I'd like to point out that I disagree with the idea of a designated "evil" race. The concept of evil is in the eye of the beholder, so I'm all for "evil" dwarfs, but strongly opposed to the idea of "an evil race of dwarfs".
My thoughts:
I could
possibly accept that demons are 100% to the core, irredemably, unashamedly, committedly and enthusiastically evil, but every single one of them, at every single moment?
Amoral, sure, corrupt, degenerate, decadent, and with the backing of a culture that reinforces the very worst behavior, that certainly is a possibility, but good, altruistic, unselfish acts *do* have their rewards. Even animals desperate to survive will make sacrifices to help their children, or even to help members of entirely different species, occasionally. Mercy's a force of nature, and a strength (or atleast the act of a strong being).
Demons might not operate under that set of laws. They might not be a part of the natural order, or even understand benign concepts, and so they might lack those instincts, and ofcourse they might very well have brains that operate only on the "psychotic, sociopathic, and narcisistic" frequency.
I very much doubt that that applies to the goblin race, though. Not every single one of them, certainly. They aren't powerful enough to survive as individuals. Demons could go it alone, but goblins have to work together, in a social environment. They have to make friends, form alliances, and maintain reputations. They have to work with other races, too, atleast a little bit, or they wouldn't bother to snatch babies.
To be purely evil, it seems to me that one would have to either be self-destructive, insane, or to exist within a vaccuum.
Evilness can exist as part of a society, for a while, but the more evil the society, the less "shelf-life" that society tends to have. Stalinist communism rotted from the inside, the Khmer Rouge fell apart,
the American South lost the civil war, the Tonton Macoutes were overthrown, etc.
Partly-or mostly-this is because of the morally outraged citizens in that society, that simply do not want to live in a culture they aren't proud of, whatever the personal risks to themselves.
A good example is the Nazis, who, during my lifetime, practically embody the modern definition of an "evil" culture (an assessment with which I wholeheartedly agree with) and yet, there were severe political schisms within the party.
A good example is the latest Tom Cruise movie: High-ranking patriotic German military officers in Nazi Germany recognised that Hitler was a bad influence on the country, and tried to assassinate him. That says a lot, considering how fascist
* and "German-glorifying" Nazi idealogy was, and their own secure positions in the society.
To give a few more examples:
John Rabe was a member of the Nazi Party, and he used his party influence to prevent the massacre of 200,000 Chinese.
Oskar Schindler was another, more famous member of the Nazi Party, a businessman who risked his life, and ultimately went bankrupt and destitute, while saving thousands of Jews.
Erwin Rommel was one of the highest ranked and most skilled/gifted German military officers, and he was considered to be "both chivalrous and humane", and his Afrikakorps were never accused of *any* war crimes. He was a member of the group who tried to kill Hitler. He also flat out refused to capture any civilian Jews, or to deport them to concentration camps, and was strongly and vocally opposed to the "final solution".
Other members of the Nazi Party who worked in direct or indirect opposition to Hitler's evil include
Major Karl Plagge and Dr. (and officer of the Wehrmacht) Albert Battel. There are atleast 443 other Germans recognised as "Righteous among the Nations", people who risked their freedom, fortunes, and lives, to help protect Jews before and during WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Righteous_among_the_Nations_by_countrySo even in an arguably very darkly motivated society, where one might expect evil people and evil ideas to dominate, there are very good people who erode it, or atleast mitigate it, from within.
And benevolent societies tend not only to last longer, they tend to flourish as the society grows more benevolent. An example is the U.S.A. We had some of our greatest leaps forward, as a Nation, following the defeat of the Axis powers. Sure, a lot of that was economical factors, and a lot of it was pressure from the Cold War, but I think it can be argued that a lot of our successes in the 50s and 60s had to do with feeling good about ourselves, about our soldiers, and about how other countries felt about us, and this was carried over into social reformation.
This applies to religions too--religious cults that oppress their members tend to die out, while ones that are more benign tend to survive and grow.
*As an aside, fascism and naziism are *not* synonyms. Modern fascism was invented by Benito Mussolini, not by Hitler. Fascism, in an isolated state, means something like "a militant nationalist-socialism". It rejects class discrimination and segregation of the sexes, and even Benito Mussolini rejected Hitler's racism/antisemitism on several occasions. Infact, he considered an idealogical racism flawed and impossible. Ofcourse, fascism continues to be strongly associated with German Naziism, but this is, possibly, unfortunate.
