[ENFP] enfps are evil

[Avocado]

nah, you're not evil. It's just that the aux function is in (what I think of as) the "rose-colored glasses" position. It's hard to look at that place and see the problems that reside there. Or think of it as a helper, and like all things we think "help" us, can swing over to enabling us instead.

Fi in service to Ne means that sometimes the moral compass isn't applied in a consistent way to ourselves in particular. (That's not to say it is with Fi dom either, it's just harder to avoid values-based scrutiny since the dom function is in the "warts and all" position.)

Ask an F dom about evil ... "yes, I could be evil even if well-intentioned, must watch for evil". Ask an F aux about evil ... "oh no, I'm a good person and would never do anything to hurt anyone, ever". So, although some aspects are under conscious control from a denial perspective, to a large degree, it just can't be seen as easily. Less conscious.

So...Inferior F is the worst, right?

 

[violet_crown]

nah, you're not evil. It's just that the aux function is in (what I think of as) the "rose-colored glasses" position. It's hard to look at that place and see the problems that reside there. Or think of it as a helper, and like all things we think "help" us, can swing over to enabling us instead.

Fi in service to Ne means that sometimes the moral compass isn't applied in a consistent way to ourselves in particular. (That's not to say it is with Fi dom either, it's just harder to avoid values-based scrutiny since the dom function is in the "warts and all" position.)

Ask an F dom about evil ... "yes, I could be evil even if well-intentioned, must watch for evil". Ask an F aux about evil ... "oh no, I'm a good person and would never do anything to hurt anyone, ever". So, although some aspects are under conscious control from a denial perspective, to a large degree, it just can't be seen as easily. Less conscious.

Eh. That doesn't really resonate with my experience of the aux function, but does tend to hold with respect to the tertiary. Ni for me is like something I have begrudging respect for, use relatively well, but don't feel like I can place a lot of faith in it, push come to shove. Se, as the relief function, is just like, a fun happy time to be had by all, and I have to remind myself that it's not the answer to every problem.

I think the same hold's true for ENFPs and tert Te. I could imagine for an ENFP, Te just feeling like this powerful, logical trump card for everything that they do whether its actually rational (much less reasonable) or not. This assumption is supported by the apparent regard they hold for their "Te Bitchslap". Beyond that, I lay a lot of the "I imagined it would be and so it was" attitude of the average ENFP at the feet of the Ne-Te loop. Most of them don't seem to grow out of that sort of mentality until they do get a better handle on their auxiliary.

 

[Raspberry_rain]

Oh we can be evil alright. *thinks back to manipulative, evil, junior high self* We're good at it too, if you're wondering if a villain in a movie is an ENFP, a good indicator is if they're the one you never suspect because they seem so sweet and friendly. But the ENFP will never make a successful villain in the long run because our conscience will kill us.

 

[Pionart]

Evil not because of type
Evil a corruption

 

[Avocado]

psst...

While I strongly agree with these two truths: 1.) There's no off-topic in a thread started by an ENFP about ENFPs and 2.) The original Bane was an ISTP...

This most recent recreation of Bane was unmistakably ENFJ... which "just makes sense" when you think of it....being put into a position where you may need to execute a doorslam and all.

He was a public leader with a vision who made himself look tough. Sounds about right.

 

[Avocado]

Oh we can be evil alright. *thinks back to manipulative, evil, junior high self* We're good at it too, if you're wondering if a villain in a movie is an ENFP, a good indicator is if they're the one you never suspect because they seem so sweet and friendly. But the ENFP will never make a successful villain in the long run because our conscience will kill us.

Hoodwink bunny...

Just kidding...

 

[Qlip]

Semantics time! I've always thought what characterized evil is the willful intent to do bad. From this point of view, ENFPs are rarely evil.

 

[violet_crown]

Semantics time! I've always thought what characterized evil is the willful intent to do bad. From this point of view, ENFPs are rarely evil.

By this definition, neither was Hitler.

 

[Qlip]

By this definition, neither was Hitler.

That's true. But I actually agree with that. I suppose I just don't believe in evil. Huh.

 

[violet_crown]

That's true. But I actually agree with that. I suppose I just don't believe in evil, except as misunderstanding. Huh.

