The Spectrum of Good and Evil

I found several concepts interesting in the first 44 pages of Witchcraft, A Short Introduction. The author demonstrates a solid understanding of the human mind throughout history, which is expected after 20 plus years of study. One thing mentioned in the first few pages is how humans prefer clear-cut concepts instead of ambiguous ones. This made me think about how children’s books and movies usually only provide binary situations; good and evil, night and day, etc. There is always an obvious good character (protagonist) and bad character (antagonist), which makes sense because children wield developing minds and need to understand the basics before tackling the infinite space in between such opposite forces (depending on a given situation / story). However, my next thought was in regard to the vast development of the human species over thousands of years. If people from the past were much more willing to accept / limit themselves to binary concepts to navigate their lifestyles, wouldn’t that mean their intellect levels were closer to that of modern-day children? In some ways, maybe. In others, obviously not.

Witches were categorized as clearly evil by extremist philosophies rooted in fear. However, this fear originated from the truth of the matter, which is that witches are “others” hidden among our species. They share both human qualities and other-worldly qualities, in theory. It is fascinating how historically, society preferred not to deal with the in-between, gray areas within the spectrum of good and bad actions. On the other hand, many of the hit movies in modern society specifically feature this kind of dynamic, questionable character, usually labeled as an “antihero.” Examples include Deadpool, Rambo, Jack Sparrow, John Wick, Wolverine, Michael Corleone, and more. The human mind has always been fascinated by morally ambiguous figures. However, it would appear the human mind can only appreciate such characters when their existence is confirmed to be entirely fictional. Before there were movies to clearly draw the line between fiction and reality, it is understandable that humans would drastically fear such unpredictable, dangerous types of people, such as witches. Then again, some of the antiheroes depicted on the big screen are directly based on real events that have transpired. Maybe it is relieving to confirm that these are past occurrences and not present ones? As stated in the text, there are many comforts and certainties in our modern lives which shield us from truly fearing something as trivial as witches. Historically, humans did not have such a luxury of knowledge.

Although, the dependence on polar opposite ends of various spectrums to classify certain people / events for simplicity’s sake was not always the status quo for ancient humans. I find it difficult to justify the persistence of polytheism over hundreds of years (Greek and Roman gods), since this theology did not involve cut and dry classifications. The stories and purposes of Greco-Roman gods were complex and dynamic. Therefore, I wonder why the belief in this theology was practiced for so long before a societal switch to more binary religions, such as Christianity. This suggests a “U curve” over thousands of years, as society goes from complex, to simple, to complex again in more recent years. Maybe because early humans knew so little about the world at first, this lack of knowledge warranted many different explanations for so many different things.