Evil

I ve been thinking.

Do you find yourself particulary interested in evil?

Examples:

Villains or Anti-Heroes in movie or cartoons (I ve always cheered for Dick Dastardly)
Sexual partners (Evil woman or man)
Religion (Description of Hell, Wrathful Deities, Demons)
History (Wars)
Videogames( Kirby the most evil, he kills with a huge smile on the face)
Black Humour.
Athletes (against fair play)
Misanthope Philosophies
To be against for the sake of being against
Myself? I mean do you consider yourself evil?

I am not supporting it. I am just wondering if that relates to our generation or maybe to spd. I think it is a combo of the two.

stirner wrote:Black Humour.

I love black humour! It even often comforts me more in grim situations than the typical "comforting words".

Other than that... I think "pure evil" is too one-dimensional for my taste. In fiction, I find the morally ambiguous, conflicted and seemingly-evil-but-really-only-broken characters much more interesting than any plain evil villain.
Besides, the definition of "evil" is so blurry. I tend to think of "pure evil" as remorseless sadism, but many people seem to include selfishness into "evil" That's... weird, because as I see it, real selflessness is a questionable freak occurence, while selfishness (clear or hidden) is the rule.

Only black humor, really. And being, in general, contrarian.

Never evil though. It's not that I've never loved villainous characters, but it's far from being a deciding factor for me.

I can only agree with you stirner. I love the evil ones in movies.

Besides, the definition of "evil" is so blurry. I tend to think of "pure evil" as remorseless sadism, but many people seem to include selfishness into "evil" That's... weird, because as I see it, real selflessness is a questionable freak occurence, while selfishness (clear or hidden) is the rule.

I was not ashamed from evil. But I liked your definition.

"Good" people are so damn sadistic, they demand you to be good like them and usually employ many sadistic ways of enforcing it.

That is why I like villains and anti-heroes, they seem free.

Now remorse seens true kindness. You have no will of hurting others, that is different from "good".

Oh, and I guess I can more easily inhabit a moral grey area. We were reading The Giver in a book club, and I found myself in the position of defending the idea of killing off the elderly at a certain age as a cultural rite and not an atrocity, and that it's easy to pass moral judgement, but the characters from the book might be equally offended that we let our elderly wither and die in depressing old age homes, in pain, demented, and suffering.

I used to be a Hitler freak in my teens. Not going around saying Heil Hitler, but my parents had a book, the Life and Times of Adolf Hitler, and I read it a couple times. You may be familiar with Hannah Arendt's saying about, "the banality of evil", but Hitler was like KISS in those days. Stalin and Mao may have killed millions more, putting their citizens through a burning kiln of starvation and torture, but they had no PR. Nazis had the swastika (at least their tilted version of it off the Hindus) and the parades and the fancy choreography and the goose-stepping und fiery speeches, und icy clean and fresh Aryan youth. The Nazis, when they weren't being evil, were simply wacky and weird as ###$, and that's why they get most of the attention when it comes to WWII.

stirner wrote:I ve been thinking.

Do you find yourself particulary interested in evil?

I am not supporting it. I am just wondering if that relates to our generation or maybe to spd. I think it is a combo of the two.

Interested yes, but not generally supporting it. I find the underlying dynamics interesting. And also the question, what makes people evil, really? Is it hereditary or has it developed? etc. pp.

Villains or Anti-Heroes in movie or cartoons (I ve always cheered for Dick Dastardly)
yes

Sexual partners (Evil woman or man)
somewhat

Religion (Description of Hell, Wrathful Deities, Demons)
no

History (Wars)
a little

Videogames( Kirby the most evil, he kills with a huge smile on the face)
no

Black Humour.
yes, like it a lot

Athletes (against fair play)
no

Misanthope Philosophies
yes

To be against for the sake of being against
no

Myself? I mean do you consider yourself evil?
no

Do you find yourself particularly interested in evil?
Somewhat, yes.

Villains or Anti-Heroes in movie or cartoons
Always prefer the villain. They actually have depth; the writer's goal is to make you detest them, but still see something to admire in them. That way, they're something relatable. Superheroes however, don't have that. They're too "perfect" to us; non-corruptible. That's not human. The Joker, for instance. He was corrupted. He created his own religion, and countless people follow him. That's amazing. Batman- a masked rich guy who fights bad people... without killing them 'cause he hates guns. I prefer the ruthless vigilante who guns down evil. "Solves it," permanently. The Joker again, in the movies, killed only the "bad" people. He was much like Bat-man, except his methods were exacting. I like the definite sense.

