What is evil?

There is of course the unambiguous sense as characterised by popular media, instanced by mass murderers, rapists, abusers... There is a clear protagonist-antagonist relationship, a good-evil dichotomy. Yet in most cases, evil is enabled by people who do not prevent it when they can. Edmund Burke famously said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". The intention is clear. It is the responsibility of good people to ACTIVELY circumvent evil deeds. Yet, the majority of people always remain in their starry-eyed passivity, waiting for someone else to fight the noble fight. This does not make them neutral (there is really no such position). No, it did not take a mere fascist dictator to precipitate the Third Reich... It took the majority of Nazi Germany to witness, and some to execute, the deaths of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust. The greatest acts of evil that have transpired throughout the sordid course of our blood-soaked history have been accompanied by the unwitting endorsement of weak-willed masses, people who, by letting evil happen, stand alongside it.

This by no means undermines the massive, selfless effort of a passionate minority who give their very best towards making positive changes.

But this post is about those people who choose to avert their eyes from the cruel, the hideous, the violent... By being in the position of being able to help, but choosing to withhold, to merely observe, one has already stepped away from good into evil.

A sterling example would be a recent Chinese television programme Little Nonya that memorably showed the tragic rape of a woman, a plight certainly exacerbated when she saw (whilst being raped) her sister witnessing the act and withholding the help she desperately needed. Same as Amir abandoning his childhood friend Hassan when the latter was being raped by the bully, Assef, in The Kite Runner.

Literature is as real as it reflects reality, and indeed everyone of us are perhaps guilty of sometimes turning a passive eye to people who need. Not just people perhaps. In secondary school, I remember presenting about animal experimentation and its moral implications. I used graphic images of animal abuse during my presentation, which made my classmates squirm. I was made to stop the presentation halfway. Till now, I always felt there was something wrong done, not to me but to the subject matter. Only now in the context, I realise that what happened, the aversion from the evil acts due to disgust, uncomfortable feelings, ignorance, is a form of evil itself.

To say enough, I cannot stand the sight of rabbits with corroded eye sockets from "Draize" testing, of deformed faces of atomic bombing victims from Japan, or faces of countless dead in the Darfur conflict, is to say I do not care enough. Surely, that is morally wrong; we share a common humanity with these victims (even the animals), and it is our moral obligation to do our very best to help when we can.

Of course sometimes, because of political sensitivity, geographical distance, or resource scarcity, we cannot realistically help these people. But, we should at least not avert our eyes from what is happening. Know it, understand it, then feel it, their pain, their loss, their burden, and then be grateful for everything that you have not been denied, if only by the most arbitrary dice-roll of Fate.

To be honest, I would not have otherwise bothered to go through the rigorous self-reflection, research process. I always want to go forward, rather than return to re-examine the process. The whole process of university/ college application (from writing essays to preparing for interviews) has been a recounting and reflection of my activities and achievements in junior college and secondary school. I resisted the process somewhat, because the past is a closed chapter, whilst the future lies endless unwritten ideas and possibilities... My eyes have been opened. In contemplating the past, I feel I have become better prepared for university studies. I see clearly my strengths and weaknesses, where my passions lie, and how I want to chart my future path. "If you don't history, you don't know anything. You are a leaf that does not know it is a part of a tree."

To recap the interviews I had:

A written timed online interview with Wake Forest University
... Impossible to prepare for... yet, I found life gave me the answers I needed. Interesting questions, with the timer making it all so thrilling!

Lately, I have been reassessing my view of logic as a mode of persuasion privileged above appeals to baser emotions or instincts. I used to place logic on a pedestal, and perhaps I will continue forever to do so; the core of my being still clings to the persistent, and unchanging certitude of logic... The correctness, one-and-only-true-answer finality of logic lured me away from the mercurial hot-today-cold-tomorrow whims of emotions. For logic is the medium of choice of my educators, and it is with logic that they use to mold us. Perhaps we, desperate for approval, acquiesce... and as a result believe only logic and reason can claim to give us knowledge/convince us of "the truth"/persuade us to a point of view. 

