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Letter | Using ‘evil’ to describe shootings is shallow


December 26, 2012 · 10:41 AM

The massacre at Newtown was a tragic event, [and is] not appropriately called evil. Just calling the perpetrator evil, as some news has done, is at risk of being simplistic.

A killer might be considered evil if another’s life is taken for the benefit of the perpetrator. Even so, there may be moral and religious justification for it. An evil-good dichotomy is a thoughtless explanation of the shooting and delays significant solution to the problem.

The ready use of “evil” by the news media reflects a cultural shallowness nowadays pervasive.

Lloyd Gilman

 

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