Can an animal be evil? Of course, I am not talking about tales from the Panchatantra, Aesop’s fables or the many animated films. I am talking about real animals. Can real animals be accused of taking actions with the intention of causing harm to others for reasons other than their food, security or territorial needs?

A tigress in the Indian jungles, hunting to feed her cubs is driven purely by instinct, a striking example of nature’s rule: survival without the burden of moral judgement. Even when a male tiger is fighting another one to establish territorial rights, he’s doing so because that’s what will decide whether he’s able to mate, and whether his offspring will have enough territory to live by themselves. Can a skunk be called evil for spraying their noxious fumes on what they perceive as threats? Can a King Cobra be called evil when it poisons other animals or even humans?

Yes, there are animals, especially monkeys and apes, who may exhibit more mischievous behaviour, some of which may even be violent for reasons other than direct survival. But numerous studies and experts will explain almost all such behaviour in the context of security, food or the need to procreate, all of which are eventually about survival. Even animals trained by humans to commit unlawful actions do so out of training, love or fear for their human masters without any real intent to cause evil. Clearly a monkey stealing a trinket from a jewellery store doesn’t have any concept of property or breaking of law. So all in all it would be rather difficult to label almost any animal behaviour as evil.

So if we were to accept the hypothesis that animals can’t be evil (at least not in the same way that we mean evil for humans), then what is it that separates humans from animals? The rather non-intuitive but obvious-once-stated answer is consciousness. And therefore the title of this post, “Consciousness, the root of all evils…” (the poor governance part of the title is a leap of faith that will be taken shortly).

This instinctual behaviour of animals when contrasted with human behaviour sets the stage for a profound question: how do humans differ? Unlike animals, we possess a unique ability to reflect on and judge our actions, stemming from our advanced consciousness, a trait that elevates our responsibilities and moral dilemmas. While a monkey might steal your sunglasses out of sheer curiosity, humans often need far more sophisticated reasons to justify nabbing their neighbour’s Wi-Fi password.

Now you may be tempted to start an internal debate on the age old questions of what consciousness is, and where it exists. Philosophers and scientists have pondered over this question over centuries. Human consciousness might be the only thing in the universe that can create a masterpiece of art, invent groundbreaking technology, ponder over its own existence as well as contemplating the vastness of the universe while simultaneously forgetting where it left its car keys. But I am going to keep my definition simple. Consciousness is the ability of a human being to perceive the self as an entity separate from the world; and it exists in our brains as the interaction of matter in the form of electrical impulses between our neurons in our brain. 

Once again, accepting this hypothesis will lead us to a once-again-not-intuitive-but-sort-of obvious-when-stated hypothesis that in consciousness itself lies the root of all evils. The conscious mind’s primary client is the individual to whom the mind belongs. Each conscious human, irrespective of circumstances, has a set of evolving needs, wants and desires. While it may be theoretically possible for every individual’s essential needs to be fulfilled in terms of the sheer resources available on earth, but humanity is nowhere in terms of governance, systems or organisation that will allow the fulfilment of these needs and wants. What complicates the matter is that even essential needs are both variable and changing. For some it’s limited to “roti, kapda and makaan”; education and health are necessities as well. But for each of these aspects the quality and quantity of it varies significantly. So in reality it’s not even theoretically possible to fulfil each individual’s needs.

And when we go beyond needs to humanity’s unlimited wants and desires, it’s evident that they can’t be fulfilled without it being at the expense of current and future humans and other living beings, and at the expense of the environment, which to the selfish human consciousness is only vaguely relevant to in that it might be harmful to some future progeny of ours. At this point, you might be wondering about my intent considering this rather pessimistic assessment of consciousness. This exploration into human consciousness started when I was trying to understand why human governance isn’t improving at the rate most thought leaders have expected it to; in fact the reverse is happening, whereby governance systems that were doing well earlier have regressed.

Governance systems have been evolving over many centuries. Monarchies and theocracies have ruled the roost for most of human history, dictatorships and authoritarianism. While the human population has burgeoned, inequality and brutality were key features through the ages. Unfortunately there are regimes where that still remains the case (North Korea comes to mind). Of course democratic (or even semi-democratic ones) systems have in general been better. Democracy, while not new as a governance system, is however quite young. Any student of political science would have to agree, even if begrudgingly, that democracy is the best form of governance in doing the least of evils considering economic development, freedoms including religious, speech, work, reduction in deaths due to wars, famines, crime and internal conflicts and so on. 

