Introduction
Evil, suffering, humanity, and the role of education in society form part of rethinking development. Understanding them separately but collectively can be revealing of realities we must contend with and surmount. Development warrants the elimination of negative processes and outcomes. Now we know that behavior and character introduce a new level of causality in spheres of economics and development. Behavioral Evil is a causal liability that undermines development. The economist Alfred Marshall’s ‘evolutionary approach’ is based on how Marshallian competition and equilibrium work: “imperfections are essential to evolution” (Marshall, 1919, p. 195). Diagnosing evil may help us innovate. A normative quest, analysis is essential – “facts by themselves are silent” (Pigou, 1925:166).
The nature of evil, the consequences of it, and its repercussions on the broader society might be one of the primary unresolved questions of development philosophy. Until now, evil has been treated as a topic that is exclusive to religion and/or religious studies. But Lars Svendsen’s perspective on the concept of evil is relevant and gives us a concise conceptual approach. He cautions us: “Evil should never be justified, should never be explained away, it should be fought.” Evil’s characteristics are an underdevelopment trap.
Evil is bad, has negative consequences, and is undesirable. Elements of Svendsen’s conviction are summed up in metaphysical and theological philosophy: life is sacred, but evil is ungodly and destructive of anyone’s life and affects society negatively. But since rational men seek ‘betterment’ not merely for themselves but for all others and for society, the onus to tackle this all-time menace lies within the ‘intellect’ of society: embedded in the affective, cognitive, and psychomotor domain of each human person. What pertains in our social world is socially produced, and this is true with evil. Within these considerations, education finds meaning and purpose to guide men to attain a higher mindful state of ‘consciousness’ to “see”. Infused with action, education is to serve men, society, and humanity to attain increasing positive returns.
Svendsen posits four types of evil:
- Demonic Evil: Demonic evil is evil for its own sake, performed for the express purpose of harming others, or for the enjoyment of the experience of watching others suffer. A serial killer who slowly tortures their victims would seem to be an example of this. Also, those inflicting extra-judicial killings and those guilty of war crimes. Perpetuators inflict ultimate pain on others without any clear sense of remorse or guilt.
- Instrumental Evil: Instrumental evil is evil that occurs to carry out some other purpose. A good example might be the “galamsay” menace, where small-scale illegal miners use hazardous chemicals such as mercury and cyanide to search, mine, and trap gold. This process to obtain gold involves clearing land of trees, digging trenches, polluting water bodies, and abandoning encroached areas to their fate, thereby speeding up environmental destruction, greenhouse emissions, and climate change.
- Idealistic Evil: Idealistic evil is evil that is “justified” in argument for some greater cause. The Doomsday Cult, Joseph Kone’s Lord’s Resistance Army, Boko Haram, rebel activities of Charles Taylor and Fodey Sankoh were all motivated by what they considered to be lofty ideals.
- Stupid Evil: Stupid evil is evil that occurs based on human incompetence. Often, this type is grossly preventable. A motor accident that harms people and causes suffering due to overspeeding, as influenced by drunken driving error, would be a good example. Similarly, air accidents due to inexperienced pilots or air traffic controllers’ sloppiness, and more, can be cited.
Admittedly, perhaps, there may be other forms of evil not captured within Svenden’s conceptualization. For we know that there are all sorts of cases before the law courts that border on evil, such as fraud, murder, professional negligence, impersonation, treason, forgery, and so on. Recently, some advocates against evil are pushing a narrative, “silence is complacency”. Reasonable-minded persons are less likely to condone evil.
The term “evil” is slippery. Others argue that some evil can be explained justifiably. But to all intents and purposes, it is human nature to soundly reject “evil” and to equate it with whatever negative forces harm us. If evil spirits exist at all, they have taken on human form and are having the fun and pleasure of their time because men suffer, mostly, through the evil actions of men. Whatever “evil” is, it appears to be all around us and inside us as well.
