how does one deal with implacable evil?

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(clicky)total and unadulterated evil
i put in this most recent link as a most recent example of what has been bothering me- i gotta know- how does one deal with unplacable evil, evil that will not be anything other than total evil? how does one deal with people who will not be civil, people who will not be civilized? this gave me nightmares about bullies chasing me across time and space. how does one deal definitively with evil without becoming evil oneself? how does one remain good despite encroaching evil? how?

I think it was Nietzsche who had said something to the affect of, be careful when hunting monsters, because you may too become a monster. I wish I had read up more on Nietzsche, because maybe he explains just how the hell we're supposed to go about that.
I know there have been plenty of times when people have had to take up arms to fight evil, but there have also been times when people such as Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King - or for that matter, Martin Luther - had found non-violence to be the best weapon.
I suppose a great deal has to do with what kind of evil you're up against. Is it the bully we Aspies had all found ourselves the victim of? Or is it political and military evil out to commit mass murder, such as Hitler and Stalin? Or is it the Great Cthulhu, who will one day rise from beneath the waves, and cast the world into the madness of torment of a living hell, as Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones use the planet for some dark, unknowable purpose?
For that last, if you've read any Lovecraft, you'll know despite whatever we do, we're all ultimately screwed.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I've often wondered what the difference was between Cthulhu causing the human race mayhem, and the human race causing the whole planet mayhem, was.

The best way to deal with evil is to do good, live by generous virtues, and stand unwavering next to them.

Ah, the way of Jesus, Gahndi, Martin Luther King, and Martin Luther, etc.

-Bill, otehrwise known as Kraichgauer

i'm wondering what kind of evil josh powell represented. he gave away his children's toys, why did he bother doing that? that sorta reminds me of the guy who eats a french-friend shetland pony but insists on specifically drinking a DIET soda with it. he axed his 2 boys [before roasting 'em alive] -who he considered to be his property above all else- but he donated their toys. what gives?

What I don't understand is, he had left a voice mail with his family saying that he couldn't live without his boys. If he was going to commit suicide, why did he have to take them with him?
But I suspect whatever evil that was inside him was nurtured with his upbringing by a father who had gone to prison for child pornography, and had spied on women - including his own daughter-in-law, who he claimed had led him on. I suspect growing up in such a household would likely turn out dysfunctional persons.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Evil is senseless. Banal too, for the most part.

the first step in dealing with these people is to admit that you have shirked in your responsibility to confront them.
of course, this doesn't apply to specific people outside your influence.
by confront i do not mean preemptively remove from the face of the earth.. essentially, stay away from USA foreign policy and you're good.

I can think of a few very specific examples for myself that i can't mention for privacy reasons.. other than to say it involved psychopaths, power, and the full impact of such events and their associated externalities will be impossible to calculate.

Best way to deal with it is to not consider it evil.

POOF! Gone...

Oh yeah, and quit watching Nancy Grace.

how does one not consider josh powell's actions to be evil? if it quacks like a duck...

I'm sure a whole lot of bad people would love to have their actions declared "not evil," so they could escape the consequences of their actions.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

i have a sociopathic older brother who maintains there is no such thing as good or evil, there is only self-interest and "common sense." i stay as far from him as possible.

So it's true that sociopaths can't tell the difference between right and wrong? I ask, because I've heard that repeated several times, but the very concept is hard for me to wrap my head around.
I had had an ex girlfriend who fit with the borderline personality disorder diagnosis perfectly, but despite all her emotional manipulation, and her self-centered antics which left lives broken and wallets empty in her wake, I never thought she had totally divorced herself from a concept of right and wrong. Then again, I might be too charitable in regard to her.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

some thoughts-
sociopaths often take "situational ethics" to an extreme. as an example, powell's sister and father both refused to help the police in any way. in this respect, they fit the "disocial" subset of antisocial personality disorder as was explained to me in college psych class, iow they acted like many criminal families, they "circled the wagons" around their own, no matter what he or she did, and stiff-armed everybody else outside of their small circle of friends. a sociopath may know right from wrong but believe themselves to be above such considerations.
below is a somewhat voluminous description of the whole ball of wax that should illuminate things a bit-

