This diary conversation can encompass all faiths, no faiths or anything in between. I would say that religions are based in this struggle regardless of specifics to a particular religion. Adherence to the doctrine is sought to avoid evil in pursuit of goodness along with the goal of something better after this physical life ends.
Another theory is that life’s influnces reside in a spectrum with neutral at the center and polar oppsites at the extremes. An example of this would be the extremes of total freedom and total order with the concept of morality present across the spectrum for helping to provide the balance needed to prevent undue suffering.
There are many others but I’ll rely on you folks to bring those in and also to feel free in elaborating on my simplistic definition.
One question in particular has been with me. Other questions, ideas and opinions are also welcome. This isn’t a right or wrong discussion but a way to sort through the different concepts for consideration.
If evil does exist, can it reside in a central area such as the prisons in Iraq where so much suffering has taken place? Could innocent people be guided to commit acts they would otherwise never pursue but for the presence of evil and the ability for that evil to influence human behavior?
my concept of evil has been pretty static throughout my life, I believe I was about 7 when I articulated it to my mother… never went in for organized religion, even as a child… my problem was I kept asking questions such as — the bible says ‘thou shalt not worship false idols’ yet every church I had been in had ‘pictures’ of God and gold crosses, etc… anyway, off track, whole other discussion.
In terms of evil, to me, it is the ultimate struggle humanity has. To control the evil that is part and parcel of each of us. Just as good is. I believe it’s in our souls and we struggle to contain it, diminish it, understand it in ourselves & that is what brings us our humanity… we make choices based on the morality/ good that is in us as well and it guides our interactions with each other, nature, the universe.
A bit simplistic explanation, but I’m still on my first cup of coffee… interesting topic rumi.
We definitely more coffee for this one.
If evil resides in all of us, (as well as goodness) if a normal, nonabusive person is put in a different environment and exhibits evil tendencies, do those come strictly from within and not from an outside influence of evil?
In my mind, the outside influences would serve to unleash that part of us which is predisposed to it. And bringing forth emotions such as anger, hate, etc. that perhaps the “good” side is not strong enough to cope with or overcome… or it could be that well developed and the person suppresses that which is “evil” within them.
I think environment has a lot to do with which side is more developed… the good wolf vs. bad wolf analogy… the one that wins is the one we feed. If we are in an abusive or ‘evil’ environment it becomes that much harder to only feed the ‘good’ one.
I can wrap my mind around that concept. By this, the potential for either resides within us but we can respond to factors in our environment rather than be directly influenced by an outside force of evil.
Either way, I assume that we agree that personal responsibility for our actions supercedes our environment?
I would have loved to respond to this, but am one that needs more coffee first. Then spiderleaf, you summed up all I would have wanted to say. So, there it is!
Here is one of my faviorte quotes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago,
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
You didn’t happen to bring extra coffee, did you?
No
Thanks for a concise answer. I can respect that but feel free to add to it if you like. There’ll be no argument here…questions, maybe. Either way is fine.
One does not exist without the other.
(Image from Indiana.edu)
That symbol is excellent, thanks.
is the proper name of the symbol, and whomever posted it is making an enourmously innacurate leap. The Tai Ji originated from the Wu Ji, which is almost universal in creation “myths” among many, many cultures across the globe. (The Wu Ji being the great nothingness which all creation arises.) The Tai Ji was never ever meant to represent evil and good intertwined. it is the symbol of the first differentiation of creative force or Life into Yin and Yang, the extroverting and introverting energies of life that mutually support each other.
It was my comment that was wrong if any were. It’s always been my understanding of that symbol to represent the balance of life forces, as you said.
Given that we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of good or evil, it’s at least a fair consideration to assume they would be equal but opposing and interdependent if they do exist.
In reading your comment, something popped into my head. We’re here hung up on the concept of good and evil, when we haven’t even bothered to define these things.
In my world, “good” is a force that accelerates enlightenment.
“Evil” is a force that serves to enrich the few with petty powers at the expense of the life force of others.
Any one else have ideas?
No problem.
I don’t think we had worked our way up to that point yet. We’ve all been tossing around the idea of it’s existence.
For the most part, it’s been a combination of nonexistence or a matter of it being more a mode of judgement rather than an actual influence or an equally opposing universally present influence covering a range of extremes that are drawn into behavior, thoughts and actions.
To post the yin-yang symbol and imply that it reflects the balance between good and evil in the world may be to oversimplify and distort its meaning.
It symbolizes the force behind the world (Tao) which acts to balance out all polar opposites in the world (an active, not a static equilibrium). These polar opposites are based on our interpretations of the world, however. The world is just what it is, however, and if we’re living in harmony with it, with nature, with the Tao, we see beyond the false dichotomies our minds set up.
To say that you are in favor of good and oppose evil is like saying you are in favor of day and oppose night, or are in favor of sunshine and oppose rain.
