by wolfguard
Kindly donated by Jade's BtVS Theories

Joss would have you believe that the Israelis are evil or that the Palestinians are evil. Your choice. They both claim rights to the same land. Each are willing to use force to hold or obtain it.

From the beginning, the Buffyverse’s tale is that demons held first dominion over the earth. They lost it to humans. They want it back. Is this desire and actions to achieve it any different than the desires and actions of numerous human societies over the centuries?

But these are demons, outsiders, them not us. There’s danger in this reasoning. While humans are biologically one, they are not one culturally or socially. We are many groups, often competing for the same necessities and luxuries. To each group, the others may be viewed as outsiders. Should not Evil be more than a matter of which flag one fights for or against?

Perhaps it’s the tools one uses? Killing, destroying, raping, pillaging, threatening - the coercive acts. Here again, how do we differ from demons? How many have been lauded heroes for the same acts done in the name of God, King, or country? With the arrogance that distance allows, we might say that the ends do not justify the means, but in practice, they often do.

If the defense of one’s society sanctifies questionable acts, then defining good and evil lies in the providence of society. Social values evolve to allow members to live and work together. There may not always be a pure correspondence between a value or rule and its practice. Changing circumstances may invalidate old ways. Some groups within the whole may be favored or disfavored relative to others. All true, yet social values persist because they work well enough. Society’s criteria in judging evil is the question: Does the action further our well-being? “Our” being an abstract collective of its members. What of the individual?

There is a give and take between the interests of an individual and of a society. Compromises are made, burdens are shared. We cannot have our cake and eat it to. There are those individuals who would so have it. They live for their own complete pleasure, irrespective of the cost such demands place on others. Many, if not most, such people are incapable of making their demands effective. Society is experienced with rooting out, pruning and shaping the wayward. There are exceptions, the selfish ones with the self-awareness to know both their wants and their vulnerabilities and the ability to maneuver through society to gain the former and protect the latter. Evil is personified by these people.

For most of us the temptations arise now and then and we succumb. To our own advantage we lie to another, fudge a number, break a rule while no one watches. This is petit evil. Evil as an adjective. Observing such behavior, we recall the mantra: The person is good, the act is bad. Then there are the aforementioned evil ones. Theirs is grand evil. Evil as a noun. When we speak of the knowledge of good and evil, we put our finger on the difference between human and beast. The beast is aware that it is and acts in accordance with its nature. We are aware of what is and what can be and choose as we see fit. For most of us, what is ‘fit’ flows from the group experience of what might best work to the benefit of all. To Evil, the question is solely, given this time and place, what works best for me?

The above casts a society as being its own judge. Naturally, why not? What wolf pack or chimpanzee band is better than another? For many of us this causes unease. We know of societies that we’d not hesitate to call evil. Such is the case. Our brains’ innate creativity has allowed us to move beyond the natural. That the world is big and our brains are small leads to imperfect solutions. That some of us combine both intelligence with self-indulgence allows social instruments to be subverted. A society can be lead to evil. A society can also be lead to good.

It has become fashionable for some to deride the concepts of progress and development. The terms have become associated with the ethnocentrism of the “West.” On the technical level we have increased our ability to shape the physical world. Such shaping has its risks. Technical hubris has summoned past days of reckoning and likely future days of reckoning await. That said, for millions of people the technical fruits of progress and development have been a blessing. On the ideological level, we have seen movements to expand the identity of “we.” We may be of different societies and cultures, but we are all humans with innate rights. Innate rights are not biologically given. They are culturally given and culturally protected. Coupled with the expansion of “we” is empathy. I do not know if empathy drives the expansion or is a result, but it is empathy which can stay the hand of coercive acts. Empathy is the moral glue that holds societies together as one.

So are demon societies evil? I think the quick and dirty answer is that demon societies do not exist. Demons are rabid individualists. They may travel together and make alliances of convenience, but there is no doubt where their loyalties lie. That said, we have the example of Luke and company serving the master. There were the three assassin vampires who offered no resistance to their deaths at the hands of Darla. Perhaps they are the less evil of vampires, the ones diluted by remnants of the human personality whose body they possessed. But that’s the quick and dirty answer. The more likely answer is both mundane and mythic.

Would Joss have you believe the Israelis or Palestinians are evil? Not at all. Recall the scene in “Amends” where Xander appears to tell Willow about his annual Christmas camp-out? There was a brief flurry of debate as to the meaning. Willow would have known of Xander’s situation. What was Joss’ purpose? Josh explained it. A technical oversight. Had he not said so, some still might be trying to weave the scene into the overall Buffyverse. The mundane explanation is that supernatural foes offer more story possibilities and demons are in our myths associated with evil. The mythic explanation is found in the answer to the question, “Where do monsters come from?” A police officer once said, “ Cops don’t see the worst people, they see people at their worst.” Monsters encapsulate our fears of the unknown. Monsters also project our fears of the worst about ourselves. That we are capable of evil. The Buffyverse, intentionally or not, offers that possibility, but it also offers the promise that we can be our own Slayers.


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