Evil leaves mankind full of every kind of misery. It is evil that causes suffering to others; for if we know that hating another person just based on race, religion, nationality, or some biased discriminatory differences, or perceptions cause them direct or indirect harm, or that overspeeding causes accidents, or acts of bribery and corruption (illegal enrichment) undermines our civic stability- all leading to the harm and/or suffering of the innocent stakeholder, why do we commit them? Navarro (2009), “It is not inequalities that kill, but those who benefit from the inequalities that kill”. Evil leads to losses; losses that go unresolved will hunt us.
Understanding Suffering
Suffering is the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Also, suffering, or pain in the broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. It is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena. The opposite of suffering is pleasure, happiness, or well-being (google.com/search). From this, we can deduce that whether as demonic evil via ritual murder for “power”, thrill-seeking through substance abuse, starting fires that destroys; or instrumental evil as felling trees, destroying water bodies and land area to obtain gold; idealistic evil of jihadists and rebels; and stupid evil such as overtaking in the curve of a road leading to motor accidents, evil leads to harm, deaths, and suffering of other human beings, and society in general. And greed as evil is certainly one motivation for acts that endanger us all. More broadly, nature can also inflict suffering on man: droughts, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes are examples. But even here, rational men/societies take the necessary steps to curtail nature’s devastating impact. We don’t want evil to reign, do we?
In other specific cases such as faulty medical gadgets or poorly trained medical staff at hospitals leading to misdiagnosis, or inadequate medical personnel leading to poor medical care and untimely deaths, disrespectful diver mates towards passengers, station drivers of buses that do not reach their designated destination but give passengers to another car on the way due to traffic conditions on the road, multiple sale of same land to several persons, lack of suitable public places of convenience, paying bribes in cash or kind at public institutions for certain services; physical, sexual, drug abuse, and battery may all be considered someone’s negligence which can pass as forms of evil; but yet, they are part of our daily reality which causes suffering.
Within this milieu, national wealth is not adjudicated for the common good but for a selected few, and the “social contract” gets compromised. People tend to blame the ‘leader’ and government (for the suffering), but they turn a blind eye to systemic evil. “People get the leader they deserve.” A leader comes from the people. A country is built on principles, not necessarily by who is the ‘leader’. Evil (as suffering) has economic and social consequences. Public trust in government erodes when evil (suffering) abounds. Barrington Moore (1970, II) reminds us, “suffering is not a value in its own right. Any form of suffering becomes a cost, and unnecessary suffering an odious cost on society”. Sympathy to suffering demands attention and action by all of us; it affects not only the individual victim, but it also speeds up our collective vulnerability. We must now heed our interconnectedness. After all, democracy is correlative, and democratization was expected to end the system of undue partisan “privileges”: others benefit from the national wealth, others don’t.
The Counterfactual of Suffering: Evil, a Lucrative Endeavour?
To some people, Evil is a lucrative business. It comes as an ‘opportunity’. To stay ahead, an oligarchy or the individual feels that they cannot be expected to win by playing ‘natural’ or easy and fair. Today, it’s almost as if “everyone is doing it, why shouldn’t I?” When one’s suffering or poverty is considered a taboo experience attributed to a curse, one’s laziness, one’s own making, or by choice, fuelled by a prosperity gospel that suggests that believers should associate with ‘eagles’ and not ‘vultures’, or that wise people associate with “successful” people and learn from them, it’s easy for another person to pretend that a semblance of material success is due to their own ‘hard work’, their smartness, or ‘blessings’ and then shun those ‘not up to them’. In short, we have monetized the dysfunction (or the functions) that were meant to serve ordinary people according to the national ethos.
Even more appalling is the sad observation when that when some basic school candidates are about to write their norm reference tests such as the BECE, some schools inform their students to contribute for the invigilator’s “gift”; an expression for a free pass which enables students to either take unacceptable scripts to the exams room or they expect their teachers to help them with difficult items while the invigilators become “neutralized”. Those who pay have their way, and the same also with the WASSCE. If these acts continue, they only increase our social venality with high social and democratic consequences.
