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Evil is an Artform

ABSTRUSE

ABSTRUSE

Cirque du Freak
Joined
Mar 4, 2003
Posts
50,094
What is Evil?

Simple as that. I've just finished a novel where the main character had sought the meaning to that very question.

Is it innate or learned?

Was it created by an unnamed God or man?

Does it exist or do we imagine it?

I'm researching this for a character I'm working on and I would love some feed back.

Thank you. Abs.:devil:
 
In my opinion, the tendancy toward committing evil acts comes about through learned behaviour.

Whether anyone really is actually evil, through and through, is another matter entirely.

Somebody might be driven toward evil deeds, because of insanity, perversion or just plain malice, but that person might not necessarily be evil.

There is so much to say on this, and I think it will pan out to be a very interesting thread. I'll add more thoughts later.

One final thing, can somebody be born evil? A resounding no from me.

Lou
 
Unfortunately Abs, evil is entirely a matter of perception.

It depends on your culture, how you were bought up, your mental state, what you've learned on your own and concious decisions you come to.

In some places and times, cannibalism is a way to destroy your enemies, in others it's a mark of respect for the dead, in ours it's looked upon with revulsion.

My perception of good is behaviour, personal and social, that helps a society to survive and grow, with the minimum of force and suffering. Evil is the opposite of that.

But I'm open to differences of opinion.
 
Evil is innate to each of us. Like so much else, it's totally a matter of perception. A man carries his own evil with him. There is no way to escape it, because it's inside you. The balancing act each person plays is balancing his or her baser nature vs. learned precepts of what is good, right or acceptable.

Much of government and society is about supressing the evil within you to fit in and live with your fellow man. Men, love sex, in general. In simpler times they took what they wanted when they could. That isn't acceptable now. We all want different things, but there are accepted methods of trying to achive them and non accepted.

Evil is defined by society. A monograph on asocial personality types in relation to serial killers noted that an asocial personality type can actually do well, as a lwyer, a salesman, politician. There are accepted ways to channel that "evil" within. Yet some don't, they turn instead on their fellow man.

But if you look at it, much of what we call evil is simply application of a "me first" mentality without the normal bars and prohibitions other's labor under.

-Colly
 
#L dogma on Evil

To do evil you must know evil.

If you think murder, genocide, whatever actually is the moral just thing to do, the will of God or the for better of mankind, and you then do it (cliché example: Hitler) - you are not evil. You are just criminally insane.

If you have a set of moral values that you agree with, and have a clear view of right or wrong, and then just don't give a fuck, or go against them because it gives you some kind of kick, thrill, orgasm, what-have-you - then you're evil.

end #L dogma on evil
 
Colleen Thomas said:
But if you look at it, much of what we call evil is simply application of a "me first" mentality without the normal bars and prohibitions other's labor under.

-Colly
Click to expand...

That is the essence of what I was going to say.

If you look at any 'application' of evil, I'd say it is for personal gain or amusement even.
Children, by societal standards are born evil, theirs is an ego-centric world and everything that happens around them is for them and they will use any method to meet their needs. Fortunately they have very few methods and learn quickly about rewarded behaviour.

Cats are evil. But lions, cheetahs, leopards etc aren't.

Murderers (including terrorists) are evil, but soldiers aren't.

Infamous dictators are evil but modern politicians aren't (except Margaret Thatcher who was and still is)

Exceptions of opposites. Communists are evil and so are Capitalists. (particularly the running dog variety)

Dentists are evil and so are physio-therapists.

Microsoft is evil and so is MacDonalds.

Gauche
 
gauchecritic said:


Infamous dictators are evil but modern politicians aren't (except Margaret Thatcher who was and still is)


Gauche
Click to expand...

I loved your whole post, Gauche, but I had to quote this bit, and say, "Hear, hear!"

That woman isn't human, though.

