Evil
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Sunday, October 29, 2006 14:39
VIEWED: 8182
PAGE 5 of 14
I find this thread disheartening because people asked to define a bedrock concept like evil use it as an excuse to take political jabs at the other side. Be that as it may...
Let's define a few basic concepts. First, what is not evil. Inanimate objects are not evil. They have no will of their own. They do nothing unless acted on by an outside agency. That agency can be a human, an animal or just universal entropy. Someone said a nuke is evil because it destroys. I suppose by that definition lightning is evil. Neither of them is evil, they just ARE. They are real, have physical properties that can hurt you but nobody manipulated the thunderstorm so that the lightning strikes you. The nuke doesn't go off in your neighborhood because it is pissed off at you. If it is detonated it does so because a person acted upon it to make the event happen. I suppose a nuke could have positive uses not related to killing.
Second, let's define motivation. People like to say love is good and hate is bad. They also like to say love and hate are opposites. I disagree. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. They are the inverse of one another because they both require emotional investment. Love usually builds things up, but love can also be a motivator in an act of destruction. Love can become twisted and depraved. John Hinckley used his love for Jodie Foster as a motivator to try to assassinate the president. Is this a good act because it was motivated by love? (save the political commentary) People are quoted all the time saying that they hate something and then go on campaign to create legislation or raise awareness. Their hate motivates an act of creation. Is this bad because it is motivated by hate?
Since love and hate can be reasonably demonstrated to be both good and bad then what litmus test defines evil? Since love and hate both require emotional investment I propose that the essence of evil is indifference. My theory is that indifference has never motivated a good act. But it has allowed despicable acts to continue. The SS officer who stood idly by and watched the jews (and the gypsies, gays, mentally ill, retarded, poles, ukrainians, the list goes on and on...) be herded wailing into the concentration camps was, if not committing, then aiding an act of evil. The neighbors of Kitty Genovese who did nothing while she screamed for help while being sexually assaulted and murdered were doing evil by doing nothing.
Edmund Burke said; "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men to do nothing." Close to the mark, but I think it is more concise to say that evil can only exist where good people choose to allow it.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
As far as I'm concerned, "good" is "The greatest good for the greatest number". Since that's a self-referencing definition, "good" (to me) probably means meeting Maslow's hierarchy of needs for most people. "Evil" means a few people depriving many others of their needs, not for betterment for everybody but for special privileges for a few. As far as who "people" are: it's everybody, and not just today's people but tomorrow's people as well: our children, their children, and hopefully their children.
OK. You've defined the ends of the spectrum in a way many people would agree with. Good is helping the greatest possible number of others live better lives. Evil is depriving the great part of the people of better lives, or lives at all, to benefit a few. Defining the extremes is not where I have a problem.
Somewhere between the two ends of this spectrum is a point at which one says "Everything worse than this is evil". Is this the same point for every person? How can it be, when every person has different values, different opinions, different access to information on which to base a decision? Some may stop there, deciding there is only good or evil. Some may say "Everything before this point may be good, or it may be wrong, or based on misunderstanding, or a bit selfish, but it doesn't cross the line into evil".
Most everybody would agree that Hitler and Stalin were evil. Most everybody would agree that Ghandi and Martin Luther King were good. They're the extremes of the spectrum. Where does Ho Chi Minh fall? Harry Truman? Bill Gates? Muqtada al-Sadr? Gunther Grass? A con man who contributes part of his take to a homeless shelter? A cop who roughs up a kidnapper to find the hostage buried alive? The list could go on and on, and very few people would put every person or situation in the same order.
So if individuals can't agree on a tipping point which determines what is evil and what is merely not good, how does society do so? Consensus? Who yells loudest? Who has the most money or guns? Something else?
I got plenty of questions about this, and few answers.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Of course it is. A CEO makes the decisions that are best for him and his company, and hopes the competition loses market share. Social programs that, if you like (and I'm sure you do) 'enforce' 'charity' are Socialist, giving to help others, not oneself.
