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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AGENTROUKA

Saturday, January 17, 2009 5:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
There you definitely mistunderstood. I used the word abnormal to describe the specific state of Bundy's brain. Not his actions. To merely replace another word for a concept that I don't believe it would be pretty inconsistent, and with "abnormal" it would even be quite unspecific.
It’s political correctness. You can’t see that because you’re stuck in the mindset that “evil” has to be understood in some non-existent religious context. It’s just a word that describes human behavior. There’s nothing magic about it. And just like every other word it has a definition, which you hit on very well in one your posts. You obviously understand the concept and we obviously agree on the definition. You just don’t want to use the term – political correctness.

You seem pretty determined to tell me what I am thinking.

If I understand the concept of miracle and we agree on the definition but I wouldn't want to use the word to describe an unlikely, lucky happenstance because to me miracles are non-existent, would you accuse me of overt political correctness, as well?

I find it a little offensive, to be honest, that you presume to tell me what I am thinking, while ignoring what I am telling you. The symptoms that create a definition of evil we seemingly agree upon is only one part of a whole situation, and I refuse to pretend that the part IS the whole.

The absolute nature of the word evil is something that I will never accept as actually existing. There is more than one side or perspectice to everything, so I reject the concept, not just the word.

I'm really a little curious why it means so much to you that I aknowledge that evil is a legitimate concept?

And while we are at it, do you think political correctness as an entire concept is wrong, or only if it is exaggerated? Because I think there IS use in insisting on neutral language in certain areas of life. Language has power and words have connotations that we shouldn't always ignore.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 17, 2009 5:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
You seem pretty determined to tell me what I am thinking.

If I understand the concept of miracle and we agree on the definition but I wouldn't want to use the word to describe an unlikely, lucky happenstance because to me miracles are non-existent, would you accuse me of overt political correctness, as well?

That would depend a lot on the definition of miracle that we agree on. The usual definition is dependent upon divine intervention, but it doesn’t have to be that way. A miracle could simply be an unlikely, lucky event. And if that were the definition that we agreed upon, than I might be similarly confused by your unwillingness to use the word to describe such an event.

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I find it a little offensive, to be honest, that you presume to tell me what I am thinking, while ignoring what I am telling you. The symptoms that create a definition of evil we seemingly agree upon is only one part of a whole situation, and I refuse to pretend that the part IS the whole.

Only you know what you’re thinking. All I can do is examine your words, which so far remain confusing. We seem to agree up on a definition of evil, yet despite that you continue to insist that there is something else. What? Because according to the definition, evil simply means morally reprehensible. That’s it. Do you believe that there is no action committed by human beings that is morally reprehensible? That would seem to contradict your previous comments about Ted Bundy. Or are you adding a superfluous connotation to the definition? Perhaps it’s not political correctness, perhaps its superstition? What concept about “evil” are you rejecting?

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I'm really a little curious why it means so much to you that I aknowledge that evil is a legitimate concept?

I’m not concerned with whether or not you acknowledge the word or not, I’m just curious as to what drives you to deny it.

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
And while we are at it, do you think political correctness as an entire concept is wrong, or only if it is exaggerated? Because I think there IS use in insisting on neutral language in certain areas of life. Language has power and words have connotations that we shouldn't always ignore.

I disagree with the whole concept of political correctness. At best it’s a redundant social norm, at worst it’s a manipulative attempt to control thought.

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

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 17, 2009 5:56 PM

Finn, any comments on my post?

Also, directly to the difference between "evil" and "morally reprehensible".

"Morally reprehensible" is redundant. "reprehensible" would do. Reprehensible means worthy of condemnation or censure. The opposite is praiseworthy.

"Evil" is more extreme. We wouldn't "censure" evil, we'd do a lot more than that. The opposite of evil is good.
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Let's party like its 1929.

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:05 PM

Quote:

Quote:
I'm serious the Tao is short, only about 5,000 words.

Oh, so short? Is there an online version you can recommend?

