Heart of darkness.

F or me, the word " evil " is somewhat of an abstraction. Having led a protected life, one of only a few occasions on which I have seen something resembling evil was when the Twin Towers fell on September 11th. Evil is the intent of harm and deliberate violation of basic moral and ethical codes. Evil is now woven into our culture, something that, in recent times, probably became more apparent (and popular) when President Reagan called the Soviets " evil " and, later, with Mr. Bush extending this concept to the " axis of evil. " Invasion and domination by conquering forces are explicitly evil, as we have learned by how the Spanish (and we Americans) treated our native populations in the Americas. Heart of Darkness by Jo-seph Conrad recounts the evils that Belgians brought upon the Congo (the same story, transposed to our involvement in Viet-nam, was used by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now). Conrad implied that darkness lies in all of our hearts and that we are all capable of evil. Evil loomed over all of us during the cold war (but without overtly manifesting itself) and is now omnipresent in popular culture. Actor Mike Myers ridiculed it when he portrayed Dr. Evil in the silly Austin Powers movies. Evil is a mostly male behavior and a rite of passage in many groups (ie, gangs) and societies. The concept of evil is inseparable from religion; the forces of good and evil are always at battle with each other, particularly in our Western beliefs. Evil is human, and when we perceive some animal acts as such, it is just a projection of our own morals. In his book, Evil: An Investigation, 1 Lance Morrow speaks of micro and macro evil using as examples rape and genocide, respectively. Although evil resides in all of us, most well-balanced individuals control their urges and nothing comes of it. Evil can creep inadvertently into someone , as William Peter Blatty showed us in his book (and, later, in the movie directed by William Friedkin), The Exorcist. Evil can be highly efficient and bureaucratic, as with the Nazis or the Soviet Gulags or the killing of the Congolese by King Leopold II of Belgium (again portrayed in Heart of Darkness). The word " evil " was probably coined during the Middle Ages from the Old English " yfel " and/or the …