But if you’re positively charged by now to tell me that democratic nations are also struggling, well, you’re anticipating the very point that I intend to make. I am a huge fan of democracies, having grown up in one and being a privileged beneficiary of most of the things that are good, but even the cutting-edge system of human governance, democracy is struggling today. Brexit, US under Donald Trump, the struggles of South Africa under African National Congress (the party of Nelson Mandela), the majoritarianism in India, the economic struggle in practically every South American country, or scores of dictators posing as democratic leaders in Africa, Middle-East, and many other parts of country exemplifies that humanity’s best form of governance is struggling and the struggles have gotten much worse over the last decade or so.

The problem is that our consciousness pushes the individual to maximize their present wellbeing and wealth through all possible means. This means that even the best framed and intended political system will fail because the systems depend on human agency and human agency is first about the individual and then about others. Take Brexit and Trump’s presidency, for instance, which exemplify how leaders can manipulate individual fears and desires, leveraging the self-centered aspects of human consciousness to sway public opinion and gain political power, which is what their own consciousness is telling them that they need.

You may wonder that if consciousness is so much about the individual then how has humanity managed to not just survive but also explode. Evolution has taught us the benefits of being in a tribe. As those tribes got bigger and bigger, systems were instituted to align the interests and actions of the many. But these alignment systems (laws, governments, corporations) have limitations. A lowly paid bureaucrat has so much incentive to be corrupt when s/he is making large economic decisions. A politician intending aiming for power will resort to all sorts of tricks – from bribing voters, to fear mongering, to dividing the electorate on the basis on caste, race, religion, region etc., to make sure that they come to / stay in power and can then enjoy the spoils of that power. Of course almost all those in power will rationalise that these unjust means are necessary for them to be able to do good work for which they need power.

Look at the mess with climate change that we have made. Humans are environmental destroyers even in the future in the fictional world of Pandora from the Avatar movies. And we can’t really disagree based on what we are doing today. In fact the reason why the blue natives of Avatar are in tune with the flora and fauna of Pandora is because they share their consciousness with them, showing why humans don’t really get what other living beings and nature really means. We’re the only species smart enough to understand climate change and dumb enough to debate if it’s real while standing in floodwaters.

Empathy is very difficult for human beings. In fact, children really have to be taught to be caring and empathetic. Most kids naturally are selfish – showing that although all humans will develop consciousness, they won’t necessarily have the shared consciousness necessary for us to think of others including the environment. Therein continues the thread that our consciousness indeed is also the root of our evils. Add to that there’s no such thing as a future consciousness. Consciousness lives in the past and the present only. It doesn’t worry too much about future problems that current consciousness may create.  

So, we’ve figured out that our individualistic consciousness might just be the villain in the drama of life’s challenges, including the mess we call governance. It’s like we’re all starring in a bad reality show where everyone’s trying to be the main character, and let’s just say, it’s not getting rave reviews.Apparently, the way to a utopian future is by tuning our minds to think less ‘me’ and more ‘we’. Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly. It’s like trying to convince a cat to be a team player – good luck with that! But hey, we’ve got to start somewhere.

I am an optimist at heart – and despite the issues I believe that our consciousness has still brought us a long way towards equality and harmony. It defines us, sets us apart, but also has the potential to lead us astray. The future of governance, society, and the planet hinges on how we manage this unique trait. Can we evolve our consciousness to foster a more inclusive, empathetic, and sustainable world? 

I don’t know if we can. Politics or society the way it is today will not cut it. What needs to change? What needs to break?  I really don’t have answers at this point. And I haven’t really heard anyone else giving authoritative answers to this either. I leave all of you to ponder upon this like I shall.

P.S. This would be the first article where I have actually used a few sentences verbatim from ChatGPT. I really had to work hard with it over multiple convesations to get some inputs that I really liked and then to integrate those inputs meaningfully into my narrative. Would be interested if someone can point out which statements are generated by AI. Of course, the cover image too is generated by OpenAI’s DALL-E – but that’s rather too obvious!