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[NF] Radical Evil in human nature?

SolitaryWalker

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Dearest NFs?

How do you go about convincing yourselves that it is not really there?
 

Ivy

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I don't. It's there. It's not necessary, though.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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Dearest NFs?

How do you go about convincing yourselves that it is not really there?

step 1 buy a a puppy pitbull or other potentially violent critter
step 2 fall in love with said critter, complete with slobbery fun
step 3 get bit or something
step 4 still like him
step 5 think of people like that

:party2:
 

SolitaryWalker

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step 1 buy a a puppy pitbull or other potentially violent critter
step 2 fall in love with said critter, complete with slobbery fun
step 3 get bit or something
step 4 still like him
step 5 think of people like that

:party2:


So thats just ignoring the problem and not attempting to talk yourself out of believing that it exists. But is this reall how you cope?
 

SolitaryWalker

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I don't. It's there. It's not necessary, though.

The evil is not necessary? Or pretending that it doesnt exist is not necessary?
 

targobelle

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I think that is an assumption that you have come up with.

We may seek out the best in people and in the world but we are not oblivious to people natural desires. If that makes any sense.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I think that is an assumption that you have come up with.

We may seek out the best in people and in the world but we are not oblivious to people natural desires. If that makes any sense.

Yeah yeah.. thats how idealized NFs should be... but you know all about your Fi tendency for wishful thinking dont you?
 

Kyrielle

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To pretend to be completely oblivious to any potential "evil" in people is probably unwise and naive. Everyone has an equal potential at birth to be either "evil" or "good," people lean more towards one side or the other throughout their lives. I think that the "radically evil" people in the world are really people with good intentions, but horrible ways of implementing those intentions....or simply insane...
 

targobelle

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Yeah yeah.. thats how idealized NFs should be... but you know all about your Fi tendency for wishful thinking dont you?

I can almost see you rolling your eyes at that comment lol!


of course I do... I have tucked it away for safe keeping and it's kinda starting to resurface again... oh how I have missed it.....
 

Ivy

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The evil is not necessary? Or pretending that it doesnt exist is not necessary?

The evil is there, but it's not necessarily in all people. My experience with people has been that most of them rise above it, rejecting it.
 

SolitaryWalker

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To pretend to be completely oblivious to any potential "evil" in people is probably unwise and naive. Everyone has an equal potential at birth to be either "evil" or "good," people lean more towards one side or the other throughout their lives. I think that the "radically evil" people in the world are really people with good intentions, but horrible ways of implementing those intentions....or simply insane...

Oh no no... I think that the goodness of a moral act should be assessed not by the consequences but by the reasons given by it... when I talk about radical evil in human nature... I talk about the evil intentions that we all have..which come to us quite naturally too..
 

SolitaryWalker

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The evil is there, but it's not necessarily in all people. My experience with people has been that most of them rise above it, rejecting it.

Nah... you Fs do a good job of bringing out the best in people but again... most people never rise above their nefarious nature... at best they could hide it.. but thats only as far as they can go..

now this... is a man who never fell for wishful thinking...


'
Now if we have so far convinced ourselves apriori by the most universal considerations, by investigation of the first, elementary features of human life, that such a life, by whole tendency and disposition, is not capable of any true bliss or happiness, but is essentially suffering in many forms and a tragic state in every way, we might now awaken in this conviction much more vividly within us, if, by proceeding more aposteriori, we turned to more definite instances, brought pictures to the imagination, and described by examples the unspeakable misery presented by experience and history, wherever we look, and whatever avenue we explore?But perhaps at the end of his life, no man, be he sincere and at the same time in possession of his faculties, will ever wish to go through it again. Rather than this, he will much prefer to choose complete non-existenceThe essential purport of the world-famous Hamlet monologue is, in condensed form, that our state of existence is so wretched, that non-existence would decided be preferable to it.... If we were to conduct the most hardened and callous optimist through hospitals, infirmaries, operating theatres, through prisons, torture chambers, and slave-hovels, over battlefields and to places of execution; if we were to open him all the dark abodes of misery, where it shuns the gaze of cold curiosity, and finally were to allow him to glance into the dungeon of Ugolino where prisoners starved to death, he too would certainly see in the end what kind of a best of all possible worlds this is. For whence did Dante get the material for his hell, if not from this actual world of ours? And indeed he made a downright hell of it. On the other hand, when he came to the task of describing heaven and its delights, he had an insuperable difficulty before him, just because our world affords absolutely no material for anything of the kind?. For the rest I cannot here withhold the statement that optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable suffering of mankind. And let no one imagine that the Christian teaching is favorable to optimism, because in the gospels, evil and this world are used almost as synonymous expressions.
So wrote Arthur Schopenhauer..
 

