The Left's Hierarchy of Evil

"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals." - Herman Melville (1819–1891)

No matter how well-versed the reader might think themselves on the darker side of human nature and the decadent depravity of the ruling elite, there surely can be few among us who managed to make it through the last three years entirely unsurprised by the scale of atrocities which have been brought to light.

Western governments’ brutalization of their own citizens should have been a wake-up call for everyone. More eye-opening still is that whenever the basis of this brutalization was proven a lie it only became more vicious, and yet even the rapidly unravelling COVID scam is but a single thread in a vast tapestry of crime and corruption ranging from the breathtakingly callous to the flamboyantly debauched. Safe to say, those who tug on these threads are continuously sickened by what they uncover. Even people paying marginal attention have found their faith in authority fatally undermined. For a great many observers, however, your humble narrator included, the most personally transformative revelation since March 2020 has not been any one instance of establishment barbarism but rather - when these instances are considered in their totality - the uncomfortable, inescapable conclusion that evil truly does exist.

A Philosophy of Evil by Lars Svendsen

In hindsight, it was probably this realization which attracted me, upon a recent visit to my local secondhand bookstore, to the work of Lars Svendsen. At the time, of course, my reasons for pulling A Philosophy of Evil from the shelf, never having heard of its author, amounted to nothing more profound than I liked both the title and its stark black cover (as well as the fact I retained the requisite six dollars after already picking up a copy of Nikolai Gogol’s Taras Bulba).

Naturally, I assumed the book to be an exposition of Svendsen’s own perspective but upon returning home and leafing through its pages, I discovered that A Philosophy of Evil instead constitutes his effort to first define his subject matter and then to provide his audience the language necessary for some long-overdue discussion of it. To do so, the writer delves into (and borrows liberally from) some of the greatest thinkers ever to grapple with the topic. This is a cast comprised of philosophers, theologians, and psychiatrists; saints, sadists, and scholars of the criminal mind - Svendsen’s purposely broad-brush approach leading him to contend that, unlike the monolithic force it is often presented as, evil in fact manifests in four distinct iterations:

Stupid Evil

It can hardly come as much of a shock to anyone, least of all those alive in an era of socially-distanced, UFO-hypnotized, Ukrainian flag-waving freakoutery, that by far the most common variety of evil distinguished by Svendsen can be chalked up to regular old imbecility. Nevertheless, what the author terms “stupid” is perhaps better regarded as a form of thoughtlessness - a thoughtlessness most accurately and indeed, most famously described by Hannah Ardent in her portrait of SS Commander Adolf Eichmann. As Svendsen paraphrases:

“In the narrow sense of the word, [Eichmann] doesn’t act, but simply follows orders. He doesn’t talk, but simply opens his mouth and lets forth a stream of clichés [. . .] Nothing requires that the individual resort to reflection; instead, everything can be satisfied with superficial, standard formulae. All particulars – including individual human beings and their individual suffering – disappears in view of such formulae.”

Seldom has this mindlessness been more palpable than during the COVID psychosis. Yes, it might be said that it was raw fear and shell-shocked panic which ensured early compliance with CDC diktats (primarily among the female population) but ultimately, what was either but a means of eliciting thoughtlessness? There is likely little need to remind the reader how this degenerated to the level of evil. After all, few among the unvaccinated will ever forgive, let alone forget, the shame, mockery, ostracization, and naked persecution we were subjected to and yet even now the state-mandated hysterics have died down, great swathes of humanity remain blithely (some would say, intentionally) oblivious to other abuses of power currently playing out around us. Worse still, many reflexively regurgitate MSM-promulgated slogans in defense of them, the systematic destabilization of Europe, the full-throttle importation of Third World savagery, and the industrial scale butchery of “transgender” children all facilitated by this society-wide commitment to ignorance.

Idealistic Evil

Closely related is Svendsen’s notion of idealistic evil which, in essence, outlines mankind’s capacity to justify even the most heinous acts so long as these acts remain in service of “the greater good.” Among the most germane examples are the Salem Witch Trials and the suicide bombings which continuously rock the Middle East but in truth, deluded zealotries of one kind or another have been the engine behind almost every genocide in history, Svendsen himself asserting:

“Projects intended to overcome both illusory and actual evils have brought far more evil into the world than any straightforward transgression […] As human beings, we struggle to find meaning; in seeking meaning and in creating meaning, we create ideas that become bases for action. Two of our most central concepts are ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and these are often correlated with the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Devils, or evil people are always others – never oneself.”