Everything in the universe has the seeds of its opposite being born within it, even as it reaches its greatest power. This is the meaning of the two dots of opposite colors in the center of the widest parts of each color in the yin-yang symbol.
Philosophers have shown that when we say “I’m going to do good” and then we define “good” we end up logically saying “I’m going to do what I want” or “I’m going to do what’s pleasing to/best for me.” So let’s not kid ourselves…
There’s a brief but excellent discussion of the question of good and evil, God and evil, evil and free-will, etc. in the Western philosophical tradition here.
(BTW, Has anyone seen Gilgamesh, our resident philosopher, recently?)
Instead of talking about good and evil – which everyone defines differently anyway – I find it more helpful to talk about “wise and foolish.” A wise act is one that’s in accord with the flow of nature, the rules by which the universe operates; a foolish one is like trying to swim upstream against the flow of the universe itself. Oh, you may be able to do it for a bit, at great expense of energy, but you’ll end up getting tired and carried downstream anyway. So it’s easier in the long run to act in accord with nature and the principles behind nature whenever possible. Anything else is just asking for trouble:
It’s not that certain acts are evil, it’s that they’re incredibly foolish in the long term, although they may look mighty tempting at the moment.
Even Aquinas, paragon of Catholic theology, said that, as a creation of an all-good God, man cannot choose to do evil. He only chooses poorly between an apparent good that has deceived him, and what would really be the good thing to do.
“Evil” is a very convenient label used by those who see the world in black and white to demonize people who look, think, or act differently, or to attempt to coerce agreement from those who are confused by a world full of grays. The Pharisees and Saducees were such people. We know what Jesus thought of them.
The concept of evil is, in my opinion, pernicious: fostering strife rather than understanding, division rather than community, war over healing.
I could ramble all night, but I’ve probably already gone on too long:
Yin and Yang are more representative of the principles of the creative and the receptive.
Good and evil, on the other hand, are subjective terms originating in the realm of judgementalism.
As an armchair philosopher I view evil on two primary different levels: the first, as an arbitrary moral judgment, and the second as a possible material phenomenon which hasn’t yet been located.
Regarding the second, if evil is a “real” thing, then it has to have a grounding in the material world somewhere. Even emotions, for example, which seem airy-fairy, can be understood at least in part as a chain of chemical reactions within the body. So if evil exists apart from being an arbitrary moral judgment, then what is it? And where is it? How does it move? Is it particulate? Could one “catch” it like a flu? Or does one have to invite it in? Could such an invitation, if it exists, take place subconsciously? That these questions can’t yet be answered in material terms doesn’t mean, to me, that I need to draw the conclusion that evil must necessarily be an arbitrary moral judgment and that only. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago when some very smart people were convinced that we’d never find any material basis for emotions (yeah, I’m looking right at you, Freud), but they appear to have been wrong. The same could be true for evil, or not. We don’t know.
As to arbitrary moral judgments, though, I try to be very careful with those because they do a lot of damage in the world (and whether that damage could properly be labeled “evil” or not is dependent on one’s pov I suppose). So as to the final question in the diary, I wouldn’t do analysis in terms of evil because it begs religious questions and moral superiority questions that I think don’t give us useful answers and can do more harm than good. My analysis of the situation has been in terms of uses and abuses of power, which is a secular philosophy in part about motivation and reward, but ultimately is grounded in the material reality of the body so isn’t about one’s faith or personal morality.
This is often the kind of stuff I think about when I can’t sleep. Ethical philosophy fascinates me, especially where it intersects with phenomenology and identity theory.
Thanks for sharing that explanation. I especially agree with the harm done by judgement. I noticed that you avoid analysis regarding evil for a few reasons, all of them well justified. Is it possible to consider evil as an influence without assuming the individual is evil?
Consider these possibilities…
Can we pass judgement on any or all of these using terms of evil?
Is it possible to consider evil as an influence without assuming the individual is evil?
Sure. If evil exists as an independent agent, then that could be the case in many contexts. There’s still the problem of not knowing whether evil exists on terms apart from arbitrary moral judgment, though, so I personally wouldn’t do that analysis because again I think the potential harm outweighs the potential good.
As to the hypotheticals, I think anyone can pass judgment in any way they choose. But for myself, I don’t do ethical philosophy — and hence make moral judgments — in terms of evil. I do it primarily in terms of consent and minimizing harm and suffering. Which, I hasten to add, is something I view as necessarily subjective. I do not think there’s an objective truth to it, but I realize I could be wrong about that, given the lack of evidence thus far located in the material world.
Meanwhile, in the name of intellectual integrity, I should also point out that I am definitely prone to ranting about “those evil motherfuckers in the White House”, but that when I do that, my use of the word is loose and subjective, not absolutist or universalist, lol.