Ivy

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Nah... you Fs do a good job of bringing out the best in people but again... most people never rise above their nefarious nature... at best they could hide it.. but thats only as far as they can go..

I'll just say that that hasn't been my experience. I don't know most people, but the sample I've taken, I believe are not simply hiding it, by and large.

That doesn't mean they're not flawed and imperfect-- they are. Everyone is.
 

cafe

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Dearest NFs?

How do you go about convincing yourselves that it is not really there?
LOL, I don't. I was raised with the doctrine of total depravity. I no longer believe it is total, but I don't doubt that evil exists in all of us and in some of us in great measure.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I'll just say that that hasn't been my experience. I don't know most people, but the sample I've taken, I believe are not simply hiding it, by and large.

That doesn't mean they're not flawed and imperfect-- they are. Everyone is.

Why did the Eastern sages practice asceticism? Because they had to purge their inner evil nature.

Nonetheless those that we consider good are that way not because they've acquired some positive virtue, but because they, with great difficulty--managed to purge very few of their negative qualities. All of the good that we can do on this world is essentially, negative only what is evil is positive and can be acquired. Look at the New Testament, all the rules say Dont, none say do, because you can only not do Evil, you cant do good, do by definition implies evil because this is all that we are capable of.
 

SolitaryWalker

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LOL, I don't. I was raised with the doctrine of total depravity. I no longer believe it is total, but I don't doubt that evil exists in all of us and in some of us in great measure.

We need no religious dogma to believe in total depravity. Anyone honest and sincere would be compelled to admit that evil has been propenderous over good in this world. Perhaps even preponderous enough to convince us that to be and to be evil mean the same thing.
 

Kyrielle

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Oh no no... I think that the goodness of a moral act should be assessed not by the consequences but by the reasons given by it... when I talk about radical evil in human nature... I talk about the evil intentions that we all have..which come to us quite naturally too..

Okay then, I don't convince myself there are no ill intentions in people. Of course there are, people can be and are pretty selfish. However, most people will typically have good intentions, because it is more beneficial for them. I operate on the belief that 90% of the things we do are in pursuit of some personal benefit, and good intentions do provide a greater personal benefit by, hopefully, providing a win-win situation.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Okay then, I don't convince myself there are no ill intentions in people. Of course there are, people can be and are pretty selfish. However, most people will typically have good intentions, because it is more beneficial for them. I operate on the belief that 90% of the things we do are in pursuit of some personal benefit, and good intentions do provide a greater personal benefit by, hopefully, providing a win-win situation.

The intentions of most people are indifferent to you, neither good or evil in the conventional sense of the word.

Essentially they are always driven by selfish motives. Unconsciously they only want to benefit themselves, if that means hurt you along the way than be it. And this is what they end up doing, they will only do you good if they consciously or unconsciously come to believe that they are doing good for themselves.

I dont think there is free will so we generally do whatever our unconscious mind commands us and that is--feed ourselves by all means necessary!

I operate on the belief that 90% of the things we do are in pursuit of some personal benefit, and good intentions do provide a greater personal benefit by, hopefully, providing a win-win situation

This is the reason why an overwhelming majority of their intentions are evil..
 

cafe

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We need no religious dogma to believe in total depravity. Anyone honest and sincere would be compelled to admit that evil has been propenderous over good in this world. Perhaps even preponderous enough to convince us that to be and to be evil mean the same thing.
I've had too many people show me kindness to be convinced that there is no good in man.
 

SolitaryWalker

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I've had too many people show me kindness to be convinced that there is no good in man.

Are you sure it is the real good and not just an appearance of it?
 
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