The Evil In Me, The Evil In You
Henry here. There is a line in the Old Testament somewhere where the writer says some thing like: “In the spring off the year, when the grass turns green and kings go to war…” This quote dates back at least 3,000 years, but we have likely being “going to war” since the human race began on the plains of Africa. War appears to be a basic part of the human condition.
Because of this fact we need armies and we need soldiers, but the question is what de we want those soldiers and armies to do? Most of us would say something like: we want protection from evil in all its forms and to have justice prevail in personal and international relationships.
The psychologist Carl Jung reminds of an uncomfortable fact. He tells us that the evil is not only outside ourselves in our enemies but also in ourselves.
We like to think that the evil in the conflict is outside, out there, in the person of the enemy. What we find almost impossible to accept is that we citizens and our soldiers have just as much darkness or evil in ourselves. This is a fact, for example, many citizens and soldiers in Nazi Germanyrefused to see until the terrible consequences of war were visited on them. It was then obvious to the world what evil had been unleashed.
The critical fact is that this is not a German or Nazi problem, or a problem with one particular person or group. This is a human problem. As much as we hate to admit it, all us have unrecognized levels of darkness within ourselves.