Capitalism is not based on selfishness, nor socialism on generosity.
Individual rights are by their nature selfish, ensuring your rights and not caring about other peoples, because of course it's their job to look out for themselves. Capitalism is selfish, it's looking out for you and your best interests, and hang anyone else. That's not necessarily bad, especially when everyone's doing it and everyone's equal, but the perfect Capitalist world will not and can not exist, the same as the perfect socialist world, where everyone thinks of the collective, I.e. each other, over themselves.
Since this is an imperfect world and you can't have everything your own way a balance has to be struck between Individualism and Collectivism.
Also to be frank Socialism is no more misguided than the view that Capitalism is perfect and if we just stopped regulating business it would somehow all of a sudden play the rules that don't exist anymore.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Nitpicky points.
1. A close friend who is a mayan expert informs me that mayan culture didn't have human sacrafice, but sometimes mayans who ascribed to another culture, such as aztec, did. Still, using that to say 'mayans sacraficed people' is like saying 'americans are terrorists'
Sorry. I meant Aztecs. My bad. Apologies to any Maya I may have unintentionally offended.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:"Evil" is usually reserved for extreme examples, "bad" for the grey areas. I guess "evil" and "good" are not exact opposites because "evil" implies (to me at least) a more extreme case. So where does someone cross the line from "bad" to "evil"? That's what this discussion is all about. You talk about "most everybody would agree"... but what about YOU? I'm not going to have a one-sided discussion, and since you tossed the word into the coversation quite frequently, you surely must have some sort of gut reaction. I know I do. So perhaps by MUTUAL discussion we can figure out each other's boundaries.
Most everybody would agree that Hitler and Stalin were evil. Most everybody would agree that Ghandi and Martin Luther King were good. They're the extremes of the spectrum. Where does Ho Chi Minh fall? Harry Truman? Bill Gates? Muqtada al-Sadr? Gunther Grass? A con man who contributes part of his take to a homeless shelter? A cop who roughs up a kidnapper to find the hostage buried alive?
I'll go first (again) - Lyndon Johnson, altho rightly credited with aiding the civil rights movement (good, in my book, because it extended "personhood" to more people) was evil when he faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He lied, and his lies cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, with little resulting benefit. While his intentions MAY have been good- or at worst confused- in my book "good" and "evil" is very results-oriented. Whatever his objectives... and right now it's hard to say what those objectives were... they could likely have been accomplished with far less bloodshed.
Just about everything Henry Kissinger did was evil. He actively supported repressive regimes which killed their people with USA munitions and complicity by the hundreds of thousands. In most of the cases that I know about (eg East Timor) Kissinger's "solution" for the "problem of "communism" was worse than the nascent movements that he crushed. It was all about maintaining the power of the few over the many.
EDITED TO ADD: Recent archeological evidence points to MAYAN human sacrifice as well. I think that was in National Geographic. If I have the time (doubtful) I'll look it up.
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Futuremrsfillion, Fair enough...liberal really has nothing to do with it I guess.
It's more in reference to the nuance that liberals supposedly prefer over conservatives.
There's a joke in The Daily Show's 'America, a guide to democracy inaction' that shows a liberal's brain and a conservatives brain. One of that gag's was that liberals had grey matter and conservatives had black-and-white matter.
Evil is a pretty black-and-white noun, is all.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
doublepost
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"Evil" is usually reserved for extreme examples, "bad" for the grey areas. I guess "evil" and "good" are not exact opposites because "evil" implies (to me at least) a more extreme case. So where does someone cross the line from "bad" to "evil"? That's what this discussion is all about.
I'll go first (again) - Lyndon Johnson, altho rightly credited with aiding the civil rights movement (good, in my book, because it extended "personhood" to more people) was evil when he faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He lied, and his lies cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, with little resulting benefit. While his intentions MAY have been good- or at worst confused- in my book "good" and "evil" is very results-oriented. Whatever his objectives... and right now it's hard to say what those objectives were... they could likely have been accomplished with far less bloodshed.
