originally posted by Darcy;
"but that core is still there, the conscience a small island that the pounding surf can beat and can smother but cannot ever erase."
I love this metaphor! See, by contributing to this thread you are also becoming such a good writer!
Again, empathy does not equal compassion. Although it has several definitions (maybe we should also here find a functioning oneOriginally Posted by Darcy88
), its primary idea consists of being able to recognise the feelings of someone else, maybe experiencing them too. I may point out that psychopaths have a notorious lack of that, in anything and to anyone.
Why do you get so enraged about something that does not suit you? Because you can find no means to make me do what you like?
Again, I am not at all denying any of his responsibility, nor any of those six million, nor any of the soldiers he killed with his daft invasions, I can only not call this man evil. I can call him bad, but I cannot call him the embodiment of evil. Why do you wish to turn that around in sympathy or even compassion? Because it does not suit your black-and-white view of everything or what? Tough sh*t. Deal with it.
It is not I who need to splash water in my face. I just do what most Third Reich historians have done: try to understand, not condemn and stop. Condemn and stop is cowardish.
Oh, do not make any mistakes about that, my friend. Evil is all around and manifests itself occasionally as excessively in WWII, HOWEVER the adjective 'evil' does not exist, no. That would require a man/woman to be wholly 100% evil, which is impossible.
I know it is difficult to understand, but that is how it is (to me).
hahahah, you really think that is true? Nero was maybe condemned, but I certainly remember the Romans having slaves all through their history. I certainly remember the Vikings raping. I certainly remember it being fine to beat a woman in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages and I also certainly remember that the Americans had slaves, beat them and found that quite OK. They even fought a war over it, because they would see their profits go down if they had to pay them. And I remember the Russians still having slaves and punishing them (by death) if necessary until 1917 or some time shortly before that. That was not considered evil, on the contrary. You should see how Pushkin writes about those people and their serfs. Perfectly honurable and good people they were! Not routinely done. Come on! How blind can you get?
I can recall gruesome massacres by our good friends the crusaders and Arabs alike. All for the holy cause. Even the oh so holy and peaceul Pope found that OK (it gave him more power no doubt). Now that was indiscriminate killing if I ever were to call anything that. Oh, and I suppose Milosevic and Mladic had problems at the point they were trying to kill their enemies.
Of course it is an evil act, did I ever say it was not? I said it was an evil act, only I said someone who has comitted an evil act does not equal an evil person. Seriously, is it difficult to understand?
I say, I say, I say, and who are you to say? God? And I say something different.
No. His acts were evil, he as a man was not. I refer to my answer above. Please, do your best and try to think, just for once.
It still does not add up with your conscience-island idea, whether you like it or not. If that island of conscience deep in ourselves as inherent good in us, how can a person be evil? It just does not work.
For black-and-white people like you that could be beneficial maybe, because otherwise matters get too complicated. Still Alexander is not me. I never see him as a victim, only as an enigma to be understood with empathy. Please note: this does not equal compassion but understanding for the man's feelings, which he had no doubt as he was human. And, no, they were not good feelings, but feelings nonetheless.
The acts were evil, not the people no. I do not know enough of Japanese culture to judge, but I gather the Japanese were still much worse and much more sadistic than the Germans in their camps. How strange and inconceivable that may actually seem. Where the Germans admittedly set out to kill an entire human race or maybe two and wished to purify their own, the Japanese killed everything on their way. What is worse? Calling the two evil would be kind of insulting the comparative meekness of the Germans.
Who knows what goes through the mind of a soldier at that point? Those kamikaze pilots were selected because they were suicidal or were just indoctrinated so they could cope with just crashing.
What are you suggesting? that soldiers refuse to fllow orders to kill, loot and rape? A soldier does not know refusal, only desertion and the ensuing bullet.
Who says the commanding officer 'allowed' it, did he not order it? In all likelihood, they ordered it explicitly as it was common for Japanese troops to behave in such a despicable and medieval manner.
Do you actually understand the concept of military training? You do not question, you do. And those who do that best, get promoted. So essentially, in such a culture, the most ruthless bastards (excuse the language) are at the top. What are mere soldiers to do against that? Get shot?
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Apart from the fact that his writing does not make sense, it was a nice metaphor yes. Now still the contents.
oh, you flatterer, you
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Idiot = mentally unwell? Hm.
