This is a book about evil in the context of education and how we might live together on this planet in less harmful ways. Evil might seem like a strange choice to explore options for better relations with each other (and certainly I am often the object of odd looks at academic conferences), but I feel that this area of inquiry can help those interested in education think through ethical issues in curriculum, pedagogy, and perhaps even in their daily lives. In his poem, In Tenebris II, Thomas Hardy declared how in a future yet to come (when things are supposedly good), society will not tolerate the person âWho holds that if a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.â Even in our present times, though, investigating the Worst is not a popular stance or perhaps is fetishized in a sort of masochistic context. In this book, I hope to avoid both foibles, neither ignoring evil nor glorifying it.
Difficult Knowledge and Radical Hope
The evils of historical and contemporary times can be what Deborah Britzman (1998) has called difficult knowledge. We might mourn events like war, slavery, genocide, famine, bigotry, and other injustices that reveal suffering to be caused by human indifference or disdain. We can also see difficult knowledge as the range of challenging emotions related to the uncertainty we can feel as we strive for more harmonious relations:
wishing to approach new experiences and new knowledge, feeling both the fatigue of limit and the excitement of potential, and then solving this ambivalence by seeking continuity with the safety of the old objects yet still agitated by the crisis of dependency. (Britzman, 2013, p. 101)
This task, then, is a sort of âradical hopeâ in the sense of Jonathan Lear (2006)ânot being glibly optimistic, but instead tapping into our shared vulnerability. For this shared sense of precarity , we need to see others as mutually alive, and thus, their suffering and deaths as equally able to be grieved (Butler, 2004, 2009). Yet, we do not value each other as such: âprecariousness is a universal of human life, yet we experience it in highly singular waysâ (Ruti, 2017, p. 94). Not only recognizing our own experiences with precarity might be difficult knowledge, but also recognizing our part in systems that create precarious situations for othersâindeed, both are realizations we might rather avoid. Lisa Farley (2009) has aptly noted that Lear highlighted âa possibility that we might prefer to forget: namely, that what matters to us mostâour ways of doing things in the worldâare at constant risk of coming undone, and becoming our undoingâ (p. 546). Indeed, how might we live with the difficult knowledge that surrounds us and our existence in societies?
The theme of this book is that although it may be uncomfortable to discuss evil, it is nonetheless important. Everyone has a sense of what evil is, but many of us ponder neither its nature nor how it functions, let alone how someoneâs understanding can be different from another personâs, or even how the same person might hold multiple conceptualizations over time or even simultaneously. It is no easy task to try to define what evil might be. Scholars in psychology, religious studies, neuroscience, philosophy, history, and other fields have come up with seemingly countless definitions that vary not only between, but also within, those fields.
On Defining Evil
Etymologically speaking, the word âevilâ is considered to have developed from the Old English word, yfel and stems from Proto-Germanic ubilaz and serves as âthe most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagementâ (Harper, 2014, paras. 1â2). Anglo-Saxons used the word âevilâ to refer to notions of âbad, cruel, unskillful, or defective,â but as the language developed into Middle English, the word âbadâ encompassed most of these ranges of meaning and âevilâ was reserved for âmoral badnessâ (Harper, 2014, para. 2). Although arguably we might dispute exactly what âbadâ might mean, thinking about what leads someone to do âbadâ deeds is even harder, and that is what concerns us in this book. How does evil happen? Who do we name as evil and why? And, why does it matter how we talk about evil?
If you are looking for a book that outlines one specific understanding of evil as the sole correct one, you have picked the wrong book. In fact, according to Alain Badiou (1993/2001), the imposition of a single truth is, in fact, a form of evil. Instead of arguing for a âbestâ definition of evil, I explain in this book that there are helpful (and harmful) definitions in a variety of contexts. What do I mean by helpful? I consider a definition of evil to be a helpful one if it opens up critical thinking, and thus a harmful definition as one that shuts down those higher-order thinking processes. In particular, I am concerned about our feelings of empowerment and agency, especially in relation to power structures. Although the definitions employed in this book vary greatly, there is a unifying theme that evil is not necessarily a tangible, physical, or spiritual thing; instead, evil is a process in the human realm. Evil âis not a character flaw that belongs to others, whether real or imagined, but rather a human qualityâ (Farley, 2009, p. 538; Stanley, 1999). I am purposefully not saying that evil is âcontrolledâ by humans, even though it is tempting. My caution in the use of the word âcontrolâ is that humans can both intentionally and unintentionally commit evil, and when evil is unintentional, we can be completely oblivious to our wrongdoing. In that scenario, the evil-doer is not in control per se.
If provoking critical thought is the criteria, then a good definition of evil encourages subjectification, a term coined by Gert Biesta (2010) that describes the process of becoming a subjectâhow we âcome to exist as subjects of initiative and responsibility rather than as objects of the actions of othersâ (Biesta, 2015, p. 77). Those acting as subjects possess the ability to think and act independently from authority but interconnected with others. Subjectification prevents us from being part of a mindless herd and instead invites us to think about how we might live together in good ways. In the context of education, subjectification might:
- encourage a sense of responsibility and agency in and out of the classroom;
- create educational contexts and systems that encourage genuine thinking; and
- live more peacefully and happily with each other (as well as other entities) on this planet.
How we identify and define evil can help us subvert what we do not like about our societies, and this is an important initial step towards dismantling unhelpful structures and preventing unhelpful actions. A thoughtful consideration of evil can help this process, as opposed to a sort of âvulgar Manichaeismâ where we might dismissively and simplistically name all that we âdespise and want to destroyâ as evil (Bernstein, 2002, p. 3).
Richard Bernstein (2002) has noted that in contemporary times the concept of evil has been used to stifle genuine thinking and public discussion, despite the discourse of evil having historically provoked inquiry in philosophy, religion, literature, and beyond. Of particular worry is the political employment of the word evil to sway public opinion; for example, George W. Bush used the word evil in over 800 speeches during his presidency (Barton, 2017). Arguably, such a political use of evil can serve to shut down critical thinking about government policies and actions (van Kessel, 2017). The goal of this book is to subvert such a process and those like it and instead provoke thinking about and through the concept of evil in the spirit of thoughtful education (as opposed to thoughtless schooling). I propose engaging with a variety of different definitions and exploring how they are helpful in specific contexts. But first, how has evil been taken up in educational research?
Evil in Educational Research
As a perennial concern throughout human history, there is much scholarly work on evil. This section, however, limited to a review of how the topic of evil has been examined in Anglophone educational research, with particular interest in the usage of the word and concept in social studies education spanning the years 1979 to present. I have not...