Lou ;)
 
I think Colly's view closest to the mark. There's a growing body of evidence that the physiology of our brains has a profound effect on our behavior, both good and bad. Most of us are born with an innate selfishness that comes with wanting to get our genes into the next generation, contrasted with an innate altruism that makes us social animals. I think that good and evil bounce around between these two poles of human behavior, which influence our capacity for violence and other destructive behavior, and the tendecy to try and limit that behavior.

Environment has a profound influence too. We are born with our brains only partly wired (if they were fully wired, the head would be too big to get through the birth canal), and so socialization can affect how our brains form; hence the correlation between being abused as a child and running a much higher risk of becoming an abuser as an adult.

The result is a creature both very simple and amazingly complex. You can predict some things about a person's behavior, but only to a point.

A exception to this is the sociopath. These folks seem to have fundamentally different brains than most people; they have a complete lack of a social conscience. They exist outside society and the rules society imposes to restrict destructive behavior. They exist only for themselves, and literally cannot feel guilt over anything bad they do. If they are violent as well (another behavior trait that seems to be largely genetic and even more largely biological) they become the sorts of folks who commit the most henious of crimes and who show no remorse for it.

Evil? To some extent it is a social definition. I consider genital mutilation of children to be evil, but those who practice it do not. To them, it is doing a favor for the victim, either by making them immune to a form of sin, or by bringing them into a covenant with God. To me it is child abuse.

Like all social definitions, "evil" changes over time, but since the moral sense is hard-wired into most of us, the existence of "evil" is always present in ourselves and others; who is good and who is evil is a grouping we are constantly engaged in, rewriting the boundaries. We are biologically programmed to include people in our circle of humane behavior, but only the existence of the circle is biological. Morality and the society that encourages it determine the size of the circle. Beating evil is done by including as many people as possible in the circle, and teaching our young to do the same.
 
This is off the cuff, I don't want to think too much on this or cite anything.

I always thought of evil as whatever harms life, whether with intent or malice aforethought. If you hurt someone's life (physical or mental), you perform evil, whether you meant to or not. Of course there are degrees of harm and degrees of intent and malice.

Nature can be evil. I say that without any moral judgment, it's a fact. Nature harms more than people too.

Some people it seems are programmed for evil, whether through circumstances and experience or by having the wrong brain cell makeup. It's very hard to judge but I think nearly always a human being "chooses" to be evil. It might be the most seemingly innocuous moment of one's life, but it's a choice.

Perdita
 
OKay, another question...

Can evil counteract or cancell out evil?

Ex. Let's say Character A knows that character B is 'evil', the only way to stop B is for A to kill him/her. Has A become the lesser of two evils? or is the act still evil despite the good that may come from it?

~A~

thank you all for posting on this thread, it is giving me something to work with.:rose:
 
perdita said:
This is off the cuff, I don't want to think too much on this or cite anything.

I always thought of evil as whatever harms life, whether with intent or malice aforethought. If you hurt someone's life (physical or mental), you perform evil, whether you meant to or not. Of course there are degrees of harm and degrees of intent and malice.

Nature can be evil. I say that without any moral judgment, it's a fact. Nature harms more than people too.

Some people it seems are programmed for evil, whether through circumstances and experience or by having the wrong brain cell makeup. It's very hard to judge but I think nearly always a human being "chooses" to be evil. It might be the most seemingly innocuous moment of one's life, but it's a choice.

Perdita
Click to expand...

And yet to be alive means taking life. Our immune systems kill millions of other lifeforms daily, and without mercy. If they didn't, many of those lifeforms would kill us without mercy. So if "evil" is the harming of life, it isn't a thing we choose. If "evil" is a social construct that is defined ultimately by a hard-wired moral sense, it can accomidate the harsh reality of life and remain a choice. My immune system kills all the time, but the things it kills exist outside my circle of humane treatment; if those bacteria and viruses were to move inside that circle, I would have to commit suicide because I would see myself as a mass murderer and ending my life would be the only way to stop the murder. All that I can choose is to keep the microbes outside my circle.

In short, I don't think it's a choice in the sense that evil is hard-wired. But so is being good. The choice comes in where you and society decide to draw the line between them.
 
