Epilogue: Evilightenment
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.
— Benjamin Franklin
Charles Darwin observed that of all the differences between humans and other animals, one capacity reigns supreme: we alone have the ability to contemplate what others ought to do. We alone are endowed with a moral imperative to reflect, consider, and imagine alternatives. We alone are impelled to be dissatisfied with the status quo, urged to contemplate what could be and ultimately what must be. This capacity creates a fundamental principle of human existence and enlightenment: we alone invest in the survival of the /east fit. We give money to those in abject poverty, risk our lives to help others in areas of conflict, adopt abandoned children, nurture individuals with extreme disabilities, and care for the elderly. This principle fuels our humanitarian efforts. Sadly, it is a necessary response to another unique difference between humans and other animals: we alone have the ability to inflict great harms on our own species and many others. We alone are responsible for creating work for those in the humanitarian sector. We alone are evil.
We also have an opportunity to begin a new volume of humane history. We have the chance to harness our understanding of the past in order to present our children with the gift of knowledge and the prospects of a healthier future. We should— no, we must — teach our children what we have learned about the causes of corporate corruption, the desire for ethnic cleansing, and the combined forces of nature and nurture to create excessive suffering and lifeless flesh. These are topics that should be presented early on in education rather than waiting for heady discussions at the university. We owe the next generation the best education from our generation. The best education will come from confronting history, exposing human nature, and supporting cultural variation while fighting to demolish totalitarian regimes that limit or eliminate basic human rights. I write this sentence following on the eve of Egypt's inspiring revolution, a revolution led by educated people who refused to allow the dictator Hosni Mubarak to ruin their country and their children's future. The people of Egypt, like the people of many countries who rallied in the Arab spring of 2011, refused to be eternal victims. This is a lesson that must spread to every corner of the globe. It is a lesson of hope. It is a lesson to all evildoers to beware.
I have taken you on a journey into evil’s core, penetrating with scientific evidence and explanation. Though we have traveled to distant lands, traversed vast spans of time, and encountered wildly different cultures, the key idea is that this nchness was generated from a few essential ingredients. This is a minimalist approach to a difficult and highly variegated problem. I end our journey by taking stock of the essential ideas and reflect on some of the broader implications.
Retracing our steps
In the beginning, before there were bald, bipedal, big-brained, babbling humans, there were hairy, quadrupedal, bitsy-brained, barking bonobos. These animals, clearly clever, have survived for over 6-7 million years, despite attempts by our species to demolish their habitat. But — and this is a significant
Hauser Epilogue. Evilightenment 144
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012890