Inheriting an exploitative colonial system, an education system packaged and handed down to us based on the Western capitalist system, a neoliberal system where everything is money and money rules, money is promoted to be “the ultimate of everything”. Everyone seems captivated by money and more of it. An eater who gives the most tip to a waiter becomes their favorite person at the restaurant, a bank customer who gives a hefty tip to the teller immediately becomes a friend to them, the most generous parent to a school would most like have their child/ward singled out for certain privileges such as the school’s prefect, a political party member who donates the most to their party gets rewarded with unlimited access to opportunities that are likely to replenish their stocks handsomely. Even in church, large money givers receive the most powerful prayers. Money not only commands respect, but it also opens doors. It offers the most worldly pleasures, material comfort, security, and can even buy health and happiness. To sum up, he/she who has money has everything and commands the most respect. But the truth is that while money is supposed to be a good mechanism to promote exchange based on reciprocal goodwill, our misunderstanding of it has exaggerated its relevance into a subtle evil.
Money is its own satan. How noticeable it is that a majority of those in prison have been convicted of acts that can be traceable to overindulging in the love for money, which became evil. From the economic standpoint, it is only genuine, lawful engagements or business that benefit all the parties that can extend the equilibrium position (outwards) to a new position that is considered a dynamic equilibrium, which increases the size of the gross domestic product and benefits society.
Whence from Evil?
In our context, we could turn to anthropological assumptions for evil. Similarly, we could document historical sources about the nature of cultural practices or rituals linked to evil; tabulate assumptions and traditions about how our forefathers lived and how they perceived evil, and even, maybe, why they perpetuated acts of evil. However, the factors responsible for evil are many, complex, and human. In the Bible, Cain had a malicious envy for his brother Abel, which led him to kill Abel. Judas sold Jesus Christ of Nazareth for 30 pieces of silver and then hanged himself. Young men who do “galamsey” might be facing financial hard times and be “insecure”. No kidding, life is hard; it is a challenge to ‘make it’ and one has got to be tough sometimes; ‘fighting’ one’s way through, even to the point of being a bully or stepping on others’ toes. None of us is immune to committing acts of evil, whether as a premeditated act or suddenly by stimuli. While variables such as ambition, fear, insecurity, exclusion, ignorance, misinformation, or malinformation, which make one angry, acts to show bravery, cultural nationalism, overbearing influence, show of strength, blind loyalty, or ‘protectionism’ are important root causes, evil often originates within a person’s mental world. This mental world of ‘control’ is in contention with a person’s ‘better angel’ and their human demon.
Weak Moral Codes Culpable?
Any moral code provides a description, justification, and explanation of how human society ought to work. Ordinarily, a moral code by itself has little to say directly about how the society it purports to guide and instruct actually does work. Yet to the extent that it contains a description of evil behavior and its supposed causes, the code sheds valuable light on the actual behavior in that society. The most important function of any moral code is to condemn and, if possible, prohibit certain specified forms of behavior. Such behavior may seem to be effective (to those perpetuating it) in the short run by yielding quick results, as in the case of a successful theft, or may yield at least short-term pleasure, as in the case of an illegal enrichment, or sex for favors at the workplace. From this standpoint, violations of the moral code may seem to the individual to be shortcuts to desirable ends, but according to the moral code, such shortcuts are judged to be harmful to the social order as a whole. In many human societies, theft, sex for favors, bribery and corruption (illegal enrichment), nepotism, and bigotry are perceived and frowned upon (if not punished) as anti-social acts; but, we say. “To err is human,” and soon evil becomes either norms or, somewhat, our mores, becoming embedded in our DNA and our social/national life.