Suffice to say, it is folks like AOC and Bernie Sanders who today represent the most meme-worthy embodiments of idealistic evil. But while it would be easy to dismiss their followers as nothing more than misguided, one need only consider the blight consuming West Coast metropolises or the horrors taking place along the Southern border to appreciate the profundity of suffering deemed acceptable in pursuit of their ever-illusive utopia. Hell, just consult a history textbook and you’ll see the blood-drenched consequences of progressive convictions, Antifa, BLM, as well as the assorted outgrowings of the climate cult merely the latest expression of our species’ proclivity toward dogmatic, murderous conceit.

Instrumental Evil

Unlike idealistic evil (which is motivated by the genuine albeit imprudent search for collective good), its instrumental counterpart is instead driven by the desire for personal enrichment, regardless of how this might impact others. There is not necessarily any inclination to inflict harm. Rather, this is the “just doing business” mantra of mobsters and mafiosos, Svendsen this time turning to Emmanuel Kant as the basis of his argument:

“Kantian evil is not an extravagant form of evil practiced by devilish agents. It’s what we might call ‘everyday evil,’ or ordinary evil. [It] refers to the depths of an individual’s moral corruptness; this is, when we prioritize self-love over all other considerations [. . .] There are no limits to the consequences [this] evil can have. Indeed, a particularly thought-provoking aspect of Kant’s theory of radical evil is that our small, daily offenses spring from the same source as the cruelest actions.” 

Once more, demonstrations of this evil today are harrowingly abundant. Although Mexican drug cartels no doubt tick all the relevant boxes, even their ruthlessness scarcely compares to the callous disregard for human life exhibited by Big Pharma. Sure, there will be some readers who insist (with perfectly good reason) that the likes of Albert Bourla, Anthony Fauci, and fellow vaccine-enthusiast, Bill Gates are actually acting out of some warped idealism, whether this be in the hope of implementing their proposed biomedical surveillance state or of furthering the Malthusian depopulation agenda. With time, these plots will become increasingly obvious, however what is already beyond question is that the still-to-break wave of death and destruction they have unleashed was only made possible due to the political establishment’s willingness to sacrifice both public health and societal cohesion in exchange for its own power and profit.

Demonic Evil

As might be expected, demonic evil is enacted solely and exclusively for its own sake, serving no purpose but the pleasure of watching another suffer. John Wayne Gacy, Henry Lee Lucas, and Richard Ramirez - serial killers with a penchant for torturing their victims - would seem like incontrovertible examples of this and yet Svendsen remains unconvinced. Here, somewhat perplexingly, he seeks to disprove the existence of demonic evil by echoing the sentiments of a man whose very name is synonymous with it - Donatien Alphonse François, otherwise known as the Marquise de Sade:

“Ultimately, we can say that Sade rejects every idea of objective good and objective evil and exclusively embraces whatever gives subjective pleasure: For Sade, evil is something that should be enjoyed… but then that enjoyment cannot be regarded as anything other than a subjective good.”

This is where Svendsen and I must part ways. In seeing the world in such purely material terms (a theme which permeates the entirety of his book) the author dismisses not only the ideas of Plato, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas (or more precisely, their uncharitably constructed strawmen) but also a litany of real-life horror stories almost too depraved to fathom. These are not just the work of some dangerously bored goths out in Utah. For decades, the MSM has diligently ignored details surrounding the cases of Peter Nygård and Marc Dutroux as well as the testimony of actor-turned-whistleblower Isaac Kappy, but ever since the Epstein saga at last forced the reality of ritual satanic abuse onto the public consciousness, more people than ever before have begun to question, not simply the motives of the ruling elite, but the very nature of reality itself. Of course, it would be reassuring to think our fight was against enemies as temporal as Klaus Schwab. How soundly we might sleep knowing that the plan to enslave us was hatched by minds as meagre as Yuval Noah Harari’s. Given the current direction of our world, however, alongside the brazenly anti-human agenda now sweeping it, surely it must behoove all of us, even the most ardent of skeptics, to at least consider the possibility that these men and their cohorts have been conscripted by a force that neither Svendsen nor his assembly of brilliant minds has ever been able to articulate.

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