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As children we're fed a steady diet of comic books (and now, movies based off of them) in which brave heros save the planet from evil people. It's become practically conventional wisdom that such stories wrongly make the line between good and evil too clear -- the world is more nuanced than that, we're told -- but this isn't actually the problem with these stories. The problem is that the villains know they're evil.
And people really grow up thinking things work this way: evil people intentionally do evil things. But this just doesn't happen. Nobody thinks they're doing evil -- maybe because it's just impossible to be intentionally evil, maybe because it's easier and more effective to convince yourself you're good -- but every major villain had some justification to explain why what they were doing was good. Everybody thinks they're good.
And if that's the case, then intentionality doesn't really matter. It's no defense to say (to take a recently famous example) that New York bankers were just doing their jobs, convinced that they were helping the poor or something, because everybody thinks they're just doing their jobs; Eichmann thought he was just doing his job.
Eichmann, of course, is the right example because it was Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil that is famously cited for this thesis. Eichmann, like almost all terrorists and killers, was by our standards a perfectly normal and healthy guy doing what he thought were perfectly reasonable things.
And if that normal guy could do it, so could we. And while we could argue who's worse -- them or us -- it's a pointless game since its our actions that we're responsible for. And looking around, there's no shortage of monstrous crimes that we've committed.
So the next time you mention one to someone and they reply "yes, but we did with a good intent" explain to them that's no defense; the only people who don't are characters in comic books.
posted 2005-06-22T23:10:27 #
HI Aaron
Did you read as well how Hannah Arendt came to understand that it was the shallowness of his thinking that made it possible for Eichmann to go about his work as a murderer.
People without the time to think in depth can become dangerous people, much more able to think in the way that suspends there being a difference between right and wrong.
Have you ever noticed it will be a person up to no good who retorts: "You think too much" ?
posted by Kathryn Pollard
on 2005-08-17T09:25:25 #
You pathetic shit.
you ... reddit.
you have nobody to tell truth to you. heh.
I read MIL-SPEC for fun.
you profit from ignorance
I get poor cuz everybody's choosin' to kiss your dumb ass.
Get right. Good for all of us.
shithead
posted by ben
on 2006-09-04T01:52:07 #
I found this a long time ago. I had to 'think too much' to hear the author:
SWhy do you make this so bloody difficult...what happened to "customer aervice" . Why is this so awful confusing?
Why can't i just give you my problem and have you tell me the solution? Whhy is this such an awful thing to even attempt..you wondewr wnhhy peple do crazy shit..u are the reason! you wonder why the world has a crazy section for non-geek people ..It's becayuse you want it this way,..........you are the reason for othe madness in this very dark world tyou habve created.I hate this . once agaioin I will guive you my reports and not hear back from you ..it'
s the game you invented and you control, isn'\t it....long on talk .very little for what is promised..I sdon't understand how to do this thing ..you have made it complicated..why?
posted by Demetri
on 2007-03-25T20:54:48 #
Demetri is an IDIOT
posted by Sohail
on 2007-05-03T21:59:42 #
You're an idiot. People may indeed be ignorant of the fact that they're evil, but they are intentionally ignorant of this fact.
You should go into the very worst neighbourhood of town. And you may get attacked. Your attacker knows he's evil. And he's 99.9% sure doing it for that new plasma tv, not for saving his daughter from cancer or something like that.
People may or may not be ignorant of the fact that they're evil. But they have all the tools to find out. Especially the "do not kill" and the "treat your neighbour as you would want him to treat you" laws (that christianity accepts and islam rejects) will make you understand whether you're doing the right thing or not.
Yes we have limited information on the world. That doesn't mean we can't have at least pareto-efficiency in our morality towards eachother. That does require a few things, like being at least partially religious (and religious as in Jew Christian or Buddhist, especially not Hindu, Muslim or Shinto).
So I respectfully (but completely) disagree. You can know perfectly well if you're being moral or not. Yes you cannot know the implications of your actions. But you can be "pareto" moral. And that's already enough morality to create a very good society.
And btw I've never commited any horrible crime, so stop blaming me for any of those things. Maybe some ancient family members of me have. Yes maybe I even still profit by their crimes. I do not pretend to have the right to judge them, nor do I accept any shred of responsability for their actions. I have personally commited wrongs, and even crimes, and I'll accept responsability for them, and try to fix them where possible, but you can, again respectfully, fuck off when you try to blame me (individually or collectively) for stuff like the crusades or WOII or black slavery or ...
And don't kid yourself : those people knew very well that what they did was wrong. That's what makes it a crime.
posted by Tom
on 2007-05-08T06:11:19 #
How You can say it "People may or may not be ignorant of the fact that they're evil. But they have all the tools to find out. Especially the "do not kill" and the "treat your neighbour as you would want him to treat you" laws (that christianity accepts and islam rejects) will make you understand whether you're doing the right thing or not.
Yes we have limited information on the world. That doesn't mean we can't have at least pareto-efficiency in our morality towards eachother. That does require a few things, like being at least partially religious (and religious as in Jew Christian or Buddhist, especially not Hindu, Muslim or Shinto).
So I respectfully (but completely) disagree. You can know perfectly well if you're being moral or not. Yes you cannot know the implications of your actions. But you can be "pareto" moral. And that's already enough morality to create a very good society. " I don't undestand.
posted by John
on 2007-06-21T09:02:51 #
There's a perfectly simple and direct test for evil.
If a person is utterly convinced of the correctness of his/her position and refuses to even contemplate that they might perhaps be in error -- if they never step back to question themselves and re-check the belief structures for inconsistency (or become blind to or ignore inconsistencies when pointed out), then they are following the path of evil.
Self-doubt is a necessary condition for Good.
posted by constantnormal
on 2007-08-05T13:40:11 #
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