Evil
A Critical Primer
Kenneth G. MacKendrick [+–]
Department of Religion
University of Manitoba
Kenneth G. MacKendrick is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Manitoba.
Evil: A Critical Primer begins with the claim that evil is a concept that is contextually bound. This means that we should not expect to find shared or similar notions of evil across cultures. Addressing evil in a way that is at once contextually specific and applicable to cross-cultural settings, this primer breaks with moral conceptions of evil by redescribing it within a new framework of dangers and aversions (i.e., things that cause harm and things to avoid). Doing so provides an empirical and heuristic framework as a new starting point for the study of religion, deemphasizing things associated with evil (like the devil, wickedness, or a diabolic will) and focusing instead on attitudes and practices (like rituals of purity and impurity, notions of clean and dirty, or expressions of disgust). Introducing and reflecting on cultural and cognitive aspects of classification, myth, ritual, emotions, and morality, Evil: A Critical Primer argues that our colloquial conception of evil, as related exclusively to the moral domain, is usefully illuminated by attending to historical and cultural context and cross-cultural comparison.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Introducing Evil [+–] 1-16
Provides an overview of evil as a moral phenomenon; justification for re-describing evil as dangers and aversions; discussion of dangers and aversions.
Chapter 2
Classification and Magical Thinking [+–] 17-40
Provides an overview of the power of classification and the relation of classification to dangers and aversions; key thinkers include Mary Douglas, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Bruce Lincoln; ethnographic examples will be drawn from Cantonese funerals, Maori cosmology, and Protestant purity debates (U.S.). This chapter will also include a discussion of “magical thinking” as the backbone of classificatory thinking.
Chapter 3
Ritual and Authority [+–] 41-64
Provides an overview of Maurice Bloch’s understanding of rituals and ritualization; ethnographic examples will be drawn from Bloch’s work (Malgasy), evangelical witnessing (U.S.), Muslim daily prayers in Turkey, and the Spanish exhumations.
Chapter 4
Myths and Mythmaking [+–] 65-88
Myths and Mythmaking provides an overview of myth and mythmaking drawing on the work of Russell McCutcheon and Bruce Lincoln; examples will be drawn the UFO incident at Roswell, and narratives of supernatural assault (Australia), Sati tradition in Rajasthan, and (possibly) the novel Dracula.
Chapter 5
Strong Emotions [+–] 89-106
Strong Emotions provides an overview of the relevance of emotions to culture and cognition; ethnographic examples focus on disgusting in relation to horrific representations of the feminine in Buddhist hagiography and shame in relation to rural Turkish conceptions of sexuality and procreation.
Chapter 6
Morality [+–] 107-126
Morality provides an overview of the difference between moral philosophy and moral psychology; a methodological objection to moral psychology; outline of the difference between moral philosophy and the aforementioned proposals regarding the study of dangers and aversions versus moral evil (mainly focusing on the difference between first person and third person perspectives). Key thinkers: Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib.
Chapter 7
Conclusion [+–] 127-130
Conclusion discusses future prospects for the study of evil and religion.
