#philosophy
On Evil
– Alain Badiou.
There are four fundamental forms of evil:
obscurantism,
commercial academicism,
the politics of profit and inequality,
and sexual barbarism.
The real question underlying the question of evil is the following: What is the good?
All my philosophy strives to answer this question.
For complex reasons, I give the good the name “truths” (in the plural).
A truth is a concrete process that starts by an upheaval (an encounter, a general revolt, a surprising new invention), and develops as fidelity to the novelty thus experimented.
A truth is the subjective development of that which is at once both new and universal.
New: that which is unforeseen by the order of creation.
Universal: that which can interest, rightly, every human individual, according to his pure humanity (which I call his generic humanity).
To become a subject (and not remain a simple human animal), is to participate in the coming into being of a universal novelty. That requires effort, endurance, sometimes self-denial.
I often say it’s necessary to be the “activist” of a truth. There is evil each time egoism leads to the renunciation of a truth. Then, one is de-subjectivised. Egoistic self-interest carries one away, risking the interruption of the whole progress of a truth (and thus of the good).
One can, then, define evil in one phrase:
evil is the interruption of a truth by the pressure of particular or individual interests.
