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Friday, October 24. 2014

Evil

I believe that evil exists. I have seen it in myself, and I think I understand the human desire to externalize it or to deny it. Denial of evil is dangerous.


From The Guardian (really):  The truth about evil - Our leaders talk a great deal about vanquishing the forces of evil. But their rhetoric reveals a failure to accept that cruelty and conflict are basic human traits


One quote from this good essay:



There are some who think the very idea of evil is an obsolete relic of religion. For most secular thinkers, what has been defined as evil in the past is the expression of social ills that can in principle be remedied. But these same thinkers very often invoke evil forces to account for humankind’s failure to advance. The secularisation of the modern moral vocabulary that many believed was under way has not occurred: public discourse about good and evil continues to be rooted in religion. Yet the idea of evil that is invoked is not one that features in the central religious traditions of the west. The belief that evil can be finally overcome has more in common with the dualistic heresies of ancient and medieval times than it does with any western religious orthodoxy.



Posted by The News Junkie in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 15:53 | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)

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He still thinks the Nazis were uniquely evil, and the Communists well behind them, disregarding the total numbers killed and that many were their own people.
#1 Sam L. on 2014-10-24 16:02 (Reply)
When you feel evil, you're never the same.

I've walked thru Bergan-Belsen, Dachau, and several other sites.Augsburg had an old rail siding that was used to load the victims of Auschwitz - the touch of evil is there too.

I've seen old Red Army 'motivation walls' inside their barracks in Germany and other places. Even plaster and paint cannot cover the pot-marks where the bullets struck.

Evil does exist, and it flourishes when good people stand by and allow it to exist and grow.
#2 fred zeppelin on 2014-10-24 18:53 (Reply)
Theodore Dalrymple on Evil

http://www.newenglishreview.org/Theodore_Dalrymple/On_Evil/
#3 Jerod on 2014-10-24 20:20 (Reply)
I think we are about to see evil upfront and personal. The left is priming the rabble to riot in Ferguson and other big cities around the U.S. Not for civil rights, not because the gentle giant had his hands up when he was shot and not for any moral or just reason. They are provoking riots to get out the black vote and to maintain or gain power and money. If these riots do happen I would be suprised if people are not killed and many more injured. This won't be for the benefit of the poor people in Ferguson or elsewhere it will be for the benefit of politicians and race baiters. I don't know who is stupider; those who are being used to to riot and destroy others property or the majority of Americans who will after all is said and done agree to give away the farm to appease the rioters and the people behind the violence.
#4 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-10-24 20:54 (Reply)
John Kekes makes the same point about evil as a permanent part of human nature in "The Roots of Evil". But Kekes does it without all the anti-regime-change-rhetoric that clouds John Gray's argument (and fires up readers of the Guardian). Gray doesn't seem to realize that the allied defeat and subsequent occupation of Nazi Germany was the most successful regime change in history. 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nearly 75 years after the Nazis surrendered, there are still some 40,000 US troops stationed in Germany - the largest contingent outside the United States. I'd like to hear Mr. Gray expain how the "persisting folly of western governments" has replaced one evil regime with another in the Federal Republic of Germany.
#5 Berlin Boy on 2014-10-25 03:17 (Reply)
Germany OR Japan. Both countries were able to rebuild their government and their country and both countries were glad to get the help to do it. Most importantly both countries were able and allowed to create a government that was consistent with their society and histories. Germany is still German, it's people are proudly German and their country is a jewel in Europe. The same can be said for Japan. These two countries are a testiment to the rebuilding effort after WW II and they are both proud and productive members of the free world.
#5.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-10-25 10:48 (Reply)
Yes! The Germans were still Germans. That's what failed in Iraq. If you searched from top to bottom there were no Iraqi's. None! Churchill created a country called Iraq but he didn't create anyone to live in it. Just the many different tribes and religious sects that had always been there, no one loyal to anyone more than ten miles down the road.
The US would have had to had to stay in that land for a hundred years to create a nation. And it would probably have been speaking English (well, American) at the end.
#5.1.1 John the River (Link) on 2014-10-25 17:38 (Reply)

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