It’s just such an apt adjective it’s irresistable. I think I’m getting a good understanding of your process. I respect, admire and thank you for taking the time to explain it to me.
I surf newsgroups for knowledge and my favorite subject line has been “Boy, that Mr Bush sure is wicked evil….”
Speaking as another armchair philosopher, you can also split evil into “natural evil” and “moral evil.” The former includes tsunamis and diseases, the latter murder and rape. It seems this diary is looking at mainly the latter, but the former might be worth a discussion on another day. 😉
To the extent that there are many of us who use the concept’s of good and evil as one method of desribing or otherwise defining actions and events and conditions in the world around us, I suspect both terms would serve us better if we thought of them as adverbs rather than nouns; that is if we described acts that we perceived as good or evil based on how we perceived the results of those acts, rather than attempting to identify an empirical “good” or “evil” condition as a force unto itself.
My own general sense is that the concepts of good and evil as they’re generally perceived to day in much of the modern world are largely the creation of organized religious organizations going back may millenia into the early periods of mankind on earth. I believe basically that where once the observable laws of cause and effect and the most elemental understandings about the value of living in harmony with the natural world were paramount amongst the most sacred beliefs, that these beliefs were gradually altered over time by those who sought more power over their fellow man and who had come to recognize that the combination of fear (of the gods), balanced by the offer of reward from those same gods if one only followed the directives of the “church leaders”; that these sorts of dynamics were much more effective ways of controlling people and utilizing them en masse in pursuit ofone’s own ambitious goals.
You go back 20,000 years or more in human history and the very concept of evil is not to be found anywhere. Disharmony was what brought about trouble, though even then it was the priestesses who were determining what disharmony was, but at least they based much of it on the natural cycles of the earth, and most centrally the planting/growing/harvest cycle, (or in some cases the seasonal migratory cycle), which was, after all, central to survival.
The more politically important question is whether Good and Evil each acquire followers, so that the metaphorical struggle becomes an actual battle between people.
President Bush aims his rhetoric at those who reify the metaphor this way. Lately almost all of his speeches make some mention of the “terrorists’ war against humanity”. Clearly he means to invoke the image of the Devil’s legions. Those of us who either don’t have this image in our heads or don’t believe it ever instantiates are left cold.
It’s a damaging habit he has and the scary part is it appears he believes it.
As I commented upthread at length (so I won’t repeat it all here), people who see the world in terms of good and evil use the terms as a tool to bash those who are different, or to enforce compliance out of those who see the world in shades of gray. Bush is the current example par excellance.
I’m convinced that GWB doesn’t know the true meaning of the majority of phrases he uses. He doesn’t seem to measure their impact before using them, anyway. I consider him a salesman of sorts.
I’ve been trying to identify the possibility of an influence present and not use it to lay blame or excuse behavior.
It may not be ‘evil’ but there would almost have to be a residue of unused energy of negative influence that collects in places like Abu Ghraib over so many decades-generations.
energy is an example of the good vs. evil thing. My intentions are the difference between sleeping soundly at night or not. Keeping an open mind and meditation allows me to not get “stuck” in useless cycles and seek and find the balance that leads to fulfilling living. We all know that what we have for an energy policy is intended to rip off Joe American, but they got too greedy and now wind generated power is making sense dollarwise and is finding its market and looks like it will even grow because of what was done in the name of greed. Wind generated power is good for earth and other living things and is becoming more “normalized” thanks to “evil”.
Even my currently being sick has its payoffs. My husband is doing the laundry this very minute and just exercised the “father initiative” and threw away my daughter’s black string thong with a playboy bunny on it. Where ever did she come by that thing? The universe works in mysterious ways!
I’d like to learn more about Buddhism if you ever have time to explain and guide me to good information. I’m very happy for you and your family that your health problem isn’t dangerous. We dad’s are quick to discard as in the case of that lucky find..;)
I’ve been concerned about the ownership of the wind technology patents in terms of ‘evil empire’ sorts that got ahold of them.
As I was enjoying the new info on Wind Generation my husband already wants to know who owns the patents and how much would they would sell out for.
Buddhist info with you that may better describe it. Buddhism doesn’t conflict with science either thank God, and as we advance in physics more and more Buddhist beliefs and science often support each other.
A few quick examples here but there are better sources around here. The patents have been acquired and played into deals with mega-corporations that will also then have control of the supporting technology that goes with it.
Excellent questions, rumi. Very good responses all.
Obviously the answers to questions re good/evil depend on subjective definitions, so a general, clear-cut yes/no consensus is likely impossible even in our communal context.
Speaking very personally, I’d choose to drop the judgemental designations of good/evil, in favor of degrees of enlightenment in matters of natural being.
What enlightenment entails is a consciousness of the laws of balance, manifest on earth as regeneration, sustenance & transformation. In individual human beings, this balance manifests in natural processes.