I try to read a different translation every time. The hitch is that it's written in ancient chinese, a language which is no longer clearly understood. The characters slowly changed meanings over time, and so unravelling the true intention is problematic at times.

Additionally, the text often gets corrupted by the translator, usually for one of three reasons:

1. The obvious malicious translation. This comes from a christian or buddhist or some deist who wants to manipulate the text to be consistent with their own faith, sometimes this is even done unconsciously.

2. The well minded but interpretive translation which is trying to make it easy for the reader to understand. This usually corrupts and oversimplifies the meaning, and takes a lot from it, and is sometimes just outright wrong. When Lao says "Become a Valley" that's what he means, and part of the fun is figuring out what he means by that, and then you get it, and say Ah Hah!, I mean, Ah Hah! Deep evil brewing. You're never be bored here Faith. Welcome to Sunnydale, home of the big brewing evil. Oh, sorry, I digress.

3. Ancient languages are just tricky. A lot of linguistic rules, meanings, change over time. For instance, in the ancient Gaelic, and still sometimes today, ll and l were actually unrelated characters. Hence Lloyd would not be "Loid". Finn McCool is originally Fionn, like Fionna, for fair or white, So, in the older spelling, Finn Mac Cumhall would be White Knight, because traits were considered in the clans to be inherited, so fair, light, [son of] the warrior, implied a noble name. Cumhal otoh, means whore. Which is why I said that when I was mad at him, but it was worth it. Points for a segue snark? No offense Finn. Finn's like the second senior member here, I think, after Haken.

Anyway, that aside, it's true of the chinese characters, and leads to a lot of mistranslation, understanding the intend makes it easier.

I would be tempted to go to the most literal translations possible.

taoteching.org is probably the most popular, but there is a group of Thais who made a site
truetao.org which was more accurate, but since then they've changed the text, I think they have may have an agenda. But still, it's a better interpretation. I see now they've taken it down, and are reworking some of it, but I still have the link. Anyway, I'm going recommend Derek Lyn's truetao

http://www.truetao.org/ttc/complete.htm

This page is not openly accessible, but the link should work.

There's also a common work that's been around for a while called the GNL which is an English interpretation of the book, I think this is only useful if you can't make head nor tail of the text.

The general opening line is "the tao that can be spoken is not the true tao," which is a guide to the whole text, that these riddles are clues to the path of life, and to carry the reader through the experience. It's important to remember that Lao was writing this as a very old and learned man, and in part, it's a response to Confucius, who was a very headstrong young warrior.

Often the opening bounces around as an interpretation "The true Tao can not be spoken..." 'only experienced.' The Tao itself means the Way, though it is sometimes translated as the Flow. Knowing the multiple possible meanings is also useful, since there's no guarantee that in an isolated culture, that we will have direct parallel words. The meaning may be in between the two.

Another issue with chinese is there are a lot of cognates, like "run" in English, and so many others.

taoteching.org opens with "The Way that can be experienced is not true;" which cannot be a literal translation, and so is automatically an interpretation. This is the same opening as the GNL, which is highly interpretive, I don't know if it's the same text throughout. It's different from the last time I was at this site. Maybe they scrapped their translation in favor of

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But what does calling them "evil" do for us? It doesn't tell why they're doing what they're doing, and more importantly it doesn't tell us how to treat them or to prevent the same thing from happening in others. At best, all it does is justify fear, righteousness and vengeance. And vengeance, or "justice", or punishment... or whatever you want to call it.. simply DOES NOT WORK TO DETER SERIOUS VIOLENT CRIME.

