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“The lesser of two evils” conundrum

Dec 16, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I am not too sure from whose pen this “lesser of two evils” trope made its appearance in our political discourse. These words were used in a political context, and the unambiguous reference was to our two major parties- the PPP/C and APNU+AFC. My opinion as a consequence is that we have polluted the national conversation with these four words that have no clear meaning or application.
At least at the political level, the more we delve into the concept of evil, the more we get bogged down into a philosophical rabbit hole of confusion. We will never have any meaningful consensus as to the essential nature of evildoing, and in what circumstances we would have violated the neighbourly principle not to do harm to others. For the PPP/C supporter, what APNU+AFC did in closing down several sugar estates is immoral as over seven thousand workers lost the only job they know. For APNU+AFC, the decision was acceptable because of fiscal necessity. It is obvious that APNU+AFC leaders see no evil in this. There is indeed a relativism associated with evil that ignites controversy.
Yet for those who refuse to acknowledge that they have no way of knowing which party is more evil than the other, I would suggest that they commission a moral audit of some kind and then tell us what template they have applied to make this process even doable.
It is the proper attitude for us to be concerned about evildoing, but why restrict bad behaviour to political parties only? Any catalogue of evil born out of political partisanship should be contested in the public sphere.
Arguably, all of us should be disgusted at the proliferation of evil in every sector or social institution in our society. Is it evil for crazy minibus drivers to treat our roadways as a race track, even as the body count piles up and the Traffic Department fiddles?
Is it evil for foreign investors to squeeze profits out of the back-breaking work of our people, and when revenue dips, they pack up and leave, throwing the workforce on the unemployment line?
Is it evil for our courts to impose hefty sentences on first offenders for minor drug offence?
We can go on further and even cast a wider net.

Wesley Hicken

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