But now, must it be highlighted for development’s sake that it is socially challenging to develop (as in making progress) when we become reticent about evil because it benefits no one; rather, evil begets evil, becoming cyclical. It is a zero-sum game. Because evil compromises the satisfaction and well-being of other people, and leads to dissatisfaction and harm of innocent ‘others’, it automatically becomes a development issue- just like a bad health system, a bad judicial system, “galamsey” or a bad governance system. Sadly, in many unstable developing countries, cruelty is seen as an adroit cudgel to gain power. Empathy and kindness are considered weaknesses, and opportunistic behavior is considered “smart” and desirable. There are ‘good’ causes, and there are ‘evil’ causes affecting the status quo, always at work either stifling, exalting, maintaining, or overcoming it. And while it is true that there is no perfect society, every society is trying to forge ahead through its people. We can be better than our present status quo; after all, citizenship is about a good conscience.
Rationalizing a Countermand of Evil?
To Payne, wrongful attitude and behavior are due to poverty; poverty does not equate with (lack of) financial resources. He posits, “deficit thinking” is rooted in cognitive and motivational deficits. Naoroji considers administrative evil and political inebriety within his “drain theory”. If brain drain was meant to leave a country worse off (because its trained manpower goes abroad to serve another country), then both administrative and political lapses (nationally) that were passive to graft, bribery, corruption, accountability, and the like, culminated in pampering vice and motivating poverty (behavior)- still leaving or digging an undesirable development gap. He wrote, “Poverty of India” in 1873, “The candle burns at both ends, capital to the rest of the population going on diminishing on the one hand, and so-called ‘trained’ personnel becoming less capable, on the other, to reproduce and impact positively on the urgency for the development now we crave”. To him, the exploitation of India by the colonial masters and the domination of Indians by the British extended to the realm of economic ideas. Therefore, Indians themselves needed to serve India better by jettisoning exploitation and imagining a newer (more advanced) form of economics to help India do better. Similarly, Kumarappa establishes a relationship between the moral and material worlds. He espoused, “Material progress alone is inadequate for a good life”. Govindu and Malghan (2016), drawing from Gandhi’s philosophy, advocated for a “moral political economy”. For Thomas, “the purpose of Economics is the material welfare of the human society” (Thomas, 2019). To him, it is important that Indian economists also engage with issues surrounding them: “Not that economists should neglect the latest refinement of economic theory in the West nor the latest development in economic policy there; but only that, it would be futile to dabble in the high brow topics of solely western concern, without at the same time giving serious attention to the pressing questions at home that immediately concern us” (61). “Let our economists …carry out systematic enquiries, and let our statesmen use them for shaping policies in the most beneficial manner, and let the efforts of the government universities, and voluntary bodies be united to one noble endeavor for the economic and social renegeration of our Country” (64-65).
From Rationality, Beyond Religion to Humanism
Rational discussion means doing thinking with each other, engaging in a process of inquiry, presenting and challenging one’s own opinion and those of others through a dialogue of discovery, not to win debating points but rather to learn and act wisely. Ontological individualism is the view that human individuals are the sole, unique, and ultimate constituents of social reality to which all else is reducible. Searching for truth is an essential part of understanding society’s ongoing evolution and creative renewal, utilizing mechanisms to enhance its quality and provide ongoing support in ways that enable stakeholders to become a community of learners who creatively pursue renewal. Rational men observe that it is not chance that rules the world. We can’t make the world a better place unless we understand how it works. Costanza and Patten (1995) point out that a modern claim to sustainability is the prediction of sustainability. Methods must be adopted to tackle the problems at hand at the various levels of challenges.
Evil as suffering, evil as harm, evil as cruelty, and the examples cited above tell us the structure of evil. To see structure in things is to see how they are related. Crucial for scientific investigation is the concept of relation. That a thing or concept possesses a property is a matter involving it alone. However, a thing or concept in relation to something else involves not just that thing but the thing that the relation is to as well. Cruelty, for example, is not a mere action that destroys; it involves a process and an end result. That is, cruelty has a relational structure. More generally, a structure is a class of things together with one or more relations holding between the things in the class.