Recognizing these processes as a matter of nature in one another properly inspires compassion, as we are all subject to the same laws and, as subject, suffer equally & perpetually.
One does not, therefore, purposefully compound this suffering in any way; one works to ameliorate its effects & assist others in doing so. Manifest behavior in this regard isn’t a matter of innocence or guilt, good or evil but enlightenment or ignorance — & one must also feel compassion for the ignorant, as they also suffer. It’s exceedingly difficult to do this, of course, when the actions of the ignorant inspire a perception of evil.
I’m a home construction/renovation contractor and many of my skills are repetitive, time consuming…lots of time to think while I work type jobs. These came about doing drywall if any deeper connection can be drawn from that..;)
I see again the reference to avoiding good/evil as a measure in judging actions and/or behavior.
I appreciate and understand what you’re saying here. I agree with it but I don’t see the area of deliberate malicious intent or behavior being accounted for. I think you attribute that to a matter of ‘ignorance’ of sorts, but I might be looking for the forces that go beyond that. Some way to explain the random, deliberate enjoyment of causing a living being to suffer. I would like to eradicate it from this world..;)…but if that’s not possible, at least try to understand the source.
but I might be looking for the forces that go beyond that. Some way to explain the random, deliberate enjoyment of causing a living being to suffer. I would like to eradicate it from this world..;)…but if that’s not possible, at least try to understand the source.
Have you considered that perhaps it is due to a lack rather than a presence? Such as, a lack of compassion, rather than a presence of evil.
That’s precisely the way I see it, IndyLib — more a subtraction than an addition, a basic detriment rather than an attribute.
The answer to something this basic would seem to be an opposing positive — ie, assisting in enlightenment through manifest example: compassionate action rather than like-to-like reaction, an avoidance of opposing negative with negative.
The answer to something this basic would seem to be an opposing positive
I would agree with that in a conditional sort of way.
One of my fields of interest is how we’re wired up neurologically. I’m especially fascinated by how much we’ve recently learned about the connection between emotions and neurochemistry. Specifically, I’m thinking about people who are, through no fault of their own, “wired up” without compassion. I don’t know how to “fix” that, and I think when it arises from a heinously abusive childhood, for example, that enlightenment may not be the answer because the problem in this case does not seem to be about what the person believes, at least not in any consciously accessible way. The answer may turn out to be in our peripheral vision, rather than directly in front or directly behind us, and whatever it is it will almost certainly vary from each to each; what works for one may not work for the next.
Although, it is also true that I believe that repetition has enormous force, so perhaps compassion in repetition over time would indeed work to sort-of “re-wire” neural pathways, even in adults, (there’s evidence it can work in children) which could certainly be interpreted as a form of enlightenment. I also believe that various “alternative” healing techniques may be useful in this regard; I also assume that if they are, then good science will eventually be able to figure out why they are. 🙂
(Mandatory disclaimer: I was a severely abused child, and when I use such a context as example I do not, in any way, shape, or form, mean to denigrate abused children.)
Thanks very much for your thoughts, as well as an added note regarding your very personal experience.
I personally believe that a compassionate way of being is inherent in us, but a wide array of environmental forces combine from the very earliest days of our lives to ‘teach it out’ rather than nuture it — & so lack of same is self-perpetuated, as well as continually rewarded as a matter of cultural normalcy. A deep problem, to say the least, for which there’s basically no general societal impetus of address, leaving the true solutions to individual relations.
I do agree that we’ve yet to begin to understand the most subtle instruments of our survival & their interconnections. I have no doubt, though, that our knowledge on this basis will grow as a matter of ultimate necessity in terms of societal function — despite the overwhelming tendency to regression now apparent.
Truly would love to share more — alas, must head out into the snow with shovel.
It could very well be that. I’ve considered as many possibilities as I can and I’m still looking for more.
To me, a lack of compassion is indifference, apathy, insensitivity which would account for some of it. I think I’m trying to find the source for why some people seem to enjoy enforcing or performing torture, as one example.
That could easily be explained by a kind-of “mis-wiring” of neural pathways. There are some people, for example, who hear colors, or taste words; this is about how they’re wired up neurologically. I think it’s called synesthesia. So I think it’s perfectly possible that a person could be wired up to enjoy someone else’s pain, to varying degrees, whether involving consent (such as BDSM) or not (such as torture).
I’m right with you on the brain wiring and neural pathways. I have several unique(abnormal) patterns of wiring in mine to deal with. I understand that part of the explanation but then it returns us to another polarity.
If compassion is a deliberate behavior to benefit others, or a force of good as comparison, what is the opposite in deliberate negative action? To accept there is no evil means we are forced to accept there is also no good. Therefore, compassion does not really exist in this sense. It’s just a positive brain wiring?
To accept there is no evil means we are forced to accept there is also no good.
Not necessarily. To entertain the idea that these things are not objective truths does not mean that they do not exist. It just means they may not exist as objective truths.
