• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

What Creates Evil? What can be done about it?

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,988
What do you consider evil, and how do you you believe this evil comes about?

What can we do about evil?
 
W

WALMART

Guest
"This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?"

So far as I can tell, showing each other the face of battle.
 
N

ndovjtjcaqidthi

Guest
There is the capacity for evil inside each of us, lurking deep down.

It's just.. more practical for us to hide it away to ensure our own survival, in this society of ours.
 

SneakyNinja

New member
Joined
Dec 24, 2013
Messages
20
I think EVIL is just a "strong" word people use to describe things they really don't like. It's not an object.
 

Galena

Silver and Lead
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
3,786
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
There is the capacity for evil inside each of us, lurking deep down.

It's just.. more practical for us to hide it away to ensure our own survival, in this society of ours.
Yes. What's scarier than a person convinced they don't and never will have it in them?
 

Honor

girl with a pretty smile
Joined
Jul 11, 2012
Messages
1,580
MBTI Type
?
Instinctual Variant
so
Yes. What's scarier than a person convinced they don't and never will have it in them?

lol, i have truly met people who refuse to believe that they are anything other than infallible despite being confronted with contradictory evidence time and time again. like jk rowling once said, i would be jealous of people who can just turn their backs on reality, except i know that the willfully ignorant are the most frightened and weakest of all.
 

chubber

failed poetry slam career
Joined
Oct 18, 2013
Messages
4,413
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Evil for me is gratification through other's pains.
 

Alea_iacta_est

New member
Joined
Dec 3, 2013
Messages
1,834
Evil is relative, even some of the people considered to be the most evil think that they are the good guys.

True evil is simply just chaos and sadism. A truly evil man would say "I killed this man because I thought it would be pleasurable and fun to watch this man's sadness and fright as he left this planet at my hands.", while what would be considered an evil leader might say "I killed this man in the interest of our nation as a whole, for he could have dismantled the entire system through which I plan to do and do good things." and actually believe it.
 

Hawbawbowba

Permabanned
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
85
MBTI Type
ISTJ
The Federal Reserve/IMF and the Frankfurt School. I believe they come about when vigilance is lost and cultural identity wanes.
 

Firebird 8118

DJ Phoenix
Joined
Sep 22, 2012
Messages
3,134
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
279
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
This story just about sums up my beliefs on the topic:

One evening an old man told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all."
"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."
He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old man simply replied, "The one you feed."
 

tinker683

Whackus Bonkus
Joined
Nov 8, 2009
Messages
2,882
MBTI Type
ISFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I read once in Robert Bloom's "The Lucifer Principle" that Evil is created by the potent cocktail of living with other humans beings with all of our impulses and desires in a limited amount of space with resources that are distributed unevenly. This always made a lot of sense to me.

As for doing something about it: Laws, good government and values that promote peace, love and cooperation. Beyond that, I don't really know
 
G

garbage

Guest
We've got evil as a concept (philosophical) and evil as manifest (psychological). Former touches on questions such as whether or not there's an absolute morality out there; the latter addresses, say, why we kill one another.


For one psychological perspective--the "situationist" one--check out this video of Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment fame) halfway down the page.

As far as how it can be solved? Baron-Cohen believes that evil can be defined in terms of empathy ("shining a spotlight on the other"), and we can then concentrate on empathy.

I think EVIL is just a "strong" word people use to describe things they really don't like. It's not an object.
There's this, too. Lance Morrow points out that the word 'evil' is a lil' box that people toss 'bad stuff' into, and it's ill-defined by nature. He goes on to say that keeping the word 'evil' nebulous and unclear is actually useful for us as a psychological construct.
 

Night

Boring old fossil
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
4,755
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5/8
What do you consider evil, and how do you you believe this evil comes about?

What can we do about evil?

Evil is what happens when individual self-interest is elevated above the needs of a community. It's a sociological value statement describing how certain behaviors endanger the basic needs of a group of people unified towards shared goal/s. Good is then an evaluation of how behavior promotes these goals.

Good cultivates community survival, generally as a result of individual sacrifice. Evil cultivates individual survival, generally as a result of community sacrifice.

Why do they occur? Because we want to survive.
 

Qlip

Post Human Post
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
8,464
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
What can be done about it? Destroy all subjective perception.
 
W

WhoCares

Guest
Evil is consciousness without purpose. Nothing erodes the soul faster than a life that is meaningless.
 

RaptorWizard

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
5,895
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Evil is present within the very foundations of this natural order; the battle for survival itself and all of the tortures that it entails makes life evil I think.

Evolution is evil because it makes life a painful struggle, and life really shouldn't be that way; it could be a fun struggle - that's the ideal way to evolve.
 

Tellenbach

in dreamland
Joined
Oct 27, 2013
Messages
6,088
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
6w5
There's a terrific book about the subject aptly titled "Evil" by Roy Baumeister. Evil is defined as doing intentional or deliberate harm to another. Most people have the capacity to do evil and the perpetrators seldom view themselves as evil. Terrorists who blow up buses think it's for a noble cause and view the act as a purely technical event. They fail to connect the act with the suffering of their victims. The Nazis believed they were just because of how unfair they were treated after WWI and all they were doing was trying to keep up with America. The guy who beats his wife is usually a hypersensitive individual who sees slights and insults where none was intended. He veiws himself as a victim and battering the wife is merely a form of self-defense.

So, if we all have the capacity to do evil, why aren't there more evil acts committed? It's a question of self-control. That's the difference. Some individuals lack the ability to control their desires. I recall an impulse control experiment with kids and toys. Kids were seated opposite some toys and told not to turn around. When the experimenter left the room, a good number of kids couldn't resist the urge and turned their heads. They lacked self-control. Same with evil-doers.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,988
Thanks all for such thoughtful and diverse responses.

There is the capacity for evil inside each of us, lurking deep down.

It's just.. more practical for us to hide it away to ensure our own survival, in this society of ours.

This is certainly true. What do you think of [MENTION=16650]AngelLight2012[/MENTION] 's theory regarding feeding the wolf that we want to win?

Thanks for pointing me to sources [MENTION=8485]tinker683[/MENTION] [MENTION=5578]bologna[/MENTION] [MENTION=20113]Tellenbach[/MENTION] I might, in addition, look at Michael Shermer's Science of Good and Evil

Zimbardo's research was what I was most familiar with before.

I have been looking at article and summaries of Baron-Cohen's work on the matter as well. (I only recently got paid for the month, and I won't have money in the budget for books for a while).
It is interesting that he considers Zero Degrees of empathy the reason people are cruel. He seems to claim that people who are zero negative (the Borderline Personality, the Narcissist, and Psychopaths-both the Antisocial, and Conduct Disorder varieties) all have defects in their empathy circuits and have in some sense reached the end of their maturation cycle. He claims, however, autistic individuals (whom he calls zero positive) can improve their effective empathy through systematic practice.

I wonder, however, if he only sees hope in Autists because that's who he works with directly. Also, I can imagine someone (though I don't think I know anyone) who knows exactly how the person they are hurting feels, and is doing harm specifically because it makes the person being harmed feel that way.
 
Top