the nature of evil...

[Mike70]

i was wondering what you guy's take on evil is. what is it? how do people slip toward it? personally, i view evil as a corruption in a person that takes root and grows over time. i consider it to manifest itself in people who: a. are intensely self-centered and self aggrandizing. b. who have no concept of the basic idea of right and wrong. c. have zero empathy for others. show me someone with these three character traits and i'll show you someone evil. i also don't really think that anyone starts out evil. not even hitler, stalin or mao - three of the biggest pieces of trash to walk the earth. they started out just like everybody else, as smiling babies that had no knowledge of anything. something (s) had to happen to them and others like them during the course of their lives that corrupted them to the point where they were able to do the things they did. well, that's my take. oh and by the way, since we've had so much trouble with thread trolls here the last few days, i am going to ask as the thread author that we keep this discussion to your ideas on the nature of evil. what it is and how people get that way. any posts that try to turn this thread into a discussion of anything else, i will ask to be removed.

[Danny]

whilst not dead one, yodas line in star wars wasn't bad, yknow the whole "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering" throw in greed and circumstance and psychological trauma and your about there.

[Chic Freak]

i consider it to manifest itself in people who: a. are intensely self-centered and self aggrandizing. b. who have no concept of the basic idea of right and wrong. c. have zero empathy for others. show me someone with these three character traits and i'll show you someone evil. My beliefs: a. = asshole, but not necessarily evil. b. = can naturally lead to acts that other people would say are evil, but if you are incapable of identifying moral and immoral choices, can you still be classed as an evil person? I'm not arguiing one way or the other yet, but it's an interesting point. If you don't know that what you're doing is wrong, say because you have some kind of brain damage (e.g. psycho/sociopaths), does that mean you can't be held responsible? It's what the insanity plea hinges on, after all. c. = I think most moral evil stems from treating people as objects, or less than human. Once you're there, it's a short and quick slippery slope to evil. i also don't really think that anyone starts out evil. I believe that while no-one emerges from the womb thinking "I can't wait till I grow up so I can get cannibalisin'", some people are born with a predisposition towards evil, sort of like some people are born with certain talents or weaknesses that can be nurtured or suppressed in the right environment. "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering" throw in greed and circumstance and psychological trauma and your about there. That sounds pretty reasonable actually. But it now seems like we're looking at more of an explanation for evil, rather than a definition of what it is. How would you define moral evil within a human being (as opposed to say, a volcano erupting and killing people is a kind of evil but you can hardly blame the volcano). I keep trying to write a definition then picking holes in it and deleting it again. Lol.

[Trencher]

I belive evil stems from humans instinct to control their surroundings and feel safe but its taken to the next level when a person know that what he does dont really do anything usefull and is only to make him feel better. The desire to feel powerfull and in controll is the name of the game. Greed, sadism, rape, authotitarian-ism (spelling?), incest, pedophilia and necrophilia all stem from normal human instincts but the person chooses to pervert those instincts just to get emotional gratification.

[Khardis]

I think evil is a cute term we use to wrap up something uncomfortable in a nice package. Evil is a point of view ultimately. Hitler didn't think he was evil he thought he was doing good work for his people and he was their savior. The Jews died in a holocaust because he and his cronies believed they were evil and that the Nazis were doing the right thing by ridding the world of them. What we don't like to accept is that many massacres and murders happen due to good intentions. So we call what Terrorists and Nazis and such do evil. the only REAL evil left is rapidly being labeled mental disorder. They have an interesting discussion about this in the Exorcist novel.

[sandrock74]

I think that "true" evil is something that lies in your very soul. A totally corrupted individual. I don't think they are turned evil, they are just born that way.

[Skippy911sc]

I think evil is a cute term we use to wrap up something uncomfortable in a nice package. Evil is a point of view ultimately. Hitler didn't think he was evil he thought he was doing good work for his people and he was their savior. The Jews died in a holocaust because he and his cronies believed they were evil and that the Nazis were doing the right thing by ridding the world of them. What we don't like to accept is that many massacres and murders happen due to good intentions. So we call what Terrorists and Nazis and such do evil. the only REAL evil left is rapidly being labeled mental disorder. They have an interesting discussion about this in the Exorcist novel. Perfect...there are different viewpoints to each side. Evil to some is good to others. Terrorists to some, freedom fighters to others. This about the Revolutionary War in the USA. The Brits thought of us as evil ( I think, as I am not a Brit) and the Americans thought the Brits were evil. Who was right? The winners are always correct, they are the ones who write the history. If Hitler had managed to destroy all the Jews from Europe and won WWII then his followers would have written history in a different way. I always (sometimes ) try to look at things through the eyes of my adversary, then decide how I am more right then them.

[Mike70]

some of you are missing the point here. the kind of evil i am referring to isn't relative nor is it in the eye of the beholder. i am speaking of acts that are flat wrong no matter how you slice them. it matters not whether you think what you are doing is evil or not. some actions are simply indefensible. for instance: if you herd people who are guilty of nothing more than being part of an ethnic group into chambers then gas them to death, that is an evil action. period. there is nothing about it that is relative. it is indefensible. lining people up on the edge of a pit and shooting them in the head is likewise an evil action by its very nature. it absolutely doesn't matter what your motivations are or how you see the action. many serial killers believe they are doing the world a favor by killing the people that they do. this is yet another instance where their view of what they are doing simply doesn't matter. what they have done is wrong in every way, shape, and form. there is no defense to it. i am so fu*king sick of all forms of cultural relativism.