I mean, that was just one small example, I could just as easily mention a vegan who believes the meat industry is evil, or some other such example.
Do I think such things are wrong/evil/blah blah? Yes! I already mentioned that in a previous post. Never once have I said that I don't think it's wrong.
Simply 'I =/= objective.'
"crudely reflect some conception of good and evil" is I think as far as we'll agree Darcy. Conception indeed.
Vladimir: (sententious.) To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.
Those examples disprove the objective existence of evil just about as well as the Wright Brothers, Nasa and Michael Jordan all proved the non-existence of gravity.
Eichmann was not perfectly evil, he gave his victims sweets and so could have been made more evil, therefore Eichmann was not an evil man. Hamlet is not a perfect play, it could have been made better in some small way, therefore Hamlet is not a good play.
There are some things that every human being, from our hairy ancestors to us today, regard as evil. Raping one's own mother is pretty bad. Day to day random impulsive murder never made it the way blue-jeans and compact discs did. Defecating next to a shared camp fire never really caught on. Read up on evolutionary psychology and then come tell me that right and wrong, good and evil, are not one bit objective or universal across the human species.
If Hitler was not evil then Macbeth is hackneyed and the Mona Lisa hideous. If no objective basis underlies morality then why assume one underlies art?
You want a good working foundation for right and wrong, good and evil? What about art and beauty? For art and beauty I go to those who know most about it, the artists and the critics and the most sophisticated consumers. I go to those who possess taste. When it comes to good and evil I do the same thing. I look at the men who I instinctively regard as men most wise and admirable, the two prime examples being Socrates and Jesus. Thus I find out what is good and what is not good. You could say "well, what if your instincts are wrong? How do you really know?" I answer that the man who looks to men of cowardice and spite for ones to emulate is the one who is wrong and I need no mathematical equation nor any empirical test to tell me that. There is an instinct for what is good, the result I believe of our evolution. Philosophers have labeled my point of view "virtue ethics." Whatever it is its exactly the same intellectual process those who deny the objective existence of evil follow throughout their lives. And that makes them hypocrites.
And just because I look to who Nietzsche would call "slave moralists" to determine right from wrong doesn't invalidate it any. I'm reading Plutarch's life of Alexander. Alexander, the quintessential Homeric man, a man of war and power, still deeply regretted razing the city Thebes, still felt immense tearful heart-breaking guilt and shame over killing his friend Clitus in a moment of overwhelming rage. In man's heart there is some faculty for knowing and willing the good.
Last edited by Darcy88; 03-06-2012 at 08:50 PM.
Thats not what we were arguing, I fear what kiki was trying to say was misunderstood by a lot of people.
Don't turn it around now. You said, I quote, "In no culture anywhere at anytime has it been the status quo for the average person to go about raping, killing and enslaving indiscriminately and not receive condemnation." And I disproved it by a number of examples. Not least the crusades where there were almost apocalyptic slaughters on both sides who claimed to fight a holy war. Had they kept it to themselves, you could have understood... but no, they were proud of it as well.
I suppose so much for knowing your stuff, right? Mixing people up already.
I would call Hamlet a good play, but not necessarily a perfect play. What does that say? Nothing in this world is perfect.
You conveniently ignore that the Vikings raped and killed as well when they emigrated, that the Romans maybe did not kill but enslaved (I would argue that was better value for money), that Caesar largely went on campaign because he had to escape his creditors in Rome, that clearly the Japanese troops must have had some common moral code to kill their adverseries, whatever their ethnicity, that the Incas and Azteks all knew how to do gruesome things. They were maybe not going to kill someone because he was darker or skinnier or anything than them, but seriously, claiming that 'in no culture it has ever been' ok to do these things? I would say the opposite.
Alexander the Great may have regretted one murder. However, a) how do you know this is true? Documents written in those times should not be taken literally as they can be a reflection of the character given to the figure by the author, so Plutarch must have liked Alexander for some reason (indeed he described Alexander too much with self-control). And b) the fact that he could kill him in a rage frankly shows you that not even a clement person, if clement Alexander were, stands above his nature. He may have regretted it, but he still did it right? So that makes him evil in your book. Not in mine, fortunately.
