Post by Emperor AAdmin on Dec 31, 2007 1:24:18 GMT -5
reposting
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Dijedon
(1/24/06 7:41 pm)
New Post: Does true evil exist? Your opinions?
This is a rather philosophical topic, a sort of brain-stimulating thread where we can reflect over the enigmatic topic of evil; whether it trully exists or whether "evil" men are simply disoriented individuals with traumatic childhoods and youth.
The reason why precisely this topic arose in my head was an essay dealing with this precise issue (the article was in Swedish) written by a doctor in philosophy named Joakim Molander. It was an interesting essay where he also reflected over the theories regarding evil formulated by another philosopher of Norwegian ethnicity, named Lars Svendsen, who has written an entire book dealing with evil entitled "Ondskans filosofi" ('The Philosophy of Evil').
Joakim Molander arguments for a theory of his concerning an alleged "blindness" of the Swedish society in relation to evil. In Sweden, indeed, there is a great caution in using this term. For instance, the killing of the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh at the hands of the Serb Mijailo Mijailovic was never condemned as "an evil act committed by an evil man" but rather a 'misfortune' conducted by a 'mentally ill' individual. It (the Swedish society) goes so far as to avoid this term even in connotation with Hitler, Milosevic or Saddan whom. in the eyes of most members of diverse nationalities, would be considered evil men. In Sweden, they were men who committed the horrific crimes they committed due to 'errors' during childhood, and not men who were evil and sadistic.
In his book, Svendsen formulates evil and narrows it down in four subgroups; demonisk ondska (demonic evil), instrumentella ondskan (instrumental evil), idealistisk ondska (idealistic evil) and dumma ondskan (stupid evil).
D emonic evil;
According to Svendsen, this is the traditional way of viewing/perceiving evil, i.e. it deals with sadism; to put others in pain simply because it hurts. Svendsen argues that by demonizing the doers of evil, we block ourselves from exploring the true depths of essential evil. By sorting out the sadistic crimes conducted by mentally ill individuals and concentraing on 'us' - the "sane" segment - we can explore the not so pleasant truths concerning this subgroup of evil. Many have tortured insects and animals for fun or put their sisters and brothers in misery without real reasons. Soldiers find pleasure in killing people (generally speaking).
According to Svendsen, however, these acts are ultimately not done because they in themselves allot pain, but because we find satisfaction for ourselves (this is, again, according to Svendsen; in my opinion, these two are interlinked, becasuse sadists are satisfied precisely by that; others beeing in pain).
Svendsen argues, rightfully in my opninion, that demonic evil can help us comprehend, for instance, the crimes in ex-Yugoslavia, the incidents in Abu Ghuraib in Iraq where Iraqi prisoners wee tortured, et cetera.
Instrumental evil:
This evil is comprised by deeds that in themselves bring pain/evil but are conducted for a higher, good, purpose. A good parallel might be Iraq, again; bombs and missiles were hurled at the Iraqis, and in themselves they contain evil because they bring death, but simultaneously they are conducted for the achievement of a greater good, e.g. the democratization of Iraq and the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein (whether these motives were the driving power behind US intervention in iraq is debatable, but my illustration is understandable).
Idealistic evil:
This evil is conducted by the terrorists, like Usama bin Laden. These individuals are convinced that they are doing smth 'good' by conducting evil acts, like suicide bombings which aim at the elimination of 'infidels' and the 'evil' West but in reality do not bring much besides misery and death. This type of evil is more common than sadistic evil in my opinion, far more common. Those who conduct this type of evil do not view the acts as evil at all - it is evil in itself which is beeing fought. A good example here is George W Bush too.
Stupid evil;
This was an interesting analysis of Svendsen. This type of evil brings us again to the US (as well as Serbia, for which I will argumentate soon). The 'patriotism' displayed by many Americans in a sign of support to the US troops over seas is by Svendsen considered a variant of what he labels "stupid evil".
According to him, stupid evil occurs when there's an absence of moral reflection. This occurs when groups/socities are dense, when the individual in the group cease to think for himself and consequently ceases to question the values of the larger group. For instance, in the US, questioning the war in Iraq or the Bush administration's motives is a sign of treachety, not beeing loyal and supportive to the fighting soldiers. Questioning and reflections are thus blocked out, and those who dare to go against the mobb is bullied, as is so well illustrated in the book "Lord of the Flies" by Wiliam Golding.
Another example is the case of the Nazi SS-officer Adolf Eichmann who wasn't a convinced Nazi, nor an abnormal individual with sadistic perversions. He simply followed orders. Hannah Arendt wrote after the court a book entitled "The banal evil" where she deals with this phenomenon. This is how she reflected the issue and Eichmann in particular;
Quote: The problem with Eichmann was that there were so many others like hi; these were neither saddistic nor perverts - they were and still are frightingly normal. Based on our juridical norms and moral institutions this type of normality was far more frightening than all other types of cruelties combined, because it meant that these types of criminals committ their crimes under circumstanes that disables them to know or sense that what they are doing is completely insane.
Naturally we can speculate whether Eichman was 'normal' or not, if he trully wasn't a sadist afterall. But this analysis was conducted by others besides Arendt as well, by, for example, Gitta Sereny in her books about Abert Speer, Franz Stangl and Mary Bell. Imre Kertész reflects a similiar phenomenon in his book, but from the viewpoint of the victim.
Stupid evil can also be seen in Serbia where the fascist ideology advocated by nationalists and extremists isn't challenged as frequently due to the fear of individuals of beeing freezed, as was the case of Miroslav Filipovic who was threatened to death and others.
I welcome your opinions and philosophical reflections!