Sexual partners
I've always wanted a woman stronger than I am; one who could unflinchingly drown a kitten in a toilet, but had the moral power not to. I wanted one rough and sort of abusive, but mostly because the idea of turning the tables on her in bed would give me a lot of "wiggle room," Yup. Lots of fantasies there.

Religion
I've always favored the good guy here; never the "bad guy." What's right is right, what's wrong is wrong. I don't care so much for what's wrong, but am liberal with the gray area. Lucifer? Bad guy. Jesus, God? Good guys. But, I hate that our society thinks Gandhi said "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." He never said that. Rape the rapist; kill the killer. Lock them in prison forever, and the tax dollars start to moan...

History
I "cheer" for the bad guy, but only because I think our modern teachings are laden with propaganda and lies... Ever notice how every "enemy" America has ever had is almost demonic? I look past that. Not because I admire their evil nature, but because I know that the whole "lust for power" concept is completely contrived. Every dictator who ever came to power didn't do so because he was a narcissistic jerk, but because he truly believed he knew what was good for his people... Just so happens killing their enemies was the recourse they took. Wrong, to a certain extent.

Videogames
I judge them based on character. The more interesting, the better. Games like Far Cry 3 illustrate this. I always like to find the motive of the "bad guy." Playing super-hero games, I'd like a shot to side with the villain.
Generally though, I actually *try* to avoid running people over. Then it happens, and I just say screw it...

Black Humour.
I enjoy quite a bit of black humor. It makes Tarantino movies very enjoyable to me.

Athletes (against fair play)
Survival of the fittest. Frankly, I believe these modern-day gladiators are overpaid. That money could go towards education.

Misanthrope Philosophies
Humans are evil. No doubt about that. But they are also good; I see that in them from time to time, beyond the self-indulgent behavior they act on. They're bad because they know not what they do.

To be against for the sake of being against
Never.

I mean do you consider yourself evil?
I could become the bad-guy at the end of the movie, yes. But, I can just as easily save your life and feel good about it. It all depends; where do I want to be?

It relates to our generation, not necessarily SPD. More people buy Mein Kampf than ever, now. People are anti-semites, people hate capitalists, people hate religion, people hate people. It's a symptom of the culture, and sometimes it's misdiagnosed as mental illness- unless our culture breeds that, which in turn shows a comorbidity between moral decline and mental illness...

That aside, much of what I believe about evil is linked back to history. Evil to me, and evil to the modern culture, are two different things. Modern "society," and "civilization" itself is a fabrication of reality. People kill people. It's what they do. Pacifying them, denying them that nature, aims for a utopian "ideal" that will only lead to the need for a federal entity to kill them instead. Probably by unleashing the beast trapped within... I don't know though. It seems to me like the larger the population, the more resentful and dissociated they become with one another. "Big city mentality" up against rural lifestyle, ya' dig? We're increasingly populist, and we don't like it. At some point though, we'll decide to declare open season on humans. There simply isn't enough wealth in resources to support 10 billion selfish assholes.

Caged In wrote:History
I "cheer" for the bad guy, but only because I think our modern teachings are laden with propaganda and lies... Ever notice how every "enemy" America has ever had is almost demonic? I look past that. Not because I admire their evil nature, but because I know that the whole "lust for power" concept is completely contrived.

Yes, that was what I was saying about being against. Ok Putin, Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi, Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad none were Mahatma Gandhi. But what about Bush, Obama, Clinton? Ok maybe Clinton was the good guy, after all look the way he was sent off for just a blowjob. Kidding.

Now there is another dimension of history. Callouness.

Dont you think history of Europe could be resumed like this.

England: Ok France, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Spain ... You fight each other, I gave the support to the weakest so any of you shall win. While you do so, I conquer the rest of the world. If something goes wrong we call Russia.

Russia: No country shall be stronger than me at europe.

France, Prussia, Austria ...: This is not fair, we won, but British got all the gold.

Caged In wrote:Every dictator who ever came to power didn't do so because he was a narcissistic jerk, but because he truly believed he knew what was good for his people... Just so happens killing their enemies was the recourse they took. Wrong, [i]to a certain extent.

I fear more idealists than jerks. But arent narcissists idealistic jerks?
Besides, democracy, monarchy or tyranny every government is an oligarchy. Furthermore, goverment just act using people, so blaming government is just an excuse.