Evil is in the eye of the Beholder

For me, the question of "what is Evil" is intriguing. I think, for the most part, Evil is a perspective: a judgment made based in the  beliefs of the perceiver.

For example:  In college, I enrolled in a Latin Americans studies . When the course began, the entire class thought we had a clear  idea  of what  evil was.  For us, there could be no better example of pure evil, than the  notoriously ruthless leaders of some developing (aka.  third world)  countries, especially in the ares with drug cartels.  We viewed those dictators  as merciless tyrants who, without regard to human life,  ordered random executions  and mass killings  based their whims. Hundreds  were massacred and beaten for, seemingly, no reason. Citizens lived in terror. To us, this was the definition of Evil.

Our professor asked if we were running the country, what would we do differently? "Overthrow him and bring peace to the area, " we agreed. Our professor then asked us to come up with a plan to make that happen.

After weeks of investigating and studying the political history of developing countries,   we were shocked by the solution we turned into our instructor. In  class of more than 50 students, we unanimously decided to best thing we could do for the struggling country, was keep the tyrannical  dictator in power.

While we abhorred the dictators methods,  all the other options paled in comparison.  As we dug in and studied,   we quickly learned that the under developing world is not our world.  Because of their situation, their thought processes, methods of coping  and responses to social situations are not like ours. In their countries, they  have no social benefits. There  is no government housing or  food stamps--and if there is food, it is often scarce.  Many  don't have jobs and they do what they have to do to survive. Gangs, cartels and guns are the norm. From stealing to killing, many ordinary citizens are forced into unthinkable choices --just to survive. Since most people were born into these conditions, they just assume fighting for survival is the way of life.  

 

 My class researched similar developing country uprisings and, in the end, came to the conclusion that, if we had decided  to go with our initial gut feel and  topple the dictator, we might have  done more damage to an already struggling country.  

 

 History has shown that, in developing countries,  when a dictator is overthrown, mayhem erupts as gangs, cartels and factions struggle for power.  Gangs, warlords and drug cartels are not interested in attaining peace. We concluded that  the brutal, often bloody tactics  of the dictator, were the exact responses needed to keep the gangs and cartels in line.  The Dictator had to have enough perceived power, that the other forces feared going up against him. That fear kept the others in line. Therefore, the dictators tyrannical reputation , brought some form of stability and  control to the region.

 

If we had decided to remove the dictator, we would have had to replace him with another regime that was just as powerful, or more so, just to keep the other sanctions in line. That would have, most likely, caused more bloodshed.

By the end of our study, we had changed our view. To our surprise, we had to conclude that the Evil dictator may not have been as Evil as we originally thought-it was a matter of perspective.