For example, I may say that a thing, such as compassion, is “to the good”, and that another thing, such as war, is “evil”. But I say those things subjectively and then try to persuade others to agree, working within their own belief systems whenever possible, rather than assert it as objective fact and then exert force about it.
I believe that good and evil probably exist solely as arbitrary moral judgments, as I said to begin with. As such, they’d be relative to the observer and his or her belief system for making moral judgments, whether one uses religion, or various forms of secular ethical philosophy, or whatever else. Of course I acknowledge that it’s possible that good and evil are indeed objective truths, but since we have no evidence of that, and since there is such discord around how to define “the good” and precisely what constitutes “evil”, I prefer to make my own judgments in softer terms. And now we’ve come full circle. 🙂
I can understand this and see how it answers some questions. Even without absolutes of good and evil, I meant to consider one then the logical conclusion is the other must exist to an equal degree for balance.
I also see the subjectivity you’re talking about. War is quite good for some but quite terrible for others.
I also agree about avoiding judgement and the individual standards we each have in order to make those judgements. Isn’t there a broader scope of either morality or ….something, that lets us say killing innocent people is wrong?
I’m so glad you asked! Yes. The rule of law, grounded in the concept of “rights”, which is more logic-based than morality-based. Although I wouldn’t try to make the argument, as some do, that it’s entirely free from morality. I’m not sure that’s possible. But some compromise seems necessary in any society aside from a dictatorship, and since many people desire to live in not-a-dictatorship, this is a problem we must solve together to the best of our collective ability.
I mostly view morality as a useful fiction for the behavior of the self, but think it’s almost always very dangerous when it’s used to exert force over others. Thus having laws grounded in concepts such as “rights” (which I also conceive of as a useful fiction, btw, but one of a different sort), allows us to “meet in the middle” about moral differences. It allows us to say that killing someone else is not allowed, or is only allowed under certain circumstances such as self-defense, which attempts to bridge the gap of differing moral systems.
Not that this is without its own set of problems. There’s always the struggle of someone trying to get the laws to reflect their own morality. A person of religious faith X thinks his/her religion is right, a person of religious faith Y thinks his/hers is; if we have laws that are grounded in one or the other moral tradition, there will be war; if we have laws grounded in rights that respect the private practice of both and the right of others to be free from either, then we have something workable. Not perfect, but workable.
There is always the possibility of someone starting war by trying to impose their morality on others through the law; this has been a constant problem throughout human history. And, lol at the irony, if I were to label anything as categorically evil, it’d be that specific use of force, the use that people frequently justify by calling it “the highest/greatest good”.
Stepping in again briefly: the problem may be with an understanding of compassion as action, rather than consciousness.
With a compassionate understanding, everything undertaken is undertaken on that basis; it dictates purpose & intention (ie, you won’t willingly inflict suffering). Otherwise, what’s undertaken is undertaken without compassionate understanding; inflicting suffering has no personal unpleasant consequence.
Is it ‘good’ for us when we’re not made to suffer? Of course. That’s a valid, self-interested judgement.
Right, I understand that concept. I was saying that the concept of compassion can’t really be considered unless the existence of an equal opposing force is also recognized. I’m having trouble reconciling the idea that ‘good’ can exist without the existence of ‘evil’ even if evil is never visited.
It’s addictive, isn’t it? We can pick this back up after the walks, if you like.
Thank you for the invitation & the opportunity you’ve given us to express our thoughts on this.
Sure, the judgemental values of good & evil, as termed, exist equally & subjectively.
I tend to find more basis for an ‘absolute’ concept in the consideration of a livelihood conducted with consciousness of balance & accordance with it, or not.
When actions are conducted without that consciousness, conflicts arise; they tend to be self-perpetuating, with neither party immune to the consequences. The wider the effect of conflict, the more far-reaching the attendant suffering caused. This occurs despite subjective positioning of good vs evil.
Likewise, a ‘right livelihood’ conducted in consciousness of balance (or, very basically, interdependence), with an attendant compassion for universal suffering, is also conducted regardless of subjective positioning of good vs evil.
In other words, there’s not necessarily a relationship; my sense is that a true compassion will nullify the good/evil concept.
That’s one way of seeing it all, anyway.
It’s hard to know where to jump in on this conversation.
Humans aren’t “wired” of course, it’s just a phraseology. What you are talking about here is trauma imprinting. I suggest going to my friend Michael Ducey’s site http://www.workinginsensation.com for a look at current knowledge on trauma therapy. His site is not complete, but work by Peter Levine in recent years is more techincal and to the point.
Was evil perpetrated upon abusees by abusers? Well, yes, but to a mild degree. How did that evil prepossession decide to come out and strike the child or manifest in the myriad ways petty evil might? To me, this is all selfishness and unenlightened behavior.