If we can gather evil’s structural repercussions on development, perhaps that information might help us act in formation to progress. There are complex rules that create a wealthy society, but if we could put in place societal or national tracking to measure to alert, and predict evil, we will be the better for it.
Evil is the problem we wish to tackle with the rational approach. This is an attempt to clarify the truth of conjectures using the scope of analytical sketches by means of analytical tools. This may be thought of as a positive aspect of critique, leading to progress by knowing what exactly can be stated as the negative results of evil and what actions need to be taken as a counteractive positive method to address the issues. Positive critique is essential for diagnosing success or failure in terms of a given theory’s own explanatory or normative purposes. Now, we can identify the truth and existence of evil and determine what conceivable effects of a practical kind it may involve – what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Conclusively, evil has a negative externality and causes disutility, which must be tackled just as threats or risks warrant a new conceptual architecture to caution men to adopt and adapt to change.
“Man is born to sin, and sin is evil, and vice versa” is the underlying theme of religion. Religion tells us that we are essentially flawed creatures. Religion spells out how God intends to rescue man from sin and evil by prescribing certain beliefs, practices, with faith in the afterlife, towards salvation. However, within humanism, this imperfection of man imposes cognitive difficulties, compelling not only limitations on our ability to overcome evil but also making every one of us predisposed to the risk of evil. In positive humanism, religion is to help us find truth. Humanism advocates, “there is no one who is insignificant in the sight of God”. There is real humanity behind every life. Here, everyone is entitled to well-being and fulfilment. Because evil hinders our collective well-being, it is a social problem. Society has to decide on what it accepts.
To imagine tackling the risk of evil in the rational sense lies in understanding and measuring the possible effects of the associated risks of evil identified. Thus, in every institution, for instance, identifying the types of evil people are likely to commit becomes synonymous with the risks of the organization, and only by tackling them will innovation be possible, services become improved and satisfactory, and progress be made inevitable. Here, decision theory is put to work. Decision theory is based on the expected optimum utility of every resource, or the mathematical expectation of value. The “expected value” V of an action is equal to the sum of the values of each consequence, vi, weighted by its probability,
n
pi: V=⅀ (pi. vi)
i=1.
It is based on the explicit assumption: Resources ⇒ investment (value addition), benefits, wealth. It is advised that this principle must be kept in mind with every investment decision we make if we seek to earn incremental returns. Meanwhile, the goal of (our) humanity can, arguably, be sighted within the mission of the United Nations, and its charter, which are geared towards promoting peaceful co-existence and socio-economic opportunities among nations and peoples of the world. That ancient sage in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics who argued that Justice requires equality in all directions remains correct. When time and knowledge become friends, they create virtue. For sustainable progress, we need a virtuous system. This is underpinned by the reciprocity of the good.
The Role of Social Scientists
Our misery and suffering (evil) are social problems. Evil ruptures our relationship with one another. General opposition to human suffering constitutes a standpoint that both transcends and unites different subjects of the social sciences (Moore, 1970, II).
In economics, for example, utility analysis has been used to help determine whether particular treatments have effects that are large enough to warrant attention. To researchers, evil creates disutility (Landy, Farr, and Jacobs 1982; Schmidt, Hunter, McKenzie, and Muldrow, 1979; Schmidt, Mack, and Hunter, 1984).
Readers may know by now that human behavior is a central plank in the study of economics. Alfred Marshall (1842-1925) was a stalwart of economics who is credited with the original concept of ‘marginal productivity’, ‘elasticity’, ‘substitution’, etc. He was fascinated by the “inquiries into the possibilities of the higher and more rapid development of human faculties (Keynes, 1924:320), and later recollected that he was uncertain whether to devote his life to psychology or economics (Whitaker, 1966, II:285). Notably, Marshall was concerned with a model of the functioning of the human mind that would act as a frame of reference for economic analysis (Raffaelli, 1966, II: 285). To Marshall, the weakness to understand economics consists in the intrinsic inability to deal with the evolutionary characteristics of economics as any other human science. Notably, the diagnosis of evil provides us with the possibility of evolutionary rational construction, deconstruction, or reconstruction in favor of sustainable development.