That's bull and you know it. Some shit is just evil. Example:

Let's say some dude breaks into your house, fucks your 4yr old kid, and then breaks her neck afterward. He then blithely saunters off for a delicious fourth meal at Taco Bell and sleeps soundly afterwards.

Would you call this person evil or just misunderstood?

 

[Qlip]

That's bull and you know it. Some shit is just evil. Example:

Let's say some dude breaks into your house, fucks your 4yr old kid, and then breaks her neck afterward. He then blithely saunters off for a delicious fourth meal at Taco Bell and sleeps soundly afterwards.

Would you call this person evil or just misunderstood?

It's wrong to the Nth degree, but we're all animals, some of us got beaten with sticks, some of us have rabies. Fi vs Fe. I feel like characterizing something or someone as evil is a way to avoid trying to understand it.

 

[Poki]

That's bull and you know it. Some shit is just evil. Example:

Let's say some dude breaks into your house, fucks your 4yr old kid, and then breaks her neck afterward. He then blithely saunters off for a delicious fourth meal at Taco Bell and sleeps soundly afterwards.

Would you call this person evil or just misunderstood?

#3 dead...and disturbed not evil

 

[violet_crown]

It's wrong to the Nth degree, but we're all animals, some of us got beaten with sticks, some of us have rabies. Fi vs Fe. I feel like characterizing something or someone as evil is a way to avoid trying to understand it.

When I was a kid, my Papa used to say to me, "Rex, you're not bad, you just do bad things sometimes."

That logic has always been something of a guiding principle when evaluating human goodness while avoiding some kind of attribution error. That is because it allows for the ability to parse out an individual and whatever their circumstances may be from certain actions which by all means should and be considered evil.

Child rape is evil. Murder, no matter how justified, is evil. I don't think that's something that people should have to equivocate about out of some misguided sense of political correctness.

To bring it home a bit, I've seen some supposedly well-intentioned ENFPs leave disproportionate amounts of carnage in their wake allegedly out of a need to "spare people's feelings". Whether they are evil or not is almost entirely besides the point of the fact of the destructiveness of their behavior. I would give those ENFPs as wide a berth as someone who was a genuine sociopath because their net impact on me and mine is effectively the same. ESPECIALLY those who are too intellectually sloppy or simply morally bankrupt to see that a whole hearted belief in people's "inherent goodness"--their own above all, I'm sure--prevents them from doing the hard work of looking at the consequences of their actions, taking responsibility for those and actually doing right as opposed to saying such and such a thing is and hoping the rest of us are to dazzled into sympathy to know the difference.

Do I think that ENFPs are evil? No. But I do wish they tried more to be as good as they say they are.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I would say that I disagree with the idea that this is the "best of all possible worlds." It clearly isn't. I dislike the word "evil" because it implies a scary thing that we shouldn't think about, but I believe right and wrong exists.

 

[Frosty]

I have always believed every person is made up of so many things, that to stamp a categorization, good vs. evil, intelligent vs. dull, normal vs. abnormal, seems terribly...deficient. You could not possibly know the depths of another person. You can cherry pick and categorize off of what shoots to the surface, but people are more than just the sum of their most obvious parts. Anyways, sure people do horrible things - but this does mean any good they ever did is risregarded. Sure you get to the point where the liability of the person, and the forward bad they do, causes necessary reevaluation of how to treat them in society. Sociopaths, even those so evil and profane to have killed children, were children once themselves who had done good. Anyways again though, punishment is acceptable, but evil just seems like a 'bad' word.
This sounds really illogical, but whatever.

 

[Cygnus]

I feel like characterizing something or someone as evil is a way to avoid trying to understand it.

Marry me.

 

[violet_crown]

I would say that I disagree with the idea that this is the "best of all possible worlds." It clearly isn't. I dislike the word "evil" because it implies a scary thing that we shouldn't think about, but I believe right and wrong exists.

I knew that it wouldn't be long before some diligent Ti user got uncomfortable with such wanton use of a concept without explicit definitions.

I have a sort of a complex perspective on "evil", tbh. On the one hand, I feel that there are certain things that hold intrinsic value. The dignity of all living things, as hand wave-y of an idea as that is, is one of those. In a perfect world, life would be valued. We would honor the connections that exist not only between us as human beings, but as a species that is intimately interconnected with all life on this planet. We would take this notion not only as something nice to consider, but as a fundamental fact of our existence and would strive a little more each day to live up to the beauty of it.