I'm not sure you can take out God/religion from the determination of what is called evil since I believe it's an idea born from religion. Evil is a moral decision, isn't it? Is ending the world evil if you truly believe that everyone is better off? I know that touches on what others have said and I suppose I'm a little helpless to reiterate what's been said.

So what would be an act of pure evil? Being of totally sound mind and looking at your options and taking the wrong one knowing it was wrong? And does that action or choice have boundries then? Like breaking the speed limit is wrong but not evil? Is it not really wrong since it isn't a moral issue? Does it become a moral issue when someone is injured because of the speeding?

One of my stories is dealing a bit with this struggle of evil although in a more low-key sort of way. Although perhaps instead of evil I'd likely call it corruption. Is a corrupt spirit an evil one? Or is it simply just human. And are humans at their root evil or at their root good? I should be a therapist. I never answer questions but just ask more. :devil:

So there you go. Some non answers. But it got me thinking which is unusual. ;)
 
Karen, I get your nitpicking but obviously I wasn't directing the crux of my statement to my cellular makeup. Re. choice it should be obvious only humans do that. I did mention degrees too.

No harm done though ;) P.
 
There is a will to love, and the urge to hate.
There is the wish to give pleasure, and a desire to cause pain.
There is the gregarious impulse, and a need for solitude.
There is the ambition to improve, the urge to destroy, and a desire to maintain what already is, from the improvers and the destroyers.
There is a will to dominate, the desire to submit, and a prayer for equality.

All of these are but some of the impulses found in mankind.

Good or evil, godly or devilish, proper or improper, admirable or disreputable, are mere constructs of any society to force both necessary and unnecessary, obvious and ridiculous, needed as well as harmful restrictions upon that society’s impulses.

While most societies have a number of shibboleths and taboos, these regulations will vary, sometimes even be reversed, as one moves from one society to another.

Good and evil really only come into play when someone decides – against their society’s indoctrination – to flaunt a shibboleth, or break a taboo.



To put it more succinctly — like rgraham666 said.
 
perdita said:
Nature can be evil. I say that without any moral judgment, it's a fact. Nature harms more than people too.
Click to expand...

Today, a jar of peanut butter fell on my head. Now I have a bump. Is the peanut butter evil? ;)
 
Tanuki said:
Today, a jar of peanut butter fell on my head. Now I have a bump. Is the peanut butter evil? ;)
Click to expand...

Yes. It must be sacrificed to the gods of bread and jelly.
 
It's more complex than evil, unfortunately.

from Colleen, whom I respect with an almost cosmic awe:
much of what we call evil is simply application of a "me first" mentality without the normal bars and prohibitions others labor under.
Click to expand...

We found a joke article, or a semi-joke one. I and my friends were nineteen or twenty; most of us were in college, exposed to the intellectual discussions that occur there, the striving for 'whole systems' which explain a lot in very stark terms.

The article set up a universe of discourse in which there were four different types of people, based entirely on their conformity to social norms.
1) the tribesman-- in a tribal society, adherence to rules is absolute. People who violate the rules of a tribe, since it is such a small and close-knit group of people and so close to the edge when it comes to being able to survive, punish infractions by a choice, usually, of elaborate rituals of apology and reabsorption or exile. Exile is usually equivalkent to death. An unsupported person survives well until he or she becomes sick or something; then they die.
Consequently the attitude of Tribesmen is that a rule is a rule and that is the end of the discussion. Thus if you run a bank, you want Tribesmen to decide on loan applications. X amount of collateral, pay up or lose out...

2) Barbarians-- the barbarian is a construct for the purposes of the model. The idea is a person who does not consider the greater good, who does not in the least respect a rule per se.

The barabarian evaluates all situations entirely in the light of self-interest. If it's to their advantage, then yes, they obey the rule. But only this time! If it should ever be contrary to their advantage, then the rule goes by the board as though it never existed. If a Barb needs to, he will certainly pretend to believe the rule is good, but that too is a self-interest thing.

