In the past, evil was easy to identify. People who did evil things were evil. But now, no matter what atrocity a man commits, he is given a sort of "pass" by psychologists. The most heinous acts are chalked up to paranoid schizophrenia or some other ailment. In other words, the accused is not at fault for his crime. Is there any such thing as people who are just bad any longer?
Does evil exist?
- Thread starter blobfish
- Start date
Morwen
Après moi, le déluge.
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2000
- Posts
- 4,652
You should read and study ponerology (the study of evil) more.
"Banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal."
Evil is all around us - the entire state is taken over by criminals who just steal money for their cronies, go to war for resources, use people like tissue, jail them for profit. Then lie, lie, lie on their media megaphone.
And we fucking go along with prison for profit and bombs for power.
It is banal, and it is evil. And it is everywhere.
"Banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal."
Evil is all around us - the entire state is taken over by criminals who just steal money for their cronies, go to war for resources, use people like tissue, jail them for profit. Then lie, lie, lie on their media megaphone.
And we fucking go along with prison for profit and bombs for power.
It is banal, and it is evil. And it is everywhere.
The thing is, though, that these people are now labeled "sociopaths".
But when does evil end and sickness begin?
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Again, that's like asking for the answers to all possible equations. You can't give that no matter how good a mathetician you are.
What you can do is look for real patterns in the social math and see when one side of the equation is benefitting one human being at the cost of another human being. The more senseless the loss of one side of the equation and the more ridiculous the gain of the other side, the more evil.
For instance, killing someone and eating their brains because you think they're going to make you stronger is evil not just because you're depriving someone of their life, but because your motivation is so fucking stupid.
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Also, evil and sickness are not necessarily exclusive or separable. We have no cure for rabies, so a rabid animal is sick and potentially evil. They're just compelled to bite to spread the disease.
We might pity the animal, but we still kill it.
How curable is the sickness is the practical concern.
We might pity the animal, but we still kill it.
How curable is the sickness is the practical concern.
What about the Salem witch trials? Obviously, that was a dumb reason to execute people, but they believed it. Were the killers evil? Surely it would not be immoral to execute a witch if such things existed, and those men believed they did.
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Yes, in fact the main motivation for witch hunts is not to destroy witches, but to isolate people and have a terrifying excuse to take away their property or destroy their influence.
That's why it was women, because they had no legal rights and couldn't defend themselves. They also couldn't give young women abortificants or heal disease or have any influence over town opinion.
Still happens in Africa. People are accused of being witches and if they deny it there's an additional accusation - you didn't even know you're a witch, but you're an agent of evil. They're stripped of their families and belongings and sent to a witch village as a permanent exile.
Great way to control the populace and maintain a hold on whatever power you already possess. Also pretty fucking evil.
There might have been a few true believers, but how does that make it any better? It's just allowing your ignorance to serve a malign purpose.
We would have to know what was going through their minds.
pete
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2007
- Posts
- 10,169
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Which we can discover from the tests for witchcraft. Not reasonable things. "Witch Prickers" for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking
The witch finders and the church and the accusers profited.
What else do you need to know? You think there really were witches and we're just duped?
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
but hey i bet they knew how to par-tay over in the witch village
Ergot. Good stuff.
Could be. Can you prove that there are not witches?
Ah, "Rye in the Sky". I've gotten knackered on that shit more times than I can remember.
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Can you prove that even if there were witches, they'd be justified in being burned, drowned, raped, stripped naked and "probed" and tortured to death?
If they were bad witches, they would deserve to be punished.
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
They must have been bad witches, or else they'd have, you know, cast a spell and gotten the fuck out of there.
That's true, but maybe their dark lord abandoned them in their hour of need.
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Oh! You mean like your sense? Sure.
First you mock my Tolkien theories, and now this?
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Look, if you want me to follow you around all day and just nod, you're going to have to pay me or something. I'm doing all this freelance.
You're too narrowheaded. Just because Bombadil think Old Man Willow is a man tree doesn't mean he's not actually an Entwife! Free your mind!
Recidiva
Harastal
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Posts
- 89,726
Do you even HEAR yourself talking sometimes?
I'm not crazy enough to read what I type out loud!