And did not Jesus say that you should not judge? That is good right?
Did not Socrates say that 'no-one desires evil'? Indeed, he claimed that wrong acts always come back to harm the wrongdoer and as no human would ever do something they knew would eventually hurt themselves it is clear that no human would ever do anything wrong they thought wrong at the very moment they were doing it. It is important to distinguish the means from the ends in this which seem to be obscured if you look at things. Indeed, Hitler, nor the others of his regime considerded murdering Jews, Jehova's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill and retarded people, blind and deaf people, handicapped people and so forth wrong. They were merely trying to cleanse their superior race from bad influence. Thus, they were not evil, as they were going to the end they desired which they thought was good. Athough they were ignorant of the fact that there is no such superior Germanic race. And that was their downfall. As the end was wrong, the wrongs they did came back to them. That is all. Therefore, they did not desire evil, nor are they evil according to your own definition.
If you quote a philosopher then please consider his principles first.
And it would indeed be beneficial, as Socrates also said, to consider your own ignorance first before considering your knowledge.
Nietzsche, as far as I understand that is, argued that slave morality wishes to make masters slaves as well. In that, the good is what is useful to the whole of society, not to the strong-willed on their own. Slaves try to make their masters believe that what they do is evil in order to become masters themselves. So, as Hitler believed that the Germanic race was superior, he wished to save the Germanic race from bad influences and thus wished to protect his own. He called it God's will at some point in Mein Kampf. From the views of master morality and slave morality, it is both useful in Nazi ideology to kill the Jews and everyone I listed above too. So who are you calling 'evil'? Essentially, if you admit you are looking to slave morality for this condemnation, the only thing you're admitting is that you are weak. I don't know whether that is what you wished me to think, because then we are in the same camp.
And Nietzsche also understood 'morality' as inseparable from a particular culture, I might add.
To me and as far as I can see, Hitler mixed the two and made the Germanic race both superior and enslaved by the Jews and everyone else to get the most of everything. It is known that they misused Nietzsche's ideas of [/I]Über-[/I] and Untermensch. If they considered themselves masters then they must have decided that it was good what they were doing. Though according to Socrates that would amount to ignorance.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
My God, this whole response of your is a travesty and I don't know where to begin. Those crusaders slaughtered in war. Back at home they were not all Charles Mansons.
You can't call Hamlet a good play Kiki. Not according to your own standards of when an adjective is permitted to be used. Way to dodge my point though. Its easy to keep the same beliefs when you completely ignore what the opposite argument is.I suppose so much for knowing your stuff, right? Mixing people up already.
I would call Hamlet a good play, but not necessarily a perfect play. What does that say? Nothing in this world is perfect.
Viking culture was a pretty violent culture, but I would not say it fits what I earlier described. And even if it did, the exceptions prove the rule.You conveniently ignore that the Vikings raped and killed as well when they emigrated, that the Romans maybe did not kill but enslaved (I would argue that was better value for money), that Caesar largely went on campaign because he had to escape his creditors in Rome, that clearly the Japanese troops must have had some common moral code to kill their adverseries, whatever their ethnicity, that the Incas and Azteks all knew how to do gruesome things. They were maybe not going to kill someone because he was darker or skinnier or anything than them, but seriously, claiming that 'in no culture it has ever been' ok to do these things? I would say the opposite.
You're right. Discount Plutarch. Discount Plato and Herodotus too, forget we know anything for sure about Greek history.Alexander the Great may have regretted one murder. However, a) how do you know this is true? Documents written in those times should not be taken literally as they can be a reflection of the character given to the figure by the author, so Plutarch must have liked Alexander for some reason (indeed he described Alexander too much with self-control). And b) the fact that he could kill him in a rage frankly shows you that not even a clement person, if clement Alexander were, stands above his nature. He may have regretted it, but he still did it right? So that makes him evil in your book. Not in mine, fortunately.
I don't give a flying **** whether the Nazis thought they were doing good or not. Intention means **** all. All that matter is what they did and what they did was evil. I don't see the point in even trying to argue this with you further, especially since this last post of yours shows absolutely zero willingness or ability on your part to take my words seriously. Why should I keep wasting my time?And did not Jesus say that you should not judge? That is good right?