Alice O’Connor (2001) writes on “poverty knowledge” and criticizes social scientists for very narrowly defining issues that lead to poverty. She suggests that solution-focused research should focus on proximal social risk factors that cause suffering. Without saying so explicitly, one deduces from her that evil leads to social risk factors. Sayer (1992) suggests that social science must stand in a critical as well as an explanatory and interpretative relationship to its object and to common sense knowledge. The study of the social sciences is also to divulge the patterns or structures that are most likely to emerge based on some identifiable variable.
Implications of Evil
Evil, indeed, has explicit as well as subtle negative implications for society in general, and more specifically, for individuals who may be falling backwards as regards access to the national share of benefits. From what is known, for example, the evil of corruption affects society, but more especially, it affects those in the lowest income bracket since corruption defers benefits to their improvement, making their liberation even more costly. When evil in a society becomes widespread, fellow citizens become suspicious of anyone not within their network orbit. This makes access to opportunities very selective in favor of those “to whom one knows,” which becomes the yardstick for merit. This outcome somehow justifies the proposition that the poor are the victims of political gamemanship. In this milieu, knowing someone who knows you is more important than ‘working’ hard to ‘make it’. Now it must be emphasized that the “Freedom and Justice” in our Coat-of-Arms is determined by the quality of interaction of every person with one another. Without a strong context of community, individualism has no place. In fact, “Freedom and Justice” means that the right of every person is asserted from the outset, not only before the law but to every other national opportunity.
Often, widespread injustice is the beginning of the end. The democratic failures in some developing countries give the feeling that democracy cannot deal with the complex, evil problems of the day. When evil activities become the norm, a political regime is unable to act for the public good or address the questions that matter most. And often, policies that are supposed to be implemented with a “just imagining” approach get compromised in favor of the elites still. Civic duties are not regarded as a public responsibility but as private convenience. In short, the various kinds of evil create a signaling model that eventually forms a vicious circle.
Understanding Development
We are all on a journey of change. Every development process goes with attitudinal change until such a time that widespread social justice practices lead to sustainable development. It is attitudinal change that makes schooling and education worthwhile. No resource today is more useful in its raw, “natural” state than purposeful efforts made for value addition and value enhancement for the maximum benefit. Progress with any normative proposition depends upon how we turn transformation from a concept into a practical policy agenda. As Streeton has said, “We shall have to look”, in the well-known metaphor, “where the key has dropped rather than where the light happens to be (Streeton, 2002:110).
Development warrants changes in policy and changes in systems. Development has inflection points whereby new ideas and ways of operating steer our progress. Like AI, society should be ready for disruptions, but the hope for the future of mankind is to cultivate morality. Moreover, in a secular social system, the antidote to evil is not necessarily preaching morals and morality, but the existence of justice. Our psychological moment comes when a concentrated drive against injustice can bring great intangible gains. Moral sensitivity means taking a stand for justice.
The Role of Education
The role of education in reshaping minds for development has been cited time and time again. Chairman Deng Xiaoping reminds us, “Education should be geared towards modernization of our country, the world, and the future”. Education’s mission concerns immediate responses to present challenges, but also concerns for the future. Our schooling and education system should help us find where development challenges are most severe.
Our education, through the school system, must now inform our perspectives on evil and help us to learn and practice the remedies. The very nature of education should be altruistic, and serving others is just part of the job description, as well as acquiring an important part.