A few posts ago you defined evil as "...a few people depriving many others of their needs, not for betterment for everybody but for special privileges for a few." Now it's results-oriented, and doesn't depend on the objectives of one's actions, just the effects. In other words, evil for you is what you think it is relating to a certain set of circumstances, informed by your values, biases, and knowledge.
For example, you believe that Johnson knowingly faked and lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The first attack, from a quick google, does not seem to be in much dispute. The second has been attributed variously to false alarm, intelligence errors, and lies to support the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. You have chosen which version you accept, based on your values, biases, and knowledge.
You then state, "...and his lies cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, with little resulting benefit." seeming to imply that Johnson's lies (lies in your opinion), were the sole cause of the Vietnam war. Pretty sweeping generalization. Again informed by your V, B, and K.
I guess I'm either not as sure of the correctness of my opinions as you are, or I'm a bit more forgiving of people trying to cope in realtime, without the benefit of knowing what happened in the intervening 40 years.
- Did Johnson lie? I don't know. I've seen firsthand how the fog of war can be confusing, and can well imagine that immediately after an attack, with everyone keyed up, mistakes can be made. I have enough doubt to not be sure.
- Was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution(or even the US) the sole cause of the Vietnam war? I doubt it. Too many players for the onus to fall on just one.
- Was there "little resulting benefit"? Many people think that if the Allies had stood up to Hitler's first agressive move, WWII could have been avoided, or reduced in scope. Would not resisting Communist expansion in Vietnam led to a full-scale WWIII? We'll never know, because it didn't happen that way.
- Was Johnson bothered by the war? Most accounts say yes. He was affected enough to refuse to stand for re-election. Motive does play a part in my decision.
- Was Johnson evil? I don't think so.
Kissinger, on the other hand, was(IMHO).
"Keep the Shiny side up"
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
So, what is "Evil"?
I think this is wholly dependent on whom is asked. When you get down to it, we're all a little morally relativistic.
Edited for link:
http://www.moral-relativism.com/
Re-Edited: Yeah, so that link says I'm wrong. I'll leave it anyway.
My point is that even people who think they subscribe to "moral absolutism" often really don't. Is murder evil? A morally absolute view would dictate that it is. But, would it have been evil to murder Hitler or Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot?
This link seems a touch more balanced:
http://www.moralrelativism.info/
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Dreamtrove, your statement that democrats are at least as evil or moreso is absolute rhetoric.
Kerry said he would have attacked Fallujah - fine.
I don't credit the democrats with a spine, and being politically expedient and voting for this war is disgusting I agree, but they did not have the facts about the WMDs the Whitehouse had, and they were not the one who orchestrated the invasion. They enabled it yes, but do you really think a democratic Government would have invaded Iraq in the wake of 9/11? What proof do you have of that?
Kerry would reinstitute the draft and try to match the suggestions by top generals that we had an overwhelming enough force to enforce the peace? Maybe that would have caused less bloodshed. Maybe there'd be less Americans and Iraqis dead now.
Can't argue with you about Clinton. He may have done more harm than good. He may in-fact be evil. But he was under assault for half of his presidency.
I know he signed nafta, I know he did nothing when millions were being slaughtered in africa, I know he helped to deregulate the media. All bad things, but its harder for me to outright say those decisions make him evil in the context of the political climate at the time. If you've got a bigger laundry list, I'd be interested.
But you can't argue that Clinton did more harm than Bush. I can't even see where'd you'd even begin to pull out those kind of figures. Did he pave the way to a Bush administration? Quite possibly. Are they on the same team? Maybe...I don't really think so, but I won't completely rule it out. The fact remains, the damage done during the respective presidencies is still unequivocable. If that is what you have to go on, don't tell me you'd rather have Bush in office than Clinton.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME