Is Santa Muerte evil?

     Firstly, let's talk about what we mean by evil. If you try to define evil or even look it up yourself I'm sure you will find that you will use some combination of bad moral character, wrongdoing and causing harm to establish what is evil. The issue is that bad and wrong are not objective and measurable terms. However that hasn't stopped people from trying to measure and study it.

    In the 1960s during the early days of psychology, Stanley Milgram, a professor at Yale university created and executed an experiment that we now realize is very controversial and unethical, some might even call evil. To make sure that they didn't inadvertently affect their behavior and therefore outcome, the participants were told that the study was about memory however the study was more so about obedience. Participants were lead into a room with a large device that has all sorts of lights and indicators. The researchers explained to the participants that in another nearby room someone was connected to this machine and that the participants were going to be in control of the apparatus. 

    The researchers explained that the learner in the other room is the subject of a memory and learning experiment and that they were to administer an electric shock from the electric shock generator whenever they failed to memorize something correctly. To the participants knowledge, they were studying the effects of punishment on memory and learning. The participant was given the title of "teacher" and was going to give what they deemed to be an appropriate level of electricity to the learner whenever they got something wrong. The range of shocks came with written markings going from "slight" to "severe" with a warning that severe was a dangerous level of shock. The reality is that there was no shock, the learner was an actor that was instructed to give prewritten responses and told how to respond to the fake shocks.

    The participants who believed they were administering actual electric shocks were instructed to give higher and higher levels of electricity to incorrect responses, and many of them continued to oblige. All of the participants showed emotional stress and discomfort and would even question or speak out against the researchers but were asked to continue and many of them would. Most of the people would be willing to inflict pain to another person simply because they were ordered to do so. These participants who were the true subjects of the study demonstrated that people are willing to give up their strongest moral values if they were supported by the commands of an authority figure. Simply put people are capable of carrying out terrible things and bending their own morals if they think they are "just doing their job." 

    This is a very shortened and abridged version of the Milgram Experiment and I will recommend that you read in greater detail about it if you're interested. However, let this be a reminder that morality is not fixed. Good and evil are subjective and are subject to change and can change based on circumstance. What is good for me and my family may be detrimental to you and yours. They are two extremes of the same thing, if you come away from the extremes you will use words like right and wrong or pleasant and unpleasant. Even these are subjective but where does good end and bad begin?

    Now that we established that the world is not black and white. Let's turn our attention to Santa Muerte. If you're curious as to what or who is La Santa Muerte I will direct you to my previous post (Who is Santa Muerte). In conclusion, La Santa Muerte is an exalted form of a natural phenomenon personified. This is important because firstly, she is as natural as nature itself. Nature in any and all of her forms can be incredibly beautiful or incredibly scary and even destructive.

    The sun can provide warmth, light, allow plants to survive by way of photosynthesis but it can also burn your epidermis with a sunburn or cause dryness and droughts leading to wildfires. The wind can provide a breeze of relief from the heat but it can also fan the flames of a wildfire and spread it farther or tear your home to shreds as a tornado. Water has the power to sustain life in all of it's forms, it can put out wildfires but it can also create flashfloods and drown your entire city or pull you out to sea leaving you stranded. I know that the forces of nature can be devastating but I don't ever hear anyone question if they are evil.

    In that same logic, death is not evil and neither is Santa Muerte. Then why do people believe that she is evil, one might ask. I think it's simple, death has been misunderstood, feared and so it's easy to demonize Santa Muerte because she incarnates that fear and mystery. She is a material thing you can point to and blame for when you plant rots when you over water it or when someone has their life taken away before your eyes unfairly. She is a scapegoat for some and she knows that and accepts it. However to those that are wiser than to fall into black and white thinking, the ones that are beyond the dichotomies of good an evil and are acquainted with her, they don't see her as "evil," on the contrary they see her as a figure that is comforting and motherly, tolerant and merciful, supportive and gracious. They see the humanity in her, which checks out because humans can be very good but are also capable of great evils.

    Personally, I think that La Santa Muerte is beyond good and evil. Like people she can be both, or neither. She existed long before humans invented the idea of God and the devil. There is no life without death and vise versa. She has always been there since before life began and as long as life exists which life always adapts and finds a way, she too will always be. Nevertheless, I'm curious what you think. Do you think that Death is evil? Is Santa Muerte evil? Is Santa Muerte good? How do you define good and evil and where is the line between them?

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