Can Anyone Help Me with This?

Posted on July 16, 2019 by Jean

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
—Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

Do you have any idea of what Mead was talking about? What is a temporary, necessary evil?

July 16, 2019

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10 Responses to Can Anyone Help Me with This?

  1. Ann Thompson says:
    July 16, 2019 at 2:43 pm

    The only thing I can think of is like in an election. Neither cadidate is good but you accept the lesser evil and vote for one who is temporarily in office. It wasn’t a good choice but it was better than the alternative.

  2. Catherine de Seton says:
    July 16, 2019 at 7:36 pm

    Not knowing Mead, all that well as an anthropologist – but to me it’s similar in a way to Ann…

    Better the devil you know than the one you don’t….

    so if it was about politics then of say the 2 candidates, one is a complete unknown, the other well known. However the the well known has never really been a great advocate but at least one knows more than the unknown aspirations of the unknown. We as ordinary citizens can see the promises being made by the unknown – probably will never get off the ground…whereas, if we are careful how we handle the “known” we may actually go forward…

    and personally for me, although I don’t like being in duplex rental unit with semi-weird neighbours – better I stay as I know “them now” (or I think I have a better handle on them…)

  3. nick says:
    July 17, 2019 at 1:30 am

    I don’t understand it either. Surely if something is necessary then it can’t be evil? Does she mean something like chemotherapy, that sounds drastic and destructive but hopefully will cure the cancer?

    • Jean says:
      July 17, 2019 at 10:05 pm

      The word evil bothered me too, but I suppose it applies to when the West supported Saddam Hussein. From the Jackson Hole News & Guide:

      Once upon a time, there was a brutal and reckless dictator of an oil-rich Arab country who, despite his well-documented excesses, was stroked and supported by the United States and other Western governments. His crimes were terrible, went the rationale, but he was modernizing his country and he was holding the line against Islamist jihadism and Iran. Anyway, there was probably no alternative.

      The ruler heard that message. He concluded that, as long as he kept supplying oil and opposing Iran, he was free to butcher his opponents and bully his neighbors.

      His name, of course, was Saddam Hussein. The bet made on him by the U.S. and its allies directly led to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and from there to the “endless wars” in the Middle East.

      The article says we’re doing the same thing with Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Even if they were/are necessary evils, I don’t see how it’s temporary. The consequences are/will be long-lasting. I can see why Mead says we shouldn’t gloss over the fact that it’s evil.

  4. nick says:
    July 17, 2019 at 1:32 am

    I left a comment, but it’s not showing up on the comments section. I think it must be hiding.

  5. Linda says:
    July 17, 2019 at 11:21 am

    I remember my dad telling me not to vote against someone because who you get instead might be worse.

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