ABSTRACT
I complete my examination of popular culture with a discussion of contemporary (secular) theories of evil and its popular representations. Understandings of evil have shifted such that evil is no longer represented as an objective “thing” or force existing independently out in the world, but rather is seen as a characteristic of actions or, perhaps less frequently, persons. Thus people tend to speak of evil in terms of suffering inflicted on victims, especially that suffering caused by human agency. I consider the difficult question of what it is that evildoers, such as those who traumatize children, deserve, and conclude that an “eye-for-an-eye” retributivism cannot possibly be a morally acceptable response, as it would morally diminish the evildoer and the punishers alike. Using Card and Bar On to expand on this theme of moral devolution, I then turn to a final piece of popular culture that shows how traumatic circumstances can disfigure ordinary good people, causing them to become evildoers themselves, and demonstrating that the greatest evil we face is our own loss of humanity.