[Tricky]

I think the true evil people are those murderers, rapists & sadists who know what they are doing is wrong,but they do it anyway. Everybody has the capacity for evil & everybody has bad thoughts that they dont want, but most people have something called impulse control which regulates behaviour.

[Mike70]

I think the true evil people are those murderers, rapists & sadists who know what they are doing is wrong,but they do it anyway. exactly. people who should know it is wrong but have convinced themselves that what they are doing is somehow contributing to some great cause. at some level they ought to know that it is wrong but they either don't care or have somehow convinced themselves what they are doing is for the (in the words of every mad scientist) "for the good of mankind." still evil and there is still isn't anything relative about it.

[Khardis]

some of you are missing the point here. the kind of evil i am referring to isn't relative nor is it in the eye of the beholder. i am speaking of acts that are flat wrong no matter how you slice them. it matters not whether you think what you are doing is evil or not. some actions are simply indefensible. for instance: if you herd people who are guilty of nothing more than being part of an ethnic group into chambers then gas them to death, that is an evil action. period. there is nothing about it that is relative. it is indefensible. lining people up on the edge of a pit and shooting them in the head is likewise an evil action by its very nature. it absolutely doesn't matter what your motivations are or how you see the action. many serial killers believe they are doing the world a favor by killing the people that they do. this is yet another instance where their view of what they are doing simply doesn't matter. what they have done is wrong in every way, shape, and form. there is no defense to it. i am so fu*king sick of all forms of cultural relativism. That i evil to YOU, but what if you believed the people weren't innocent? What if you believed they were all thieving criminals who have been sucking your people dry? Thats how the Nazis saw the jews. Not as innocents. exactly. people who should know it is wrong but have convinced themselves that what they are doing is somehow contributing to some great cause. at some level they ought to know that it is wrong but they either don't care or have somehow convinced themselves what they are doing is for the (in the words of every mad scientist) "for the good of mankind." still evil and there is still isn't anything relative about it. Yes there is, your entire notion of good and innocent is a matter of opinion. You cannot say something is goof factually, its not possible. Good and Bad are not fact based they are feeling based.

[Mike70]

That i evil to YOU, but what if you believed the people weren't innocent? What if you believed they were all thieving criminals who have been sucking your people dry? Thats how the Nazis saw the jews. Not as innocents. Yes there is, your entire notion of good and innocent is a matter of opinion. You cannot say something is goof factually, its not possible. Good and Bad are not fact based they are feeling based. gee, i had no idea that cold blooded murder was a matter of opinion. good to know that herding people into camps then slaughtering them could be defended relativistically. there are absolute values of good and evil in this world, the main two being that murdering someone in cold blood and raping someone are wrong always. it doesn't matter what the perpetrator of the action thinks about it. he/they can rationalize it in any way they want to, that doesn't make it any less wrong.

[clanglee]

some of you are missing the point here. the kind of evil i am referring to isn't relative nor is it in the eye of the beholder. i am speaking of acts that are flat wrong no matter how you slice them. it matters not whether you think what you are doing is evil or not. some actions are simply indefensible. for instance: if you herd people who are guilty of nothing more than being part of an ethnic group into chambers then gas them to death, that is an evil action. period. there is nothing about it that is relative. it is indefensible. lining people up on the edge of a pit and shooting them in the head is likewise an evil action by its very nature. it absolutely doesn't matter what your motivations are or how you see the action. many serial killers believe they are doing the world a favor by killing the people that they do. this is yet another instance where their view of what they are doing simply doesn't matter. what they have done is wrong in every way, shape, and form. there is no defense to it. i am so fu*king sick of all forms of cultural relativism. I understand what you are trying to ask man, but Evil IS relative. The breaking of any social more or expecially a taboo is often thought of as evil. But as social mores and taboos are based on particular cultures. . often the lines will blur when compared to another cultures ideals. I agree that your two examples are Evil, but the people that commit these crimes do not. And as they have their own set of Taboos in their own culture. . who's right? The Holocaust was, to me, the epitome of evil. However, Hitler and his people, the majority party of the country saw it as a neccessity. So was that evil or mass hysteria, craziness, which is a whole other sort of evil. To me, the real and true evil lies on those people who knew that was they were doing was very wrong, and yet did nothing to stop it.

[Mike70]

you guys are missing the point entirely. some actions like murder or rape are not relative, cultures aside. this is a gigantic waste of time and finger energy, we can go round and round like this forever. i see absolutely no reason for this thread to continue.

[clanglee]

there are absolute values of good and evil in this world, the main two being that murdering someone in cold blood and raping someone are wrong always. it doesn't matter what the perpetrator of the action thinks about it. he/they can rationalize it in any way they want to, that doesn't make it any less wrong. But by that rationalization, any War is evil for any reason whatsoever. While I agree with that (war IS wrong), I know that most of humanity believes war to be a sometimes. . well. . neccissary evil. If it's neccissary. . it's not really evil at all. It is supported by the people, therefore it breaks no taboos and is not considered evil.