Evil is an Artform

[ABSTRUSE]

When ever a child murders another child it is truly mind numbing. There are so many questions involved. First being motive, then home life, behavior, etc.

You really have to wonder what a parent of such a child goes through.

I know when I read the story, years back, of the two boys in Britain who took the toddler and murdered him, the first thought I had was about how evil they must be, to even think of such and act and then perform it.

Where does it come from?

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I'm fully aware that I'm a creature capable of both good and bad. My parents have raised me to be nice to others, and this has installed a sort of fire wall in my psyche, which stops me from doing really evil things, like killing people and torturing little children. I'm physically capable of doing it, and my mind is intelligent enough to think of ways of doing these things - but the conscience in me stops me from doing it, because I feel that it wouldn't be right, it wouldn't feel nice, to cause other living creatures to suffer. (This can be very troublesome for me when I try to be rude during a heated debate - I have a very poor talent for insults or psychological warfare. I just sound like a grumpy child going "Oh yeah? Well, so are you!")
The feeling I get when making another living being, human or animal, feel goodabout themselves, like when my friends laugh or my act purrs, that feeling is much more satisfying to me - and I have no fire walls against causing happiness in others.
We are all born blank. We have the capacity of becoming good or bad. What brings out one side over the other, I think, is partly how the world treats us as we grow up, and partly how we choose to react to this treatment. Can we resist the temptation of being evil, or will we indulge in murder and torture?

 

[rgraham666]

It's just feud of Group A, and Group B, Hatfields and McCoys. A Hatfield, Mr Harry has a chance to do in a McCoy, Mr. Mark who's killed lotsa Hatfields, and so it goes. On to the next round. Who kills Harry?

Revenge is a two edged blade. It cuts not only it's victim, but also it's perpetrator.

The August Personage in Jade

I could also quote Hattori Hanzo's speech from Kill Bill Vol 1, but I haven't memorized it yet and I'm too lazy to look it up on line.

 

[KarenAM]

I'm fully aware that I'm a creature capable of both good and bad. My parents have raised me to be nice to others, and this has installed a sort of fire wall in my psyche, which stops me from doing really evil things, like killing people and torturing little children. I'm physically capable of doing it, and my mind is intelligent enough to think of ways of doing these things - but the conscience in me stops me from doing it, because I feel that it wouldn't be right, it wouldn't feel nice, to cause other living creatures to suffer. (This can be very troublesome for me when I try to be rude during a heated debate - I have a very poor talent for insults or psychological warfare. I just sound like a grumpy child going "Oh yeah? Well, so are you!")
The feeling I get when making another living being, human or animal, feel goodabout themselves, like when my friends laugh or my act purrs, that feeling is much more satisfying to me - and I have no fire walls against causing happiness in others.
We are all born blank. We have the capacity of becoming good or bad. What brings out one side over the other, I think, is partly how the world treats us as we grow up, and partly how we choose to react to this treatment. Can we resist the temptation of being evil, or will we indulge in murder and torture?

Your parents sound wonderful, Svenska, and so do you. I'm still going to go with the genetic, hard-wired morality view over the blank slate, though, if only because I've seen enough kids turn out good despite being raised by useless, abusive monsters. And the opposite, too, sadly.

I like the way John Steinbeck put it:

"For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man--when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and distintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live--for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live--for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know--fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe."

--The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14

 

[Guest]

I frankly don't know about the nature/nurture thing. I too know people who were raised by miserable (abusive, alcoholic, etc.) parents and turned out to be very contented and good human beings. It astonished me, until I recalled that I was raised by a mother who did not want me, love me, and taught me to believe I was bad, ugly, stupid, etc. My saving grace I believe was a father who did the opposite, and a grandmother (maternal, ironically) who treated me like a princess (but not in a spoiled way). Both of these people died during my youth so it was a long struggle to undo what my mother had done (still is), but even as a very young girl I could not bear to see other people suffer, especially children. I'm telling this because it fits the discussion and because I do not know what to make of it.

Svenska-mou, I love your metaphor of the fire-wall.

Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

Thank you KarenAM, for that quote from Steinbeck.

I haven't read The Grapes of Wrath for many years. It was too heartbreaking.

But that quote was the most hopeful thing I've read in quite a while.

 

[gothgodess]

I don't belive that anybody is all evil or all good. there are pleanty of people who do evil things but even Hitler loved someone.