Pitch's idea : what is evil??

[Avatar]

Not Frozen Insurance Salesmen?

--A

[Fist and Faith]

*bump*

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

oh, *I* remember this thread. This is the one where some people were claiming that this 'evil' thing existed. Hah. that was a good one.

[Vector]

oh, *I* remember this thread. This is the one where some people were claiming that this 'evil' thing existed. Hah. that was a good one.

And you have just performed an evil resurrection of a long dead thread...

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

No, FIST did that I just performed an inflamatory comment in hopes to get the thread rolling again. Heheh...

[Vector]

No, FIST did that I just performed an inflamatory comment in hopes to get the thread rolling again. Heheh...

Well, gee, FIST seems to be the root of all...

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

*bump*ing?

[Fist and Faith]

Moi?!?!? I thought Sky was the culprit!!

[matrixman]

Nooooooo...the horror...the horror...

[Avatar]

MWAHAHAHA!

And now, of course, I can't think of anything much to say.

Well, that's perhaps not strictly true, but the monolithic weight of this thread towering over me is a little intimidating. And I'm damned if I'm going to read back 20 pages. In fact, I only started posting to this thread half-way through, and without ever reading the beginning of it. (Which is actually about TC BTW.) Hell, this is one of the threads that I cut my teeth on here at the Watch. *nostalgia*

Anyway, MatrixMan was right, it's probably dead, dead, dead. But I still think that Evil is pretty much subjective. A matter of opinion if you will. If anybody want's to talk about it, we can play here, or we can start a new one.

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[dennisrwood]

i work with evil every day. evil men who have committed evil acts. unless anyone can top that, i win. evil exists.

[Avatar]

Exists for you. But do those men consider themselves, and what they do or have done, to be evil? Are they doing it simply to perpetrate evil?

And what do they consider evil to be? I'd guess in many instances, they'd have their own idea of it, which neatly circumvents their own actions. I'm not saying that nothing can be "evil", just that evil is not the same for everybody, which makes it subjective.

--Avatar

[Plissken]

dennis,

Your argument is basically that evil exists because of the acts committed. These men have done evil, and are therefore proof that evil exists. I agree.

I haven't read all of the pages here (who has the stamina?), but the counter argument is that these folks never thought of themselves, never intended to do or to be evil. This is also true.

The idea that intent determines evil breaks down, however, when reading Hitler's manifesto. The man never set out to do evil - indeed, he thought that he was combatting it. The results, however, speak for themselves.

He did evil.

(Sidenote - ask any artist that has seen Hitler's sketches: The man paid great attention to detail, but had absolutely no sense of perspective. It makes a good case for the idea that over self involvement - selfishness - is the root of all evil.)

[Avatar]

(Sidenote - ask any artist that has seen Hitler's sketches: The man paid great attention to detail, but had absolutely no sense of perspective. It makes a good case for the idea that over self involvement - selfishness - is the root of all evil.)

Fascinating. That's something I never knew. And what you suggest there is basically the Judaic approach to "evil", whihc I've always been quite fond of. Judaism holds that evil is nothing "incarnate" or external, but rather that it springs from the (literally) selfish and often petty, desires of men as individuals.

--Avatar

[Vector]

(Sidenote - ask any artist that has seen Hitler's sketches: The man paid great attention to detail, but had absolutely no sense of perspective. It makes a good case for the idea that over self involvement - selfishness - is the root of all evil.)

Fascinating. That's something I never knew. And what you suggest there is basically the Judaic approach to "evil", whihc I've always been quite fond of. Judaism holds that evil is nothing "incarnate" or external, but rather that it springs from the (literally) selfish and often petty, desires of men as individuals.

--Avatar

I feel very strongly that selfishness, callousness towards others taken to an extreme is indeed the root of evil in men.

[Avatar]

Let's take that a little further then, and ask where selfishness comes from in the first place?

Could we argue that selfishness is perfectly natural? Part of the biological imperative to survive at all costs?

--Avatar

[wayfriend]

I would not say that. How does a child refusing to share a toy manifest a biological imperative for survival?

After watching two kids grow up, I have the opinion that selfishness is a learned behavior. It begins when kids learn that there are things that are 'his' or 'hers'. At that point, the wrong conclusions begin to form, especially if they are not guided early and well. (Some would speak of 'territoriality' at this point - I would say, it's not territoriality that is bad, but how we learn to express it.)

Who is more likely to grow up selfish? A child with lots of things, or a child with few?

Therefore, I see selfishness as a common bad behavior, not a biological urge.

If anything, it points out that the concept of 'ownership' is not necessarilly a good one, or at least one that humans are biologically prepared to cope with.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Very interesting thought, that. I remember hearing somewhere that 1 in 10 children never learns empathy. I think we could define empathy in simplistic terms as the learned-behavior opposite of selfishness.

That whole 'walk a mile in someone else's shoes' cliche has merit, no matter how much of a cliche it is...

DW

[Fist and Faith]

I don't see that selfishness can be used as any sort of objective definition of evil. What if someone truly believes the thought, "I am the most important thing in existence, and take precedence over all other considerations."? There are various consequences to this attitude. If someone simply doesn't share, he might find himself friendless. If he kills to gain his victim's popssessions, he might end up in jail or dead.

But what if he isn't concerned with those consequences, as often seems to be the case? How can he be convinced that his attitude is objectively wrong or inferior, or that his actions are evil? Although I believe otherwise, it's impossible to absolutely prove that anything outside of my awareness exists, so how can it be proven that anything outside of my awareness is more important than my desires?

And since all children go through the kind of selfishness that Wayfriend describes, and only stop because they are forced to share by those who believe it's better to have friends than not, I don't see how it can be objectively wrong. It's only wrong for those who want certain results. The fact that most people appear to want those particular results doesn't convince me. I think morality is a personal decision, not a democratic process.

dennis,

Your argument is basically that evil exists because of the acts committed. These men have done evil, and are therefore proof that evil exists. I agree.

Me too. To paraphrase, evil is as evil does.

I haven't read all of the pages here (who has the stamina?), but the counter argument is that these folks never thought of themselves, never intended to do or to be evil. This is also true.

The idea that intent determines evil breaks down, however, when reading Hitler's manifesto. The man never set out to do evil - indeed, he thought that he was combatting it. The results, however, speak for themselves.

He did evil.

I don't think I have to limit the definition of evil to one specific mindset - the intent to do evil. I can also believe that, given so many possibilities, someone who decides to solve our problems with such methods is evil, regardless of what he thought.

[Plissken]

(Sidenote - ask any artist that has seen Hitler's sketches: The man paid great attention to detail, but had absolutely no sense of perspective. It makes a good case for the idea that over self involvement - selfishness - is the root of all evil.)

Fascinating. That's something I never knew. And what you suggest there is basically the Judaic approach to "evil", whihc I've always been quite fond of. Judaism holds that evil is nothing "incarnate" or external, but rather that it springs from the (literally) selfish and often petty, desires of men as individuals.

--Avatar

Well, art executed from a perspective of, "I will now show how well I can render the shading and shape of this tree (or telephone pole, or shoe or whatever)" without any regard for either that object's relation to the rest of the scene or the scene's effect on the artist or viewer usually indicates a level of selfishness associated with toddlers, psychopaths, and first-year art students.

(Damn. That was way funnier that I intended it to be.)