Education aims at imparting knowledge. But knowledge grows through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. It is now time to consider evil as ‘antithesis’ and move away from that status quo we have tended to be comfortable with. In Vedic scripts, ignorance is not the contradiction of knowledge, nor does it mean non-education, but it points to using knowledge negatively. If knowledge is not destroying ignorance but protecting it, that is not (desirable) knowledge. So, for instance, when someone is educated, the usefulness of their education is to broaden the frontiers of “goodness,” not evil. Hence, a person who has graduated from the university but has a warped mindset, highly predisposed towards criminal behavior, greed, and selfishness, is having ‘negative knowledge’- such a person may have literacy skills and ‘knowledge’, but their education does harm. In civilized jurisdictions, damage to reputation was just as important as material damage, and the adage “honesty is the best policy” was largely implemented because education involves great concern for reputation. Here, there is a cost to losing one’s reputation.
Knowledge has to do more internal work for it to become a social good. The purpose of learning is the belief that the flaws of humanity might be counteracted by knowledge. Knowledge offers us organic solidarity to those who are perceived as ‘victims’. Acting on knowledge contributes to social intelligibility. Alfred Nobel sought to reinforce his conviction that the purpose of knowledge is to serve humanity- not to destroy it.
Education guides us to a new civic culture. Education encourages good behavior. A good education teaches men to be stewards before God and before men. There is a relationship between the economy and the aggregate nature of selfhood. To make progress, we must agree on concepts in lock step. This is where the role of education is significant. Education serves us by raising our consciousness level. A potent but dormant educational philosophy is to help the ‘able’ find solidarity with the poor, even as a duty. We need to raise the current level of educational discussions to their proper ideological and historical perspectives to let it give us the system we want and deserve. We seek an improved humane order based on an improved social order. Light is often used as a metaphor for education. Light represents life, and darkness represents a bad place or death. Arnold Tonybee once said, “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of evil and death”.
Education’s position for social improvement is that we are all born with the potential to become the best versions of who we are. One wonders, then, if those convicted of crime(s) by a competent court of jurisdiction are held in prison for ‘rehabilitation’, and those held in training – say in a school- are undergoing ‘positive rehabilitation’ how come that someone goes through the education system but becomes mean, dishonest, and anti-social in their dealings with fellow citizens and yet escape prison? The intention and ability to use knowledge to guide practice for solutions is an important criterion of a good education. The growing gap between knowledge and good education needs to be bridged. It’s now time to shift from the exaggerated, perennial exam-oriented education. Education must now expand to focus on execution.
More than ever before, our education training must call out undermining actions through behavior and expect individuals to respond to evil in ways such that deprivation, vulnerability, insecurity, and injustice, which create setbacks, are tackled head-on and monitored to determine the effects of actions that translate into development. Development requires us to work toward the establishment of conditions under which all (especially the less privileged) can flourish. Here, Education’s central refrain, “Do No Harm,” finds meaning and context. The school is the primary social center. We must now aim at consequential learning outcomes by connecting learning to social values we can benefit from. This is in line with linking school success and success in schooling to social capital. Every process of education requires disciplined investment. It is a disciplined investment that most likely gives us the product we need.
Conclusion
Man’s worst enemies, which include wars, squalor, sickness, disease, famine, pandemic, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, crime, corruption, ignorance, lack of opportunities to thrive, can be traced to man’s ignorance, which causes evil. If evil is a risk, its observable rating in our society and all of Africa is becoming high and needs a risk response.
To Dewey, values arise from factual conditions. Values have implications and consequences. If evil is bad for us, it’s time to rethink. Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being, and proponents of higher education acknowledge their role in promoting a good society. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges and are trained to become tamed for humane work. The intention and ability to use knowledge to guide practice is an important aspect of the role of social science. In the social sciences, some methods diagnose the causation of social barriers. In many jurisdictions nowadays, crime and violence are being tackled with behavior change techniques. In effect, evil is a behavioral failure that can be addressed through positive rehabilitation from the school and educational system, but only if we dare to take the bull by its horns.
By CEO Lindsay-Yaidoo (Ph.D.)
