Hey, we want to be part of the hate!

POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 02:14
VIEWED: 18566
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DREAMTROVE

Thursday, January 15, 2009 8:55 PM

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Ah, I see. I thought this was going to be snark-free hate.

Lol. No, it was intended as a somewhat tongue and cheek snarkfest. But I thought, there's a serious side here. We ought to be able to disagree. I mean someone can come in here and have serious issues with Islam, or Israel, and be able to state them without being taken down for it. I, personally, don't have issues with Islam or Israel, I do have issues with Ohlmert, and also with Abdullah, and their small circle of loyal nutjobs.

I thought if I didn't start out by taking a potshot at someone, then no one else would. Now the pro-socialists are arguing with me :).

So, I should add an addendum to the top saying "feel free to defend your position, but please, nobody go medieval on their a**es."

Also we might find that our biases are not as far reaching as we think. Most socialists who believe in more govt. control etc. are just people I disagree with. I have some friends who are pretty hardcore avowed socialists, one of whom thinks that Brezinski is our saviour. If I were less tactful in person I might forward him that picture of Brezinski teaching Osama how to use a machine gun

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But let me say something about good and evil. Evil is created by good. If you don't define good, then there is not evil. If you define good, then it's opposition is evil, by definition. This being the real opposition, not just anything which happens to be not you, but anyone who opposes you, Al Qaeda say.

I'll disagree with this. :)

Just a logical extension of the tenet of the faith. My view on faith is that, really, we all take an awful lot on faith, and that, sure, someday, it may prove to be wrong. I think that certain kinds of extremism take the words of the ancients as an immutable itinerary for life, which is probably taking it too far, but in general, there's a lot of ancient wisdom that holds up pretty well under a lot of circumstances.

Much of modern science is taken on faith, as is much of politics, and based on facts and analysis by people of not that long ago, usually, and much of it is to some extent, wrong. But we take it on faith until we have a better working model. My own suspicion is that when I encounter conflicting viewpoints which also make sense, I'll probably adopt them into the same form, and then maybe eventually end up as a religion of one :)

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There is no evil. I am fully capable of defining good without defining "evil". I can identify undesireable, angering, incomprehensible, sad, horrifying, disappointing and disgusting... but not evil.

Okay, if this is a theological discussion, what Lao Tzu is saying is that by the act of defining good, you've created evil as its opposite. For instance, your definition of good, which might be completely different from someone else's, might include something as a tenet of Good, which would make that which contradicted it evil. I was going to put in an example, but I'll leave that to you.

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Evil is a Very Lazy Concept. I think I posted abou my relationship with this word in my earlier hate-contribution.

Sure. I totally agree. Esp. a problem in writing, but also in thought. That's why Taoism eschews the idea, and I think it makes my writing more interesting. Or perhaps, to me, readable. I have trouble with Star Wars and recently Legend of the Seeker, I haven't read the books, but these rely so heavily on the concepts of good and evil, that the merciless slaughter of countless "evil" is "good" because it helps the cause of "good" even if it saves no life. Fiction is replete with this nonsense.

I was just thinking of a couple other examples which appal me in their simplemindedness, the worst ever will probably be forever superman (imagine for a second superman with a different concept of the ultimate good, like, say, population control...) But there was another one, it will come to me.

I tend to enjoy characters who are logically consistent and at the same time complicated. Zoe and Wash kind of bore me, t

FREMDFIRMA

Thursday, January 15, 2009 8:57 PM

Jadehand, although it was thrown at the far right that time, it does indeed apply equally to both radical ends of the political spectrum.

As for the whole hatin on thing, imma Misanthropic Maltheist, or would be if hatin on folk was too much effort to bother with, meh.

But my primary pet hatred is anyone pushing their will unto another with violence of the threat thereof in the bargain - and that *specifically* includes folk who do it by proxy by having "government" do the dirty work for em.

Which prettymuch includes most folk.

And don't get me started on the Christians and their murderous demon-god, unless ya really want a six page rant...

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, January 15, 2009 9:00 PM

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CAUSAL
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

I have quit posting, hell I have quit reading most of the threads for the same reason.

Me, too.

Mee three.

I proposal a new rule, I'm going to make a thread to support the idea, in the interests of time management. This is because, a forum with more members posting less is probably much preferable to a handful of people posting tons, especially when they're arguing as immovable objects.

