Why Is Black Seen As Evil?

[UnluckyAmateur]

Plain and simple: Because of how your brain and your eyes work.

A place with light, or white, where you can see clearly is meant to make you feel safe, because you are aware of your surroundings. Darkness, or Black, is where bad things can lurk around without being seen, where the unknown is, where you cannot see properly hence making you feel vulnerable.


Socially speaking, because of slavery..

No, socially its what happened after slavery.

[khazmodan]

Game of Thrones says it best;

[Uzkin]

This is a trivial question.

If there were two rooms/caves/whatever side-by-side, one of which is well-lit and the other completely dark, the nocturnal animals would preferentially go to the dark one whereas the diurnal animals (such as humans) would prefer the light one. Because that's where they (often, quite rationally) feel safe. If owls and bats had similar cognitive abilities to humans they would probably associate white with evil and black with good. Dogs and cats would probably regard certain smells, as opposed to colors, as good or evil. Whales (and bats, come to think of it) would associate certain sounds with good and evil. And so on.

[mich4el]

because darkness = lack of light (energy/life)
dark places and black nights are dangerous because you cant see shit
usually stuff turn black when it rots

etc

[Kharadin]

It basically boils down to lack of light -> darkness -> can't see -> scary.

I feel like you're either trying to find something deeper when there isn't anything, or trolling, tbh.

[Unholygrounded]

Black symbolizes nothingness which is a natural fear of all humans even if they say it isn't.

[Maxilian]

According to science, the absence of light, 'dark', existed first. So then, why do we fear what is primordial and beautiful? And why do we associate it with what is bad?

Cause many dangers used to hide in the darkness when we were more "primordial", light (fire) was used to push back predators and, still now, when we are in darkness and we see light, we see a "safe place" (even if its not true)

[Bodonius]

A korean movie, a boy with white hair = he is evil

[Pendragon]

I'd say it's to do with the fact that humans have evolved to fear the dark because we can't see any potential dangers or preditors. Black/night/dark ended up being victims of our superstitions and imaginations and we started to associate it with evil/negative/bad things.

[Mighty Tim]

I'd say it's to do with the fact that humans have evolved to fear the dark because we can't see any potential dangers or preditors. Black/night/dark ended up being victims of our superstitions and imaginations and we started to associate it with evil/negative/bad things.

Agree with this as a species we are much weaker in the dark then in the light.

[jackofwind]

Agree with this as a species we are much weaker in the dark then in the light.

Pretty much this. Throw out all the chatter that's been going on about what darkness "represents" because that's all just the way our unease has manifested itself over the millennia, it's not the cause of the unease. Those are all just reasons that we've come up with to explain our inherent fear/unease of darkness.

Humans are diurnal animals, so as a species in general we feel comfortable in light because it's where we are best able to sense our surroundings. If we were nocturnal animals we would feel about light the same way that we generally feel about darkness.

Humans being diurnal is really all there is to it, and all the negative connotations that have been associated with darkness stem from that.

[Lupinemancer]

Universally, that colour is associated with evil.

Is there a reason why?

Update:
Solid points, however, none of them explains why dark is 'evil'.

When darkness enshrouds your vision it overtakes everything. Why is it that we fear what we do not understand?

According to science, the absence of light, 'dark', existed first. So then, why do we fear what is primordial and beautiful? And why do we associate it with what is bad?

Fun fact, in the Ancient Egypt, Red was the color of Evil, but now, it's Black, and it has to do with Black representing Darkness, also known as the place where all monsters, crimminals, and all such things reside.

[Gael1]

Pretty much the same reasons as there is taboos against womens breasts, premaritial sex, drugs, porn and really anything non Christian based worldviews. Puritanicals founded the country, the people so uptight and self righteous even the British told them to get the fuck out and we are still trying to recover....

Not everything is about genre and race believe it or not.

Black and Darkness have been associayed with fear and evil in almost all cultures for a good reason : we are afraid of the dark, like most diurnal animals. We are easy preys at nights for nocturnal creatures like wolves and tigers.

It has been carved in our genes since the times our ancestors were little more than mice. But our big brain will find all kinds of methaphorical explanations for it, yet it's as simple as that.

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.


In other words, the Judaeo-Christian God said Light was good. Then separated the light from the dark. Simple metaphor for night and day, the space and earth. Light illuminates everything, The Light is "good" ... thus the dark is the absence of "good". Thats pretty vague and makes a whole lot of assumptions to the meaning of the verses. But that's probably where it comes from.

It's much older than any religion, and thus obviously much much older than abrahamic religions. Ra, god of the sun was worshipped, Appolo too. Hades lived in eternal darkness.

You just need to ask yourself where the Bible got it from.