ABSTRACT
Pain and injustice do not pose problems, social or religious, for everyone. Indeed, in any part of society located to the left of the vertical line, they attract scant reflection (see diagram 4, p. 64). To the right, where social control is strong, I will argue from three types of social experience that the problem of evil is posed in characteristically different ways. We are now approaching the crux of the comparison with Bernstein's analysis of family control systems. For each type of family there is its necessary manner of validating coercive demands. For each distinct type of social environment, likewise, there is its necessary manner of justifying coercion. Through the classifications used, the furniture of the universe is turned into an armoury of control. In each social system human suffering is explained in a way that reinforces the controls. To see how evil is understood, we must see classification and personal pressure, grid and group, working together.