CHRIS, it doesn't work though. Star wars is a pretty boring story. If there was no ILM, no one would watch this. As for Harry Potter, it's one of the major plotholes: Oh, we worship Voldemorte because we love death so much! I mean, really, our enemy is gothy teen angst?

RUE

Thursday, January 15, 2009 9:02 PM

"I think this good/evil duality has deeply infected our culture ..."

Just as a general concept of yin and yang, thesis and antithesis ... I think mathematics has an interesting disinction to make. There is the thing, there is the not thing, and there is the opposite. Each is a different concept.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, January 15, 2009 9:41 PM

Kathy,

the difference is that in the good/evil, one is inherently right, and the other wrong.

yin/yang is more like seely/unseely

AGENTROUKA

Thursday, January 15, 2009 9:56 PM

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
We ought to be able to disagree. I mean someone can come in here and have serious issues with Islam, or Israel, and be able to state them without being taken down for it.

Agreeing to disagree is a fine thing.

But I think when you post an opinion here - be it a vague or a firm one - you should be open to polite debate. Name-calling is always, always uncalled for, obviously, but someone pointing out perceived hypocricy, factual error or ethical dissonance is just communication.

I like the part of dicussions where - ideally - both parties realize their exact root of disagreement, usually very personal values, and respectfully end the debate.

That should happen more often.

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I thought if I didn't start out by taking a potshot at someone, then no one else would. Now the pro-socialists are arguing with me :).

Not the pro-socialists. The pro-specifics! *g* You weren't stating a prejudice openly, you were trying to justify it by "facts" that weren't 100% true. That's the difference, hehe.

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But let me say something about good and evil. Evil is created by good. If you don't define good, then there is not evil. If you define good, then it's opposition is evil, by definition. This being the real opposition, not just anything which happens to be not you, but anyone who opposes you, Al Qaeda say.

I'll disagree with this. :)

Just a logical extension of the tenet of the faith.

Not necessarily either.

That faith-like trust you use to describe most people's relationship with science does well without a concept of evil. My own trusting "faith" in scientific progress (that I cannot fully understand) knows no good and evil. It know "wow, that's fascinating" and it knows "Could be useful".

Faith and religion are also not the same. Religions have tenets but faith is just an aspect of religion, a personal state or act. You can have baseless faith in almost anything without the concepts of good and evil being involved at all.

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There is no evil. I am fully capable of defining good without defining "evil". I can identify undesireable, angering, incomprehensible, sad, horrifying, disappointing and disgusting... but not evil.

Okay, if this is a theological discussion, what Lao Tzu is saying is that by the act of defining good, you've created evil as its opposite.

Then I disagree with Lao Tzu.

I think pancakes are good. I do NOT think that people who oppose pancakes are evil. Or that food other than pancakes is evil. I don't need evil anti-pancakes to like pancakes and I don't create evil anti-pancakes by recognising the goodness of pancakes.

Evil is an absolute, irredeemable, destructive, conscious malice. It doesn't exist. Furthermore, it doesn't need to exist. Thoughtlessness, ignorance, fear, anger and desperation are each more than enough cause for regrettable things.

Evil is the bogeyman in small children's minds, when they haven't yet learned to fully identify with another person, their POV, their motives and feelings. Sadly, we encourage that labeling later in life. We encourage helpless fear by using this label, because it suggests a power of unchangable invulnerability of destructive purpose, which nothing and no one truly has. Out of that helpless, ignorant fear, of course, hate grows. And destruction.

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Evil is a Very Lazy Concept. I think I posted abou my relationship with this word in my earlier hate-contribution.

Sure. I totally agree.

I guess that is good then.

I'm not sure I understood exactly what you were trying to say with regards to your use of the word evil, though. You don't believe in the concept of evil but you use the word for the purpose of.. what?

CHRISISALL

Friday, January 16, 2009 2:52 AM

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:

As for Harry Potter, it's one of the major plotholes: Oh, we worship Voldemorte because we love death so much! I mean, really, our enemy is gothy teen angst?

You're preaching to the choir here, my friend, I personally like the Narnia flicks better.

The roaring Chrisisall

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 16, 2009 6:42 AM

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Evil is an absolute, irredeemable, destructive, conscious malice. It doesn't exist. Furthermore, it doesn't need to exist. Thoughtlessness, ignorance, fear, anger and desperation are each more than enough cause for regrettable things.

Do you think the Nazis did what they did because they were thoughtless, ignorant, afraid, angry or desperate? I don’t think so. I think there was something more. Something absolute, irredeemable, destructive and consciously malicious in their actions.

