Evil Lies in Uncertainty

"So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner

by the meeting-house, he looked back, and saw the head of Faith peeping after him, with a

melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons." Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel

Hawthorne

Why do kids do things they know they shouldn’t be doing? Most of us have been told or have

seen a mother reprimand her child by saying, “You know you should not be doing that!” Yet the

child does it anyways. Even at any age, I would argue all of us break certain rules knowingly and

at some periods in life one might be inclined to break more than others. I believe the main

motivation behind this is curiosity. People do evil for knowledge; to rid of uncertainty and satisfy

an internal curiosity. There are three areas of knowledge I would like to highlight as the main

causes of these evil interests: Informational, Emotional, and Self.

First, is informational. There is an intellectual drive to know. In this case it is to know what an

experience is like. For a child one might hear of a friend that shoplifted a candy bar but they will

never know what it is truly like to experience the sensation of creeping through a store with hair

raised on their neck. What if the candy bar tastes different? What if it tastes better? In the small

scale of childhood I think we can allow our self to sympathize with these legitimate curiosities

whether we have acted on them or not.

Along with informational, there is also emotional. As I described, there is a certain feeling one

gets while doing evil, a thrill. It is interest in the thrill and fear or getting caught or just slipping

away that attracts people; especially when many of us (including me) live relatively mundane

lives. There is a need to satisfy all emotions within us. The existence of adrenaline sports affirms

this. There is an emotional range we wish to explore; love and hate, charity and theft, etc. The

kid stealing a candy bar runs out of the store with a pale face yet laughing with his friends

because of the extra thrill he had from escaping and returning victorious in his mission. Or

maybe he is overwhelmed but an unfamiliarly strong wave of guilt.

Lastly, the curiosity of the Self. People have always been interested in learning about themselves

as if another person can provide the answers. We can see this in self-help books, fortune tellers,

and astrology. When committing an evil deed, no matter the size, one must ask one’s self, “Can I

do this?” Is the child even capable of shoplifting? Many children wouldn’t dare and others

would. By committing an evil deed one now has the self-knowledge that they are indeed the type

of person capable of such a thing. A horoscope may say you’re a hard worker but the truth is that

only you know whether you work hard or not, and you know this through your own experience.

If you wish to explore the type of person you are, then explore.

-BRDZ