PSYCHOPATHY VERSUS SOCIOPATHY
The age old debate of psychopathy versus sociopathy is not one that can be answered easily. This is mainly because the words are often used interchangeably, and even when the terms are clearly defined by one scholar, another may disagree and choose to use the term in an entirely different fashion. Looking up these terms in dictionaries can lead to more confusion as the definition for psychopathy may include the word sociopathy in its description and vice versa.
[Research suggests that, “psychopaths are a stable proportion of any population, can be from any segment of society, may constitute a distinct taxonomical class forged by frequency-dependent natural selection, and that the muting of the social emotions is the proximate mechanism that enables psychopaths to pursue their self-centered goals without felling the pangs of guilt. Sociopaths are more the products of adverse environmental experiences that affect autonomic nervous system and neurological development that may lead to physiological responses similar to those of psychopaths. Antisocial personality disorder is a legal/clinical label that may be applied to both psychopaths and sociopaths” (Walsh & Wu, 2008).]
In other words, in the mental health field there is some consensus that psychopathy is more of an innate phenomenon whereas sociopathy, which has a similar clinical presentation to psychopathy, is more the result of environmental factors (poverty, exposure to violence, permissive or neglectful parenting, etc.). To borrow from the field of electronics and computers, psychopathic mental functioning may be termed a phenomenon of designed-in/hard-wired neural circuitry, whereas sociopath behaviors are more software instruction set-based. This is of course difficult to prove, as the nature versus nurture debate never seems to have a winner, and for good reason–it is very likely that both our biological components and environmental exposures influence and shape us fairly equally.
In 1941, Hervey Cleckley published The Mask of Sanity, which described diagnostic criteria for the “psychopathic personality.” Robert Hare, author of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us, eventually elaborated on Cleckley’s work to create the Psychopathy Check List-Revised ["PCL-R"], the “gold-standard” assessment measure used to diagnose psychopathy.
The PCL-R identifies interpersonal deficits (such as grandiosity, arrogance and deceitfulness), affective deficits (lack of guilt and empathy), and impulsive and criminal behaviors (sexual promiscuity, stealing, etc.) that are typical deficits of the psychopath. In his book, Without Conscience, Hare stated that the difference between psychopathy and sociopathy ”reflects on the origins and determinates of each.”
However, other differences between psychopathy and sociopathy, aside from origin, have been cited. The capacity to feel attachment and empathy towards another and to feel guilt and shame after doing something wrong is not associated with psychopathy; however it is suggested that sociopaths can emotionally attach to others, and feel badly when they hurt those individuals that they are attached to. The sociopath will still lack empathy and attachment toward the greater society and will not feel guilt in harming a stranger, or rebelling against laws, but does not lack empathy entirely, as is typical with the psychopath. Thus, it can be said that the sociopath [more often than not] is disocial rather than antisocial.
Therefore, both psychopaths and sociopaths are capable of committing heinous crimes; however, the psychopath would commit crimes against family members or “friends” (as well as strangers) and feel little to no remorse.
The last main difference between psychopathy and sociopathy is in the presentation. The psychopath is callous, yet charming. He or she will con and manipulate others with charisma and intimidation and can effectively mimic feelings to present as “normal” to society. The psychopath is organized in their criminal thinking and behavior, and can maintain good emotional and physical control, displaying little to no emotional or autonomic arousal, even under situations that most would find threatening or horrifying. The psychopath is keenly aware that what he or she is doing is wrong, but does not care.
Conversely, the sociopath is less organized in his or her demeanor; he or she might be nervous, easily agitated, and quick to display anger. A sociopath is more likely to spontaneously act out in inappropriate ways without thinking through the consequences. Compared to the psychopath, the sociopath will not be able to move through society committing callous crimes as easily, as they can form attachments and often have “normal temperaments.” The sociopath will lie, manipulate and hurt others, just as the psychopath would, but will often avoid doing so to the select few people they care about, and will likely feel guilty should they end up hurting someone they care about.
So, while these two terms seem interchangeable on the surface because they share many of the same characteristics, they are more like two sides of the same coin. Looking at the differences may seem futile; however, looking at psychopathy and sociopathy as different constructs may prove to be helpful in understanding the etiology of these disorders, and in the development of effective treatment methods.
__________________________________________________________________________________
References
Hare, R.D. (1993). Without conscience: The disturbing world of psychopaths among us. New York: Pocket Books.
Stout, M. (2005). The sociopath next door: The ruthless versus the rest of us. New York: Broadway Books.
Walsh, A., & Wu, H.H. (2008). Differentiating antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and sociopathy: Evolutionary, genetic, neurological, and sociological considerations. Criminal Justice Studies, 2, 135-152.

Thank you very much. That certainly answers a lot of my questions. But I have to ask, can an individual who is either a psychopath or a sociopath be "cured," or at least, "learn" how to behave normally?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

that is a two-part question, but i will try to answer both parts with one wordy but inexpert guestimate answer - implicit in the title of the book "the mask of sanity" is the fact that the brightest of these bad boys can learn to put on the false front of sanity - but for the most part they will be acting the part and not BEING the part. they will generally be working against their natural inclinations. our jails and prisons are full of such types. sure, there have been 'paths who have had the big illuminating moment, after many years and many occasions in prison, when the thought bubble pops-up over their heads, with the words, "why do i keep doing this stuff that gets me stuck in here?" - but with a very few notable exceptions, they will not feel real remorse for their victims but instead remorse for themselves, for their poor choices in life which cost them years and their youths. the smarter/less addled ones will occasionally determine with all their might to reform for the sake of being able to live a semblance of a "normal" life as free people. but i still would not get on the bad side of these so-called reformed people, as they remind one of the t-shirt with the motto, "51% sweetheart, 49% [female dog]- don't push it." two of the the aforementioned few exceptions would have to be Howard Storm ["My Descent Into Death"] and Danion Brinkley ["Saved by the Light"], both of whom purportedly met their makers ahead of time, and were definitively set straight, both by their testimony of forced conversion as well as by the example of their lives after their transformation. google their very interesting story. another more illuminating example of an accidental sociopath, was one whose misbehavior was caused by an accidental lobotomy via wayward railroad spike- Phinneas Gage was a pious, upright type before his accident, but became a foul-mouthed, intemperate rake afterwards, incapable of learning from his many mistakes. after a few years, his brain managed to heal somewhat on its own, and his behavior eventually reverted to normal. in light of this tragic example, some of the answers to the riddle of sociopathy may reside somewhere in the restraining influence of the frontal lobes [in addition to the limbic system]. but nobody [outside of the supernatural] has come up with any definitive cures for the antisocial types. my law-and-order oldest brother believes in the "lead" cure.