True evil is complete disregard for the Life Force. Hence my and millions of others’ claim that Cheney, et. al. are EVIL. They have no regard for the lives and life forces of those they put in harm’s way. That is EVIL, or a greater evil if you will.
I use “wired” as a modern metaphor hopefully to ease communication about a difficult concept. And I don’t much care for the metaphor of “trauma imprinting”, actually, but if it works for others, then more healing power to ’em.
Why do some take pleasure in pain? Pain is the oldest negative wiring we have, yet the mind can link that pain with pleasure and release.
I think we get tripped up in the absolutes. “Saddam is evil” and “Pope John Paul is a saint”. Both negate the human experience, there is no perfection on either end of the spectrum, neither perfect good nor perfect evil. Evil is the excuse, the exception used to withhold compassion. We use “evil” as excuse or a safe way to cause death and pain and suffering to suit our purposes, just as we used “nigger” and slavery as an excuse and safe way to cause death and pain and suffering to suit our purposes.
Evil is always the other. Something projected outside ourselves. And when we recognize that part of ourselves in others, we wish to kill it. If we can kill the external evil, we can reap the “good” and deny the existence of that portion our ourselves. By denying the existence of that portion of ourselves, we cannot accept our own human nature.
Humbly: enjoyment being emotional reward, the question would be: why the reward? What is it about weilding personal power that’s emotionally rewarding?
Personally, I’d bring this right back to a basic ignorance, with manifest behavior rewarded & self-perpetuated on a societal level.
Now I must go out & shovel, sad to say.
🙂 🙂 WW
It’s relative, dear Goddess, to the snow’s location.
😉
Falling alone,
the solitary
snowflake
does not appear evil.
I believe in something called “Cosmic Evil.” I believe that the high command in Germany was possessed by Cosmic Evil, and once Nazi Germany was smashed, that evil force moved to the United Statess, and rapidly took hold of persons in the upper echelons of government in the US, just at a time when the US was a great beacon of light and service to the world. That force of evil has corrupted many men and women over these 60 years, and we see their work — Joe McCarthy, Henry Kissinger, James Baker III, Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc., Implementation of the 1947 National Security Act which put this country on a permanent military buildup with imperial conquest done clandestinely via the CIA, was another manifestation of that evil, and the list goes on.
This is a presence of evil.
A lack of sufficient moral character, an abuser, let us say, is usually a victim of abuse, and can’t unlearn without a strong force of internal will to behave without perpetuating the petty evil cast upon them. This is a lack of sufficient willpower, and hence, is likely to promulgate “evil” behaviors — stealing from the treasury, money-laundering and other white collar crimes, just to start the list.
I agree with the idea that evil behavior comes from a lack of compassion and positive moral values in combination with reinforcement of negative moral values and unchecked indulgence in petty selfishness. But who can say there aren’t great forces of evil possessing the few who can make a difference in this world with the money and power they have at their disposal? There is enough on this planet, we can share and create peace, but an evil selfish force does exist which prevents humanity from having an easy struggle to enlightenment rather than this harsh, bloody war we have to wage against the great mass murderers of our age (Hussein, Mugabe, BushCo., Mao, Stalin, Hitler, LBJ, Amin, et al.)
If it does exist, that would be the way to describe it. An influence present that may or may not have an effect on a person’s actions. A conscious choice can be made to avoid it’s influence but as all things in life, it is a choice.
Excellent points, very concisely and well made. As usual, somebody says what I tried to say, but in fewer words. 😀
People use them as a easy way to synthesize complex pieces of information, emotion, and experience. Conceptually, we can understand to some degree what anybody means when she says something is good or evil but we can’t ever understand fully what the person making that judgment is actually saying. Nor what we convey to someone else what we mean because we probably can’t completely parse the process by which we made the judgment.
So I tend not to worry that much about good and evil and take a fairly pragmatic stance — is the result of some action unjust or just, beneficial or harmful? I can’t easily determine intent but I can determine the effect. Was Jeffrey Daumer mentally ill, brain-damaged, or evil? Is George Bush a callous, self-centered rich boy, a sociopath, a supreme politician, or evil? I don’t know and I don’t know anybody who knows either. So I’ll avoid worrying about intent and make judgments about them by looking at the results of their actions. And that’s sufficient for me.
I think I might be trying to establish some measure of considering good and evil, both in varying degrees of force, as a naturally occurring force. I don’t know that I would agree with it if I could make the case but it seems to be a basis for some explanations or arguments.
I think it might be expressed like this…
Some folks have a skill or gift or whatever to be able to tap into a universal conciousness of information, much as one would access a database. Maybe it’s an unseen ‘force’ for lack of a better word, that exists in that realm. It’s constantly around us but we’re not aware of it’s existence until actions or behaviors cause it’s presence to be drawn into the situation, heh,… like static electricity.
