MissPickwickian wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
I'm curious how many people think evil is just an invention of the mind, versus real.
I believe it is real. I think that examples of the greatest recorded evils in history, like the Holocaust, are not merely illogical, focused, group negativities, but actual evil. Who's with me on this?
To put it another way: Are there such things as extremely negative acts which are not "mistakes" or "accidents" -- things which, rather, are purposed and intentional wrongs that people voluntarily decide on while knowing that those things are wrong?
I say: Yes, absolutely. Just look around, in any period of history you care to, and you'll see cruelty manifested fully beyond all honest deniability.
As you said, Holocaust. Psychologists assigned to interrogate Nazi war criminals found people who were not flamboyant devils, and, more disturbingly, seemed psychologically sound. They weren't crazy. They were evil. Evil is like a mask you put on.
No one can consider themselves irredeemably evil without going crazy or committing suicide. EVERYONE thinks they are righteous... at least just a little bit.
The religious nut that bombs an abortion clinic. The white supremacist that beats up (or kills) black people or Asians. The greeny's that go around putting sugar in peoples gas tanks. The Humvee driver who merges without looking... etc...
Evil isn't a mask we put on. It is who a person is. The rest of the time is spent trying to tell themselves that they are NOT completely evil.
Indeed, if they regarded themselves as evil, those Nazis would not be so psychologically sound.
07 Apr 2008, 7:20 am
