The Abolition of Man
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
A fundamental question is whether there is a universal, transcendent definition of evil, or whether evil is determined by one's social or cultural background. C. S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, maintained that there are certain acts that are universally considered evil, such as rape and murder. On the other hand, it is hard to find any act that was not acceptable in some society. Less than 150 years ago the United States of America, and many other countries practiced brutal forms of slavery. The Nazis, during World War II, found genocide acceptable, as did the Imperial Japanese Army with the Nanking Massacre and the Hutu Interhamwe in the Rwandan genocide. Today, there is strong disagreement as to whether homosexuality and abortion are evils or not. Universalists consider evil independent of culture, and wholly related to acts or intents. Thus, while the ideological leaders of Nazism and the Hutu Interhamwe accepted (and considered it good) to commit genocide, the universally evil act of genocide renders the entire ideology or culture evil.