Did not Socrates say that 'no-one desires evil'? Indeed, he claimed that wrong acts always come back to harm the wrongdoer and as no human would ever do something they knew would eventually hurt themselves it is clear that no human would ever do anything wrong they thought wrong at the very moment they were doing it. It is important to distinguish the means from the ends in this which seem to be obscured if you look at things. Indeed, Hitler, nor the others of his regime considerded murdering Jews, Jehova's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill and retarded people, blind and deaf people, handicapped people and so forth wrong. They were merely trying to cleanse their superior race from bad influence. Thus, they were not evil, as they were going to the end they desired which they thought was good. Athough they were ignorant of the fact that there is no such superior Germanic race. And that was their downfall. As the end was wrong, the wrongs they did came back to them. That is all. Therefore, they did not desire evil, nor are they evil according to your own definition.
If you quote a philosopher then please consider his principles first.
And it would indeed be beneficial, as Socrates also said, to consider your own ignorance first before considering your knowledge.
Nietzsche, as far as I understand that is, argued that slave morality wishes to make masters slaves as well. In that, the good is what is useful to the whole of society, not to the strong-willed on their own. Slaves try to make their masters believe that what they do is evil in order to become masters themselves. So, as Hitler believed that the Germanic race was superior, he wished to save the Germanic race from bad influences and thus wished to protect his own. He called it God's will at some point in Mein Kampf. From the views of master morality and slave morality, it is both useful in Nazi ideology to kill the Jews and everyone I listed above too. So who are you calling 'evil'? Essentially, if you admit you are looking to slave morality for this condemnation, the only thing you're admitting is that you are weak. I don't know whether that is what you wished me to think, because then we are in the same camp.
And Nietzsche also understood 'morality' as inseparable from a particular culture, I might add.
To me and as far as I can see, Hitler mixed the two and made the Germanic race both superior and enslaved by the Jews and everyone else to get the most of everything. It is known that they misused Nietzsche's ideas of [/I]Über-[/I] and Untermensch. If they considered themselves masters then they must have decided that it was good what they were doing. Though according to Socrates that would amount to ignorance.
I'm saying that there is in the end some objective measure by which an act and a person can be called evil, just like there I believe there is with art. Kiki has made arguments in favour of the subjectivity of morality.
Kiki go to a school-house, grab a piece of white chalk and write on the board the following phrase as many times as it takes before it finally sinks in:
An evil person is a person who does evil things.
An evil person is a person who does evil things.
An evil person is a person who does evil things.
An evil person is a person who does evil things.
An evil person is a person who does evil things.
......
By your logic I am an evil person because I have done evil thing. So following your logic I am equall to Hitler....
I have a standard by which I distinguish an evil act from a bad act and therefore an evil person from a bad person. While the young Japanese soldier was raping the 13 year old Chinese girl and while he slitted her throat and then turned his malevolent gaze upon her sister or her mother, he was evil. I do believe in redemption. Heck, if Hitler had lived, spent the rest of his life in prison, perhaps he'd have experienced growth personally and morally and become something less of a monster.
You find that response a travesty because it makes more sense than yours will ever do and it even took your arguments and quotes on board and showed you that you did not know what you are in fact talking about and quoting.
'Good' in this way does not equal 'doing good', but is a parameter of quality. I think I still know when I can use the adjectives I use. Or were you arguing catharsis (if that is at all possible)?
It fits your quote like a tee that 'in no culture anywhere at anytime has it been the status quo for the average person to go about raping, killing and enslaving indiscriminately and not receive condemnation.' I showed you clearly that that is not at all the case.
I merely repeat what critics have pointed out. Don't get angry about it. Fact is, Alexander killed his friend in a fit of rage. Thus he is evil according to your own definition. That is true, period, according to you. As evil as Hitler. Oh, no, wait that is not what you meant, right. Of course that is not what you meant but still it is what you are in effect arguing at this very moment.
Go on, deny it.
I don't know whether you mean sh*t or f*ck, but I gather it is something along those lines. It is only people who cannot express themselves any longer who use those words. Usually people get enraged at moments like this and vow not to waste their time anymore because they know they are in the wrong. As I showed you, you have not properly considered your own beliefs and their logical consequences.
Think of me as a Socrates and you as a Meno and we might get somewhere.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
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