What about a serial killer? Someone who kills for the shear enjoyment of it. Ted Bundy, for instance, was quite thoughtful and intelligent. While he was prone to fits of rage, this wasn’t why killed. He killed because he got sexual satisfaction from making people suffer.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

DREAMTROVE

Friday, January 16, 2009 7:12 AM

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Not the pro-socialists. The pro-specifics! *g* You weren't stating a prejudice openly, you were trying to justify it by "facts" that weren't 100% true. That's the difference, hehe.

Those were facts, but they were a snark. It's true that National, Soviet, Maoist are all types of socialist which have held multiple regimes, and those have been responsible for a large number of cumulative deaths, in a way that even military juntas would have to envy.

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Not necessarily either.

That faith-like trust you use to describe most people's relationship with science does well without a concept of evil. My own trusting "faith" in scientific progress (that I cannot fully understand) knows no good and evil. It know "wow, that's fascinating" and it knows "Could be useful".

Faith and religion are also not the same. Religions have tenets but faith is just an aspect of religion, a personal state or act. You can have baseless faith in almost anything without the concepts of good and evil being involved at all.

Miscommunication. I by no means meant to imply there was a connection between different faith-based sets of beliefs, merely that it was a common structure. People, largely, take history on faith. This doesn't require good and evil either. It's just a faith based system. You trust that other historians are objective and that their information is relatively accurate and unaltered. If you question that, you start to become a historian.

I also was making no assertion about religion. I'm not sure what religion is. Sometimes the word seems to apply to western religions of the judeo-christian tradition, which believe in good and evil. But other faith systems either do or do not. Not to cross arguments, but socialism is a strongly faith-based ideology that has a belief in good and evil.

If someone could define religion, I would know if Taoism was one. I think it's generally accepted to be one, but to me it seems much more like a philosophy, by western standards, and is very different from western religions.

Taoists do not believe in good and evil. I was stating Lao's premise for how the belief in good and evil comes about in the human mind, by the identification of one, the other ergo must be, hence the dichotomy is created. Not doing so is a tenet of faith. Hence, I can see that the world possesses lots of people who have differing ideas and approaches, and some may be truly misguided, because they have allowed themselves to fall into this absolutism. I think both sides of the western-islamic conflict are victim of this logic to some degree.

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Then I disagree with Lao Tzu.

I think pancakes are good. I do NOT think that people who oppose pancakes are evil.

I'll ignore your trivializing of my faith and simply say, take his words, not mine. Translation from the ancient chinese is hard, but good and evil here are the epic ideals displayed in star wars, not the taste of pancakes.

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Evil is an absolute, irredeemable, destructive, conscious malice. It doesn't exist. Furthermore, it doesn't need to exist. Thoughtlessness, ignorance, fear, anger and desperation are each more than enough cause for regrettable things.

Evil is the bogeyman in small children's minds, when they haven't yet learned to fully identify with another person, their POV, their motives and feelings. Sadly, we encourage that labeling later in life. We encourage helpless fear by using this label, because it suggests a power of unchangable invulnerability of destructive purpose, which nothing and no one truly has. Out of that helpless, ignorant fear, of course, hate grows. And destruction.

Evil is a perception. That perception arrives from the perception of good, or, vice versa. Lao does not believe evil to exist, but that some perceive it to exist, because they have clung tightly to a definition of good. He thinks this is a dangerous idea, because self perceived good will try to strike down, or impose its will on what it perceives to be evil.

I think you're not getting it, which mea

CHRISISALL

Friday, January 16, 2009 7:36 AM

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Do you think the Nazis did what they did because they were thoughtless, ignorant, afraid, angry or desperate? I don’t think so. I think there was something more. Something absolute, irredeemable, destructive and consciously malicious in their actions.

Are there hawks that kill for fun?
Do cats kill mice with glee?
Can bats eat mosquitos purely to live?
Are there peeps that follow the master plan with only the thought of how THEY'LL survive?

Really Finn, I think your view of humanity is limited to your own very comfortable (relatively speaking) POV.

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What about a serial killer? Someone who kills for the shear enjoyment of it.

Tortured peeps don't do what they do for fun, they do what they do for the voices in their heads provided by chemical imbalances, brain deficiencies, and/or effed-up parenting styles.

Wow, and I thought I thought in comic book terms regarding good & bad....

The freaked Chrisisall

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