Maybe that energy also attatches itself to thought or action, also electrical energy, and somehow continues to exist after it’s forgotten. I guess this would also be associated with the energy found in an aura. It’s similar to the concept of positive thinking, positive image, an unexplained feeling of goodness or apprehension in an area where no other explanation is sufficient.
Obviously, this is so far from my way of thinking that there is very little I can say in response.
Not that is going to stop me. I might go so far as to say that I think there may be some sort Jungian principle and/or brain chemistry at work that let’s us intuit that something is just/beneficial or unjust/harmful but the specific interpretation of that intuition appears to differ significantly depending on time, space, and history (both personal and geographic).
I probably should have had a warning before that one.
I think there is more to this world and our lives than what we can physically see. I believe life continues in one way or another after physical death here.
I believe life continues in one way or another after physical death here.
As long as you keep it that vague and we each get to define what life means in this context, I see nothing to argue with.
At the very least, I’m sure that your puns will continue in one way or another infinitely.
An excellent approach, which comes recommended by a reliable source:
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” – Matthew 7:16
While the concepts of good and evil might seem useful on one level, I see them as sort of an obstructing influence in certain ways. Both terms are generally used to provide an overly-simplistic description of something or someone that, once the labe good or evil is attached, discourages further examination or evaluation. Once someone is labelled evil, there’s no real incentive to look into causal factors with an eye toward preventing others from falling prey to such a fate or to seek ways of either helping the afflicted get better. Once someone is declared evil, it removes the idea of redemption and demonizes said person into virtually non-human status, making them killable, torturable, destroyable, and all with a clear conscience.
This is an example of why the rubric of good and evil is gaining such popularity now. As the levels of violence ratchet up all across the planet, as the depraved and ambitious psychopaths like Cheney & his neocons and bin Laden and his murderers and Falwell and his religious fascists all slaver for more and more power with more and more urgency, there will be a lot more declarations of evil being levied in the world, and those proclaiming it loudest will be it’s most ardent practioners.
labe = label above.
labia=labe below?
Good one!
I understand and I think several have come in on this or similar assessments of that labeling. It stigmatizes, paralyzes, absolves and condemns all at the same time. It removes the responsibility for actions and that’s not productive.
My exploration into this subject was to help form more opinion. I still think that the range of influence/energy that falls in the good/evil spectrum is one that is present around us and drawn from in accordance with our behaviors….IF it even exists at all. I don’t or try not to use it as a label in serious assessment and especially not as an absolute. The only time the absolutes could be used is in the religious context.
And it is the religious context where those concepts of good and evil are most weaponized and do the most damage.
Murder in the name of god is the leading cause of premature death in the human species.
Without offending my religious friends here, if I have any…I’m not real sure of specifics, I agree completely with what you said.
My marriage was dealt the death blow by the creeping absoluteness of Evangelism. Even if I committed to 99.99% of the doctrine, the Fundamentalism Biblical inerrancy excluded me because I held the possibility that other ways might be right for other people. The acceptance I have for others was enough to deny everything else I do believe in the Christian teachings. So, now I’m a Pagan Christian pursuing Buddhism and a few others. Happy freakn’ Holidays, eh?
There’s not a single meaningful human value I can identify that requires a religious context to give it legitimacy.
It is the principles and values a religion adheres to that give that religion relevance, not the other way around. The zealots never grasp this fundamental point that lies at the very core of the spiritual teachings they purport to revere. It’s a big part of why they’re angry and intolerant and emotionally volatile so much of the time. Their religion doesn’t work for them the way they believe it should because they’re looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope, so to speak. They’ve got a case of inverted, a process of reverse “cause and effect” guiding their understanding, and the dissonance of it all makes them crazy.
Oh yeah, I agree with that. It’s frustrating to see that failure of good sense in action. Small town (larger too, I figure) Evangelicals are calling on the Jewish people to rise up in rebuke against Sharon for what they feel was an abandonment. I haven’t seen it lately but a legislator was gathering money to rebuild the temple…these folks are dead-set on fullfilling prophecy.
The Armageddon enthusiasts amongst the evangelicals are in for a rude awakening one day. Many of them are simply in denial about the fact that, because the prophecy they’re so enamored of includes the part where 2/3 of the Jews die in the battles of Armageddon and the other 1/3 convert to Christianity, that most of the Jews they purport to be supportive of know this already and will just dump them completely as soon as they don’t need them any more.
These are some seriously deluded people these evangelicals are. Their ignorance has been weaponized to an astonishing degree.
I’ve asked them about this too. They have an answer for everything. It helps explain Bush’s attitude toward nonChristian lives too. Their fate is the same after death regardless of who they are if they are not right with the Evangelical doctrine. There is no compromise.
