain.
a hug today because I need it
(me, me, me first....but you know I experience this whole world through me, so it isn't that bad now, is it?)
wish you love and peace
E-vil is where I would rather not be, the one that I use sometimes when I am locked out of this house for some reason, mostly bec I forget the keys or something
Rolling - Thanks for stopping by, virtual hug back, and as to "I experience this whole world through me..." - that speaks to human identity. Speaking personally, it has turned out that there is much more to me than I would have thought earlier in my life.
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