The vessel of logic is words.  Words, their meaning and form, obey the dictates of logic. The instrument of communication, the sacred chalice of thoughts and feelings that we drink from and pour into others is... The custodian of our intellectual heritage as well as its executor is... The weaver of the real and unreal, both capable of reaching into our hearts and impelling us is...

...words.

But perhaps my reverence for words (my craft), and by proxy logic, is somewhat misplaced... After all, the heartbeat of words, the frame and flavour of their meaning, comes from logic's diametric cousin... A more powerful, persuasive force, that which moves us to action, the essence of charisma - emotion. And this emotion is no one's stranger; it is, to me, an old friend I am reacquainting with. Everyone is born a master of their emotions; as children, they use it deftly to persuade, or even manipulate, others (parents) to their will. As we grow older, knowledge and its associate, logic, fight for primacy in our heads, such that we begin to lose our natural talent, our emphatic sense. Yet, if our goal is to move others, is it not necessary to re-emphasize this neglected gift?

Logicians might decry the fallaciousness of argumentum ad hominem (personal attacks), but can one deny its effectiveness? Or that of argumentum ad populum? Even sceptics must mitigate their arguments to be consistent with the reality of their emotions. Surely, logic as a tool of persuasion is subservient to appeals to emotion.

The title was almost "New Year 2008". Perhaps the notion of a new year has sunk in, but the birth of 2009 has yet to escape from the sense of 2008-ness. On a personal note (and this is an important disclaimer), 2009 looks to carry the tradition of 2008. After a year of National Service, I am bitterly aware of what the next year brings. Metaphorically, if 2008 is wandering lost in the jungle, 2009 would be having to hike back whence you came... the potholes, the steep path, all... It is precisely because one has gone through the experience that it is difficult to put a positive slant on the 200+ days of been-there-done-that-not-again. But I will not belabour this age-worn complaint. After all, it is the new year, bringing with it all the promise of new beginnings.

My biggest and most time-confusing affair in the '08 has to be university applications (nevermind National Service, which, though demanding, never fails to fade eventually into a background of unreality...). I did not expect university application to be such a bewildering, laboured process. However, I recognise that my collegeapp journey is probably atypical. Which RJCian, or Singaporean for that matter, sifted the forums of collegeconfidential, hardwarezone, etc., for information (and obsesses) on overseas undergraduate studies in the U.S. and Hong Kong, and devours books on university application, university choice (private vs. public, small vs. large notions do battle in my head), to speak nothing of days devoted to the singular task of studying for SATs... My university choices are as unorthodox as my journey to find them. None of them the typical Ivy-ward brand-conscious fare. I do not mean this to mean my chosen universities lack reputation or recognition (although they are largely unheard of in this side of the Malay Peninsula)... Important as reputation is as a quick gauge of a university's reputation, I feel such factors should be secondary to more pivotal aspects of university fit, such as university size, location, student body and faculty, and strength of academic department. I chose based on strength of department of chosen major/degree, university size, faculty-student interaction, and university scholarship opportunities... Parents, and past generations of seniors who have gone before me attest to a glorious other, but I hold steadfastly in my heart the conviction in the sacred eight...

I have lost track of the number of college/scholarship essays I had written for my choice universities/colleges... In all probability they rival the time and effort I invested in searching for my university choices.  I wrote on topics ranging from experiences in leaving my comfort zone, current affairs, diversity, school involvements, community service, etc... If I did not have considerable experience writing (cannot be understated...), I would have surrendered before the mammoth task. I am reminded none too fondly of my Knowledge & Inquiry 3k-word independent research thesis... I heard that a significant part of undergraduate education involves writing essays/theses, so perhaps I should warm up to the practice.

2009 is the year many from my batch will contract ORD fever. 2009 is also the year many will, like me, sit before a computer screen in March, awaiting the fruits of our labour bear the words "Congratulations! You have been accepted..." I hope...