Joker: good or evil?

Does good win over evil? Dusshera just passed. It has been stated to us since our childhood that it reminds us of the victory of good over evil. That ultimately it is the good which triumphs. After living half of my life on this earth, I am a little confused. If good had to win over evil, wouldn’t all of us would be living a good life without any evil doings going around in the whole world and in our lives?

Instead, we deal with evil day in and day out. Not just in the world, in the country, in the city, we live in but in our lives as well. In our personal minds as well, good and evil fight a battle all the time. Evil has a say in the battle and it is a strong contender. If we get over one evil, another one crops up over the due course of time. The same is true for good. And their battle is continuous, omnipresent.

What is evil? Who makes something evil and who tells us what is good? Are these just social constructs? Was Mahisasura evil for everyone in this world or just the people who did not like him? Was Ravana evil for everybody, we know this is not true. And Ram too doesn’t look good in some respects. If you ask the feminists! So how do we decide what is good and what is evil? From our own understanding of the world and the world’s understanding of itself!

What is evil inside of us comes from our understanding of sin. Killing someone is sin for some. But when hundreds and thousands are killed in the war, it is not considered sin but will of God. If society around considers something as sin, the things connected to it become evil. Evils come from these connections. And they then compete with good which again comes from social constructs as well.

Yes, I have watched the movie Joker. A man who is a villain or a hero depending on who you are. The experiences which the Joker went through made him a villain. For some. And a hero. For the others. So what was done to him was sin for some and what he did was sin for the others.

The movie tells us a good story. Of how a man descends into madness and how the so-called evil captures his soul. How experiences, since childhood can make someone a cold-blooded killer. Nothing in this world is without a reason. He became what he became because of what he went through all his life. So who is one going to blame for all the acts he committed? Is it him or is it the people who gave him trauma? The answer to the question will make you a particular kind of person. If you think it’s him, you are of a particular kind. If you think it’s the society he lived in, you are of a different kind. And if you think it’s a mixture of both, well most probably you are of a third kind. Kinds of people. Kinds of good and evil.

So the classification of good and evil for a person is not universal but an idiosyncratic view. This is something many people do not understand. They believe what is evil for them must be evil for others as well. And if it is not, then there is something wrong with the people of the other kind. The same holds true for the instances of good. We claim universality yet we are so human and so individualistic. And that is why everything is not always good. Because most things in this world are neither universally good nor universally evil.

Enough of gyan. Thanks for the good act of reading. I hope I did not awaken your little evil for the time it took.