Defeating a great evil can merely disperse it into many smaller persistent ones

Evidence

And the swarm of mosquitoes — born from the ashes of the blood-drinking monster — flew off into the world. And they carried with them the monster’s old craving: the hunger for the blood of human beings. … The lesson, the storytellers say with a rueful smile as they slap at a mosquito, is partly just a clever and funny explanation for why these annoying insects exist and why they crave our blood — but it carries also a deeper, wiser note: that great evils, even when defeated, are not always so easily disposed of; that in destroying a great harm, we may accidentally scatter it into many small ones; and that some troubles, once loosed upon the world, can never be entirely gotten rid of, but must simply be endured. — , A Year of World Stories, 10132

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels Pandora’s box releasing all the world’s troubles and the Haudenosaunee Bad Mind’s mosquitoes, also cited in the text. — connects to: Per-strike ‘lesser evil’ claims cumulatively yield a greater total evil. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 592; Ideological crusades cannot decisively win because ideas resist extermination — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 896; Torture succeeding in the short term proves a double-edged long-term weapon — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 609 (+7 more)

Related

• Only a bigger monopoly can destroy a smaller local monopoly (similarity 0.84)
• Totalitarian solutions remain tempting wherever misery resists worthy alleviation (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Per-strike ‘lesser evil’ claims cumulatively yield a greater total evil. #expands (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 592
• Restricting hostility to one precise target can intensify it dramatically #complicates (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 305
• A militarily victorious counterinsurgency can still lose due to non-battlefield factors #exemplifies (0.65)
• Ideological crusades cannot decisively win because ideas resist extermination #corroborates (0.60) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 896
• Weapons work primarily as deterrents that prevent fights rather than win them #corroborates (0.55) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 966
• Torture succeeding in the short term proves a double-edged long-term weapon #complicates (0.45) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 609
• Claimed precision paradoxically expands global killing rather than limiting it #complicates (0.40)