3) the Citizen-- the Citizen is a product of civilization. The type does not occur earlier in the prehistory of the human species. The Citizen evaluates situations in terms of the Rules by deciding the goal of the rule, and being guided by the intent of it, rather than the letter of it. Plus, he acts with a consciousness of the greater good.

A Citizen taking a loan application which requires $5000 collateral will accept $4990, because it's morally the same idea. A Tribesman would insist on the extra $10 or say no.

The article went on to describe the enlightened post-Modern Para-Barb, but I won't burden you with that.

True Barbarians are by definition sociopaths. It sounds very free, but it is crippled, merely.

And evil. True sociopaths are evil. They consider nothing but themselves. They are not socialized.

These people are the reason that a lot of the definitions on the thread specified an exception for mental disease processes when defining evil.

So we have a spectrum of attitudes, including the enlightened Para-Barb.

The question becomes, how do these varoius types get that way?

It depends on the mythology.

Colleen says everyone is evil and must be tamed somehow.
Evil is innate to each of us. Like so much else, it's totally a matter of perception. A man carries his own evil with him. There is no way to escape it, because it's inside you. The balancing act each person plays is balancing his or her baser nature vs. learned precepts of what is good, right or acceptable.
Click to expand...
So far, most of the contributors to the discussion lean toward the innate goodness of mankind.
Evil is a learned (or at least encouraged) behavior ...
Click to expand...
To do evil you must know evil.
Click to expand...
In my opinion, the tendancy toward committing evil acts comes about through learned behaviour.
Click to expand...

But for Colly as well, that which militates to fix the innate evil is also acculturation, learned behavior. Cultural influences and standards.

rg puts it that the entire perception of what it is to be evil is culturally based. But the rest of us feel that lack of acculturation, lack of concern for the cultural norms or the greater good, makes one more evil, and that is the model whether the person is perceived as starting out innately good or starting out innately evil.

Barbarians. Sociopaths.

The other part of this is the hierarchy of spiritual growth.

People grow, discovering, most of them, that they are separate from the rest of the universe. Then they have a perception that what's good for Me is good, what's bad for Me is bad.

Soon, most of them graduate to a state where some group is identified with Me. They become ethnocentric or patriotic or racist or religionist or what-have-you: group-centric. This is a genuine step upward from egocentric. Patriots call on egocentrics to put aside their puerile self-interest in the cause of a greater good.

The next step, again not taken by all, is to adopt the entire species into Me. Holocentric? Anyway, once you understand that an Iraq-born child is just as much a child as one born in the United States, it suddenly becomes immoral to do a Shock and Awe attack on Iraqi children. To a Patriot, though, it is very moral to do so. Those are the Enemy.

They are not Me, even in the larger sense, not me or my family, not me or my tribe, not me or my religion, not me or my countrymen. What's good for Us is good, what's bad for Us is bad.

The holocentric sees this, too, as puerile and undeveloped; she calls on the Patriot to abandon her narrow thinking in favor of a higher, more evolved morality.

So the question of innateness of evil becomes moot, a subject only for myth. The point is, what is it that is good for All? Not good for All is not good; good for All is good.

cantdog

ps How anyone can look at a baby and say, this is evil and must be fixed, is beyond me. And yet that is the Christian myth, original sin.


http://no-troy.planetaclix.pt/images/mexico.gif
 
Can evil counteract or cancell out evil?

Ex. Let's say Character A knows that character B is 'evil', the only way to stop B is for A to kill him/her. Has A become the lesser of two evils? or is the act still evil despite the good that may come from it?
What are the intentions of character A in stopping character B? Is self defense evil? Or is B not posing an imminent threat? I really think that this sort of thing is a very personal sort of moral dilemma that you'll want to work out for yourself and convince the readers to agree. But also... is Character A doing it out of sheer altruism? Or to be the hero? To be recognised? Is it something that Character A will be proud of or will A carry it with him or her as a burdensome spot on their soul?

