• On Evil and Evolution
    By: Felinicus Mow
    Vocaroo link for Audio Version ===> Here

    In Heroic tales, the One at the head of the evil scheme is always seeking an ultimate end, whether it is to remake the world in their own image, or revoke all existence utterly. Usually these ends are attempted begotten by misdeeds and malefic behavior. I have always thought, what if it is actually in the Evil One's plan to be defeated? They attract the attentions of impassioned persons who would else-wise in the scope of the tales do nothing---but be background noise in the Grand Scheme.

    What is the over-arching End that the Evil One seeks? Often, through the use of great evil, good works come about, with the drive of people who have Reason to continue them. Final Fantasy X, a game in a series of the same vein, explored this plot, although not as well conveyed as it could have been, the concept was there.

    What if the Evil One is not seeking Destruction, but rather, Reformation. A stagnant and complacent society tends to lend itself towards a toxic kind of decay, where base actions against one's contemporaries becomes commonplace, expected by society. Is this what truly paves the way to destruction? A lack of upheaval?

    The Theory of Evolution seems to support this. Without conflict to continued existence, species inevitably become incapable of evolving further. The dodo bird is a good example of this: isolated for millennia on an island with no natural predators, it was stout, slow, and lacked the sense to fight predation. Humans found it delicious. It was over-hunted to extinction.

    The human population of this planet has exploded in the last 200 years. In simply the last few decades the population has nearly doubled. As we breed and consume resources the order of societies becomes harder and harder to maintain. We were originally a tribal species, much like lion prides or wolf packs, easily able to remember a hundred individuals and their traits. When we met other such cells of our kind there was inevitable Contest, and the stronger ones survived.

    In our present day, Contest for resources is conducted on a larger arena, between nations, companies and global conglomerates. Instead of spear and club, we compete with finance and law. We, ourselves, however, have not changed much, becoming increasingly more aggressive, insular, as our tribes have expanded to unmanageable volumes, overstimulation. We are unprepared.

    Murder, theft, genocide; indolence, intolerance and ineptitude: these are commonplace.
    Why have we not moved beyond these?
    Why have we not grown?
    Do we need a Villain?
    Who will prepare our Hero?
    Or perhaps our evolution lies elsewhere, in the ability to coalesce harmoniously under increasingly cramped conditions. Mental fortitude and ambition are the order of the day it seems sometimes.

    Surely we must turn this world by hand, or be snuffed out by our own devices.
    And, truly, on the scale of our World relative to the vastness of Everything Else, are we not arrogant? We, inconsequential microbes on ball of dust, circling an ordinary mote of light hardly visible in the skein of stars that have congregated in this One galaxy among millions, and billions, and trillions of others still receding away into a possibly infinite void; We are Small.