Evil: What's In a Word?

After Friday night and the "Dark Knight Rises" massacre at a theatre in Aurora, CO, America is in a deep collective search for a motive that would cause James Holmes to shoot 70+ people before turning himself in to police outside of the screening. But, as is usually the case, the conversation is never elevated to a point where we can investigate societal, political, or idealogical factors that would turn a quiet college student into a mass-murderer. Instead, we label the perpetrator as "crazy", "maniacal", or "evil"; and we allow ourselves to avoid confronting the true reason that Holmes opened fire in a theater of innocent moviegoers.

Of course, this psychological deception is par for the course here in America. The most obvious example of this is the September 11th attack, where (if the official story is to be believed) radical Islamic terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into designated targets, killing almost 4,000. The attack was quickly labeled as an "act of evil" and less than 2 months later...we had boots in the ground in Afghanistan to find and destroy Al-Qaeda cells. It's unfortunate that we weren't able to turn these tragic circumstances into an analytical study of why these terrorists wanted to commit such heinous violence and use this information to promote a more harmonious world. It wouldn't have been very hard, either. The easiest element of the attack to deconstruct would be the targets themselves. The Pentagon is a universal symbol of war, and commands that have been issued from here have affected the majority of the world's population. The World Trade Center is an international financial hub and represents both the good and the bad of our global monetary system. Knowing these basic facts about the targets, we're prepared to investigate the true motive of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and come to a greater understanding of their grievances against the US. This, by no means, exonerates the crime. Nor does it mean that the attacks were in the slightest bit valid. It does, however, paint a picture of the world we're actually living in, and exposes the foundation of international resentment of America.
 

So here we are, almost 11 years later; and still most people would tell you that the reason the planes were crashed was because the people committing the crime were "evil". We're told that the followers radical Islam "hate our freedom" or "hate or way of life", but these claims are without merit. In truth, the Bin Laden tapes and those of other high ranking Al-Qaeda officials detail a multitude of injustices that they feel the American government is responsible for, including the support of Israel and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was cast as the super-villain, hellbent on the destruction of a people who believed in democracy. I implore you to watch these videos, and to take notice of the mild-mannered criticism of American foreign policy; contrast this to the picture painted by the government and the media. Again, this does not excuse the violence...but it serves to show that we're not living in the black/white world where someone kills because they are inherently "evil". 

Ultimately, I think that the Dark Knight Rises shooting will have more complex motivations than the 9/11 attacks. If the reports are correct and Holmes was "playing" The Joker, I suspect that the mythos of the character will be of great importance to uncovering why this happened. [SUGGESTION: A thorough reading of Graham Greene's "The Destructors" would probably be beneficial to anyone looking to seriously investigate or understand this weekend's event.]

But if we again cover our eyes, and continue to label Holmes as simply "crazy", "evil" or any other meaningless blanket term...we risk a complete misunderstanding of his motives and will be unable to find creative solutions to prevent similar attacks. 

We'll all learn a great deal about James Holmes in the coming weeks as the investigation into this tragedy ramps up. And as the facts start coming out, try to remember the danger in dismissing violent acts as simply "evil".