What is evil? Who is evil? Does evil exist? Who decides? Can we scream over turkey at grandma’s house? Let’s chat Critical Ponerology with scholar, professor, author of Evil: A Critical Primer, and a gem of a person, Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick of the University of Manitoba. He’s been teaching courses on the notion of evil for 25 years and it’s a much deeper rabbit hole than you’d ever expect. So rub your fingers together and enjoy a discussion about different cultural approaches to evil, if your toddler is evil, vampires, angry mobs seeking vigilante justice, news personalities saying unhinged things, and subjects vs. objects. Also: why you should be nicer to your coffee table. Get Dr. MacKendrick’s book, Evil: A Critical Primer, on Amazon or Bookshop.orgA donation went to North Point Douglas Women’s CentreMore episode sources and linksSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesOther episodes you may enjoy: Spooktober: Topics to Startle and Love, Demonology (EVIL SPIRITS), Vampirology (VAMPIRES), Teratology (MONSTERS), Genocidology (CRIMES OF ATROCITY), Momiology (MUMMIFICATION), Witchology (WITCHES & WITCHCRAFT), Indigenous Pedology (SOIL SCIENCE), Environmental Toxicology (POISONS + TRAIN DERAILMENT), Disinfectiology (BLEACH), Obsessive-Compulsive Neurobiology (OCD), Disgustology (REPULSION TO GROSS STUFF), Medieval Codicology (WEIRD OLD MANUSCRIPT ART & MEMES & SNAILS), Victimology (CRIME VICTIMS), Artificial Intelligence Ethicology (WILL A.I. CRASH OUT?)400+ Ologies episodes sorted by topicSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesSponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!Follow Ologies on Instagram and BlueskyFollow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTokEditing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake ChaffeeManaging Director: Susan HaleScheduling Producer: Noel DilworthTranscripts by Aveline Malek Website by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Full Episode
Oh, hey, it's the dog toy under the couch that you won't find for another four months, Allie Ward, and it's evil. Let's talk about it with a professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Manitoba, who has written the book on it. It's titled Evil, A
critical primer and teaches the course evil in world religions they have a bachelor in religious studies a master's in critical theory and religion and feminist ethics and a phd in critical theory ethics hermeneutics and psychoanalysis and who will deal with my questions such as what is evil Who is evil? What do we do about evil? Can we scream over turkey at grandma's house?
We're going to get into it. But first, thank you so much to patrons who support the show and have from the beginning. And y'all leave your questions. You too can join for a dollar a month at patreon.com slash ologies. Thanks to everyone wearing ologies merch from ologiesmerch.com. If you have kids or sensitive ears, we also have versions of ologies that are classroom and kid-safe, G-rated.
Those are in their own feed. They're called Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, which is linked in the show notes. Thank you to anyone who leaves reviews for the show, which help so much, and I read all of them, and I approve it with a recent one. This one is from Tomatio22, who wrote that the show makes the interesting extremely interesting and the uninteresting interesting. equally as interesting.
And also, after listening to last week's cockroach episode, the show made them eat bugles. For the first time in over a decade, they say no regerts. Tomatillo22, may the horn be with you. It is also with me. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to donate to a cause that Theologist chooses each week. Okay, critical ponorology.
So ponorology comes from the Greek word for evil, and you will understand why the critical is in there in a minute. We fudged it a little bit, but ever since I saw the word ponorology on this big ologies list as the study of evil, I have wanted to explore the topic so much.
So let's talk about the origins of evil, different cultural approaches to the notion, who uses the word evil to mean what if your toddler is evil? vampires, angry mobs seeking vigilante justice, news personalities saying unhinged things. When you are a subject and when you are an object, why should you be nicer to your coffee table? And if evil exists, and who says so?
With scholar, author, professor, gem of a person, and we'll just say critical ponorologist, Dr. Kenneth McKendrick.
My name is Kenneth McKendrick, and my pronouns are he, him, they, them. Let me jump right in.
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