I don’t think the use of the word is intended to deter serious violent crime. We use words to convey meaning not control people’s actions. As to that extent, let me bring up a point I made earlier which has remained unanswered. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I have a friend who suffers from schizophrenia. In other words, he has a chemical imbalance or abnormality in his brain. According to some on this board, this puts him in the same category as Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez or Charles Manson, unfairly equating him to actions that are not his, because we draw simplistic distinctions. But there is nothing simplistic about the brain or human nature. So just making broad references to chemical imbalances or abnormalities does not adequately characterize the distinguish that exists between Ted Bundy and many innocent people who suffer from mental illness’ but who have never and probably will never hurt anyone. So what is that distinction? What makes Ted Bundy different from my friend, or more to the point, how do we characterize that distinction.

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

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:19 PM

Quote:
I don’t think the use of the word is intended to deter serious violent crime. We use words to convey meaning not control people’s actions.

Words are a double-edged sword. They can create meaningless concepts. (How high does a purple dragon fly?) And our actions spring from our concepts. (Maybe we should build higher defenses.)

Quote:
As to that extent, let me bring up a point I made earlier which has remained unanswered. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I have a friend who suffers from schizophrenia. In other words, he has a chemical imbalance or abnormality in his brain. According to some on this board, this puts him in the same category as Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez or Charles Manson, unfairly equating him to actions that are not his, because you choose to draw simplistic distinctions. But there is nothing simplistic about the brain or human nature. So just making broad references to chemical imbalances or abnormalities does not adequately characterize the distinguish that exists between Ted Bundy and many innocent people who suffer from mental illness’ but who have never and probably will never hurt anyone. So what is that distinction? What makes Ted Bundy different from my friend?

Nothing. As you say, the brain is complicated. There are many ways for it to go "right", a few ways for it to be "brilliant", and a zillion way to go "wrong". Some ways put people in la-la land. Others make the lizard-brain become sexually aroused by rubber galoshes. To call someone "evil" is less productive than to call someone abnormal or imbalanced, because when we call someone abnormal or imbalanced we can start looking for a specific cause. What does the word "evil" get us?

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Let's party like its 1929.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Nothing. As you say, the brain is complicated. There are many ways for it to go "right", a few ways for it to be "brilliant", and a zillion way to go "wrong". Some ways put people in la-la land. Others make the lizard-brain become sexually aroused by rubber galoshes. To call someone "evil" is less productive than to call someone abnormal or imbalanced, because when we call someone abnormal or imbalanced we can start to look for the specific cause.

There is no reason why accurately distinguishing Ted Bundy as “evil” from the many non-evil and good people who suffer from mental illness should prevent research into psychological or mental illness.

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

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:34 PM

Finn, as you said

Quote:
What you’re calling sick is not the same thing as having a disease. What you’re calling sick is nothing more then a fundamental difference in the way his brain worked compared to yours or mine.

Yes, his brain works differently. Why? Is there something missing from his amygdala? His frontal cortex (where people model/ mimic other's behavior and some say is the seat of empathy?) I can point to all kinds of abnormal behaviors rooted in the limbic system. We should be studying peeps like Bundy. Finn, you think that people have a lot more "choice" than they really do. Most people's behavior is directed by their lizard-brain and their overall chemical balance.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Finn, as you said
Quote:
What you’re calling sick is not the same thing as having a disease. What you’re calling sick is nothing more then a fundamental difference in the way his brain worked compared to yours or mine.
Yes, his brain works differently. Why? Is there something missing from his amygdala? His frontal cortex (where people model/ mimic other's behavior and some say is the seat of empathy?) I can point to all kinds of abnormal behaviors rooted in the limbic system. We should be studying peeps like Bundy.

We are studying peeps like Bundy. So what? How does that not make him evil?

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

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:42 PM

Quote:
We are studying peeps like Bundy.

We are? I thought we put them in jail, in isolation, and on death row. That's not "studying" them.

Quote:
So what? How does that not make him evil?

Evil implies "free will". For the religious (and there are many) it also implies the work of the devil. As a response, we fear evil. We isolate evil. We kill evil. We don't study it.

But IMHO most people are hostages of their lizard-brain most of the time. They fear. They desire. Their wet computer keeps on working below the level of awareness. I see VERY FEW people on this board who have made truly conscious choices.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

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