Again with the questions. *sigh* sorry about that.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
perdita said:
Karen, I get your nitpicking but obviously I wasn't directing the crux of my statement to my cellular makeup. Re. choice it should be obvious only humans do that. I did mention degrees too.

No harm done though ;) P.
Click to expand...

The choice thing is interesting, Perdita. Back some time ago on a religion thread I found myself taking a look at the whole Garden of Eden story, which, like most of the Bible, had never made any sense to me at all (most of it still doesn't). What Eve does is eat a fruit that gives her the ability to make moral choices, which no other animal can do. She lets Adam eat some too, the poor dumb lug (though that might have been a mistake, thinking about it. ;) )

What I found interesting in the story was that God kicks the two of them out of the garden because they have now become just like them (yes, it's a plural for some reason-- just how many Gods are there? How many does it take to screw in a light bulb? Those poor theologians...). In other words, the story clearly states that Eve and her boy-toy have become divine because they have the ability to make moral choices, which humans and gods alone can do.

This doesn't have much to do with the argument I was making, but perhaps it does. Genetics may not give us unlimited choices, but it has given us some ability to choose. Even the author of that story saw how incredible this is.

Anyway, I was picking nits. Your point was a good one; heck, even the Bible supports you! :)
 
psychocatblah said:
Can evil counteract or cancell out evil?

Ex. Let's say Character A knows that character B is 'evil', the only way to stop B is for A to kill him/her. Has A become the lesser of two evils? or is the act still evil despite the good that may come from it?
What are the intentions of character A in stopping character B? Is self defense evil? Or is B not posing an imminent threat? I really think that this sort of thing is a very personal sort of moral dilemma that you'll want to work out for yourself and convince the readers to agree. But also... is Character A doing it out of sheer altruism? Or to be the hero? To be recognised? Is it something that Character A will be proud of or will A carry it with him or her as a burdensome spot on their soul?

Again with the questions. *sigh* sorry about that.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

No, I'm glad you're questioning.

Character A must kill B, not in self defense but to protect innocent lives. So I guess it would be a matter of choice for A.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
ABSTRUSE said:
No, I'm glad you're questioning.

Character A must kill B, not in self defense but to protect innocent lives. So I guess it would be a matter of choice for A.
Click to expand...

But is the defense of others really a choice? That would depend on the character. Is he/she the sort of person who would reflexively defend others? Like when you're driving your car and you stop short, some people (myself included) will reflexively shoot out to the passenger if there is one to... I don't know, by the force of my arm keep them from flying out of he windshield.

But the effectiveness of the defense isn't really the point. The point is who the character is. Personally? I'm not sure I could live with myself if I had to kill someone else to protect myself. But protecting others would give me an assurance boundry. "I didn't do this for just me. I did this for others." That's probably pretty Judeo/Christian though.
 
ABSTRUSE said:
OKay, another question...

Can evil counteract or cancell out evil?

Ex. Let's say Character A knows that character B is 'evil', the only way to stop B is for A to kill him/her. Has A become the lesser of two evils? or is the act still evil despite the good that may come from it?

~A~

thank you all for posting on this thread, it is giving me something to work with.:rose:
Click to expand...

In your example, Char A is destroying the evil of char B. In doing so, is he doing evil?

True story. A man set a bomb under a table where a head of state was meeting with his inner circle and walked away. The bomb exploded, the man who set it was caught, and executed. By the grace of God the world leader survived.

I think most of us would agree the bomber was commiting an act of terrorism. Leaving a bomb in a crowded room, not careing who else was killed or maimed, just trying to kill a world leader.

Evil? Well...

Merest chance saved the world leader's life, another man sitting at the table pushed the briefcase carrying the bomb with his foot and placed a heavy oaken support between it and the world leader. Divine Providence. Perhaps. Except the world leader was named Adolph Hitler.

Had he succeeded in killing Hitler, sparing Germany and the world all the resulting carnage, all the deaths, all the wanton destruction, would we consider the bomber evil? Or would he be a hero?

-Colly
 
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