Slow Havamal: 127

In verse 127, Odin counsels Loddfafnir that when he recognizes evil, he should call it evil, and give his enemies no peace.

In his book “Skin in the Game,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb makes the argument that it is an ethical imperative to call out a fraud loudly and publicly as soon as you spot one. I don’t know if he was channeling Havamal, but Odin got there some time before. His advice to reveal evil and hound the doers is more radical and less utilized than it seems.

I will let each reader make his or her own determination of what evil means, and what qualifies. For my purposes, it’s that which diverges from the values of the divine, and as a god of the Norse pantheon, we are talking about Odin as one of those standards from which it might diverge (though based on other verses, I doubt he would consider himself the only determining factor). Therefore recognizing evil at all becomes a bit of a trick that we have to learn through experience. Even in systems where it’s clearly codified, it can be difficult to tell whether certain actions fall within those bounds, and there will be others that seem wrong but were overlooked. While laws and human language make nice efforts at isolating it, I think they can mislead as often. And ultimately, what do they refer to but a feeling of some dissonance wavering across a divine harmony? Evil is like bad art: I know it when I see it.

And when I see something, I should say something. This suggests to me that not everyone is equally capable of spotting it in all instances. Those who live closest to the divine will probably do best, but we all have off days, and it’s important to help one another out. By pointing at evil, we aid our neighbors in avoiding it, but we may also awaken the perpetrator to the fact that his actions are vile, and he faces community rebuke if he continues. This seems like a no-brainer. In fact, anyone who calls out evil consistently is likely to have a very difficult life of sacrifice with little thanks.

Most of us would never ignore a murder or an act of child abuse, but there are many lesser evils that it is not only safer to ignore, but also more beneficial. Unearned rewards accrue to evildoers, and those who allow them to continue. Sometimes the evils are quite small, and our call-out can irk our family and friends. Or they may be a necessary part of our business. What if you felt it was evil to destroy the biosphere for selfish pillage? Many people do, and say so, but how many of those same refuse to stop burning fossil fuels for heat or travel, or in the manufacture of their consumer goods, or their food supply? Sometimes evils are so baked into the metaphysics of a culture that there can be no fighting them short of changing your basic belief structures and forfeiting whatever companionship you enjoy with the members of that—your—culture. To apply this directive consistently quickly leads to difficulty.( Read more... )