I've always been taken by the idea that if one were to translate "sin" directly from Hebrew, it means to "to err" or "to fall short of the mark". I think that it's a useful idea because, as you pointed out, words like "evil" are so loaded that it denies the possibility that even when someone does fuck up, those actions are still completely in dialogue with this greater, more loving notion of how folks can relate to each other. "Sinning" is inevitable because everyone you meet is just another fucked up, exhausted individual trying to make it through the day.

Having said that, I don't deny the reality of evil. If you accept the idea that the most loving actions are the ones that deliberately enhance the connections we share, then there have to be those that are actively destructive towards them as well. Realistically, most actions probably fall somewhere in-between. But I think it's fair to say that things which are serve no other purpose than to undermine the dignity of life, or harm our ability to relate to each other, are probably evil.

 

[uumlau]

Interesting discussion, here. There is merit to both sides.

On the one hand, it is very easy to dismiss things that we simply "don't like" as "evil", even when we have no good reason to dislike other than unfamiliarity. That is definitely a common category error.

So that leaves us with either, "there is no such thing as evil," or "there is such a thing as evil." Is "evil" a legitimate category?

I believe it is a legitimate category, though it's often abused. Abusing the concept of "evil" is like bringing up Hitler and "Godwining" a thread:

I believe it is just as facile to deny that evil exists. Many are tempted to do so, however, perhaps because the concept gets abused so often, where "evil" is used to justify a merely personal opinion.

But as Rex points out, that murder is evil isn't merely a personal opinion, it's about as an objective moral fact as a value can be: it's held by nearly everyone, and we as a society tend to treat those who act on a "different belief system" (by committing murders) very harshly. The point of describing something as "evil" is to indicate that it is almost always obviously wrong in just about every imaginable circumstance.

We can come up with moral dichotomies, of course, like the trolley problem:

But in these cases, the dichotomy usually plays on the fact that both results are obviously "evil" to some degree. The trolley problem, in fact, plays on the dichotomy of whether it's OK to choose to kill the one person rather than let the trolley kill five people (through inaction). Many people will decide that it is better to let the 5 people die rather than to choose which set of people dies, while the rest will think that it's obviously better to save the five people at the cost of the one person.

My point is, the dichotomy wouldn't even work if there were no legitimate concept of "evil" that is beyond personal opinion.

In the case of the OP, the use of the word "evil" is a bit on the dramatic side. I doubt that Oro is seeing true evil, but that she is seeing a dark side of the ENFP type, the side that isn't about sprinkling rainbow glitter and handing out boxes of kittens:

As the video points out, even handing out boxes of kittens has undesirable side effects. The real focus of the thread is on how even the best of intentions can eventually lead one to make choices that most people would regard as wrong, perhaps even evil. That's really kind of a shock for an ENFP, who naturally regards themselves as being good to people, to realize that they're treating some people very badly, just because their ideals are being thwarted.

 

[Opal]

Is destroying a destructive force constructive? Can you extrapolate one's potential from one's past, or do our worldviews and behavioral patterns have potential to transform? If the infant that was beaten, or the four-year-old that was raped, grows into a sadist, is he or she evil?

Are "evil," "good," and "bad" even words worth using?

 

[uumlau]

Is destroying a destructive force constructive? Can you extrapolate one's potential from one's past, or do our worldviews and behavioral patterns have potential to transform? If the infant that was beaten, or the four-year-old that was raped, grows into a sadist, is he or she evil?

Are "evil," "good," and "bad" even words worth using?

I'm certain that you can construct a framework that omits such concepts. At which point, you would have to write essays to convey even a single idea to others who don't share that framework.

One of the things I've learned is that it is better to use the language that already exists between people to share concepts, than to laboriously insist that the existing language is wrong/useless and impose one's own version of "language" that is personally palatable. Such efforts almost always impede communication.

Another way to look at it: there is kind of an "uncertainty principle" of language. The more precise you are, the less understandable you are, and vice versa. Real communication is always a trade-off between precision and clarity. And "clarity" implies using common words with loaded meanings that are often very imprecise.