Good and evil

soren_nyrond made a comment to my last post which started me thinking, something he is always good at doing.

He postulated a Doctor Who story in which there are two non-human sides involved (okay, he said “non-humna,” but I don’t see why those humnas should be left out: besides, I think the same question would apply if both sides were human, or indeed humna) and they were “both evil.” WWDWD? So I started thinking about evil, and about the numerous ways fans have tried, sometimes with some success, to justify the ways of Sauron or Voldemort or the Daleks or you name it to men, and also to expose without mercy, if possible, the slightest fraction of a toenail of clay on those who are presented to us as heroes. We don’t, as a subculture, seem to be entirely easy with the concept of absolute evil or absolute good. Evil deeds, yes, but evil people?

Stracynski managed sequential evil with the Centauri and the Narns in B5, showing exactly parallel accounts of an attack by each side on a peaceful outpost of the other, but I don’t think either race was supposed to be “evil” as a race: they each had their own justification for their actions, and I think most people and most races do. The extremists who blow stuff up are not on the whole doing it for the sheer pleasure of killing and maiming innocents: they have a very clear sense of grievance and an end in view which they see as good for their people. (There will doubtless be some individuals who just enjoy the power, or the bloodshed, but we’re talking about “sides” here.) The troops who are currently getting killed in a foreign country may in fact be serving the interests of evil individuals, but they see themselves as fighting to free their own country from the threat of global terrorism: no-one could call them evil, as a whole.

Then there are the virtues such as courage, loyalty, perseverance, honour and so on. If a race displays those characteristics while waging a bloodthirsty war of extermination against an enemy, can we call them evil?

What do people think? Is it possible to imagine a conflict between two sides, both of which we could only call “evil”? Would it make a good story?

Truly, all humna life is here...