[TFFKAMM]

I think you're confusing metaphysical evil with mere violence -- not an uncommon mistake. Otherwise, you're absolutely correct about the process of violence in evolution.

Your post reminded me of this poem by Robinson Jeffers, written as World War II was beginning:

The Bloody Sire

It is not bad. Let them play.
Let the guns bark and the bombing-plane
Speak his prodigious blasphemies.
It is not bad, it is high time,
Stark violence is still the sire of all the world’s values.

What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine
The fleet limbs of the antelope?
What but fear winged the birds, and hunger
Jewelled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head?
Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values.

Who would remember Helen’s face
Lacking the terrible halo of spears?
Who formed Christ but Herod and Caesar,
The cruel and bloody victories of Caesar?
Violence, the bloody sire of all the world’s values.

Never weep, let them play,
Old violence is not too old to beget new values.

[Reeses]

Thanks for the poem, very interesting and unusual post. I’ve walked by the Robinson Jeffers Tor House before in Carmel, didn’t know the story behind it until you piqued my interest.