In some bizarre reasoning, they seem to feel the Bible justifies these deaths. I think the Rapture figures in there somewhere too, before the big fallout between the two religions. I always wondered about the wisdom of the Jewish people helping to fullfill that prophecy. I guess if they believe it won’t happen then the attitude might be the Christians are fooling themselves. Hey,…everybody can’t be right on this one.
The idea of the “Rapture” was developed as bait to lure people into the “faith”.
What better lure than to convince people they can go to heaven without even having to suffer the pain or ignominy of death.
A huge scam, the Rapture game, and more popular now than ever before.
And yes, the evangelical enthusiasts always have answers; the problem is their answers are irrational, belief-based rather tham fact-based, or they are just meaningless hollow rhetoric designed specifically to reinforce the grip of their own belief but having nothing to do with any substantive response to whatever question is being put to them.
People will always need labels and will always use them — communication would be nearly impossible otherwise. The problem is not in the use of labels but in the use of labels without concern as to how and why they are being used. Good and evil as labels are not inherently destructive but the thoughtless use of them certainly can be. The same could be said of terms like “right” and “left” or “red state” and “blue state.”
That why I think it’s important for people to understand that the use of these labels (and most labels) is a complex synthesis. Taking apart one’s reason for applying a label is the first step in addressing the issues raised by the use of that label.
In particular, I find the use of good and evil to label “intent” rather than the results of a action or set of actions to be particularly destructive and is the basis, for example, of most religious intolerance — it allows members of one religion to target others simply for their failure to “believe” the right things in the right way.
Short answer: I dunno. About the best insight I can come up with is from a former student who defined evil as “the lack of empathy.” Actually as it turns out there is a bit of social psychology theory and research that has been addressing the issue – mostly the sort of stuff that collects dust in journals and edited books found in university library shelves. If I have some time later I’ll try to turn you onto some if what I tend to read.
I remember reading awhile back something in New Scientist about lack of empathy and the psychology of sociopathic criminals. You might want to check their website and use the search engine there.
Thanks JB and I’d appreciate any links you can send my way.
Thanks to Mr Knoxville as well. I haven’t had a chance to reply properly to your comments but I wanted to say thanks for the time, effort and insight. You gave me a good bit to think about with the sources and all.
Just to be clear, I’m not pushing a good versus evil platform. I’m not sure anything exists in reality any more. It all may be the best damn illusion ever created.
There is good-and-evil the adjectives, the description of the way people act or refrain from acting.
Then there is the noun, that is, the mental state that would drive or allow someone to act or refrain from acting.
We’re on the most solid ground with the mental state, as a few others have mentioned, sociopathy. I think we regularly see expert commentary about a strong and unusual lack of empathy or emotional reaction to the prospect of doing things that are harmful or fatal. This would seem to relate to some unusual aspect of perception, or self-control if normal perception is present.
I’m guessing that we’re on shaky to nonexistent ground when it comes to the jihadists’ insistence that there are absolute values of good and evil that are straightforward and practical to apply. Family planning comes to mind as an example.
In my Celtic family it is immoral to bring children into the world unplanned, except for those of us for whom it is (or has been near to modern times) immoral ever to prevent a child coming into the world regardless of planning.
Evolutionarily, it’s unnecessary to unwise to limit birth too much in fertile tropical kinds of climates, while it’s unwise to allow many births in harsh mountain and polar climates. If a deliberate choice between fetus and mother must be made during childbirth, the loss of the mother would be a relatively manageable issue in easy-living conditions and not especially threatening to the family. But in dangerous climates the loss of the mother could doom all the other children.
So the good and evil of family planning and the option of favoring either mother or fetus would seem to be almost exactly opposite for the same ‘family value’ goal of preserving the family most often–depending on the circumstances.
Yet both of the extremes in modern times insist that their approach is good and the opposite is evil.
Most of our most basic social values seem to fit with the survival imperatives of primitive living conditions, and so it’s hard for me to think of absolute good or evil beyond their functionality in society.
I’ll finish with one example of a near universal survival mechanism that may have become fatal in modern society: shunning.
Most of us find it natural to avoid individuals whose behavior is regularly obnoxious or threatening. In survival conditions this is the most profound punishment other than an active assault because lone individuals are virtually certain to die early, sooner or later.
But in modern large societies, shunning has the exact opposite outcome: the individual is freed from the negative feedback and restraint of those who oppose the behavior, liberated to associate only with those who don’t care or support it. In this way our genetic survival mechanism causes the modern society to create and actively nurture sociopathic and criminal enterprises.
Such as several I’m sure we could all name if we had the time.
Thanks for the examples and contrast in social determination. Oddly enough, I don’t consider many of those situations determined by good or evil although I realize some elements in society do. I don’t see the choice between mother and child as inherently one of gve with the exception of abnormal glee if that is present.
The case of the social outcast is a tough one. This could be one that evil-esque influence creeps in and affects some decisions made by all concerned.
Could it be that evil is comfort when all good has been removed from one’s life?