To go along with the fruitless series:
1. If there is evil that exists in the world - in the form of human evil - what can we do about it? Should evil human beings be allowed to roam around free? Should they be subject to capital punishment? Should they, if they are caught, be kept locked up in a place where they are unable to harm other human beings?
....we don't on the whole seem to care much though one way or the other as long as we are safe and if we ourselves are evil, we are able to rationalise (and if 'we' don't - I do).
Sometimes I wonder....!
2. How would one deal with brutal people? Are brutal people just 'born' brutal and evil? There are some kids who like hurting animals and kids smaller than they are, and there's no point or sense in saying that little kids who are victims themselves victimize others. It might be the case for some but there are kids who are victimised and yet they grow up to be kind and sensitive.
3. I've been reading Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness again - there's little point in saying that I don't agree with everything that Fromm has written but there are parts there that have made me travel through the corridors of evil and abuse. Add to that Scott M. Peck's People of the Lie - and Peck isn't given to being dramatic or over-the-edge just for the sake of being thus. He seems to be a calm and quiet person but doesn't seem shy of saying things that are seen as being politically incorrect in many circles, such as - 'evil people' exist. The other books that I've been reading and some essays too and their rather perceptive authors are goading me along. Haven't read an Agatha Christie in the last one month - but then I don't need to read her to remember her. I can hear her in my head alongwith Poirot and Miss Marple, thank you. I can't but feel that people who think or try to think the best of human beings regardless of how they behave are a little gullible if not downright foolish.
4. I guess all of the above would require me to define evil....or at least describe what I mean by the word. For all that - some other day.
6. I say the above is fruitless because I don't think I can really know for sure whether evil exists. I had been utterly convinced at some points that the idea of pure evil is something that I must have constructed to scare myself even though I've seen some evil myself in this world. I've seen more of hypocrites and liars and just plain vacuous people who are pompous more often than I'd like to and these sorts are no better really - but evil....I've seen it more in specific actions of people - which seem to be motivated by nothing other than evil. It really couldn't be anything else no matter how hard these people may rationalise.
7. Sometimes I am quite sure that I sense evil within me, which has nothing to do with anything on the outside....
So much for now.
2 comments:
If goodness is defined, with Schweitzer, as ‘reverence for life’ (the higher the life form, the greater the reverence), and love of life, evil may be defined as contempt for life, or even revulsion towards it.
Defined that way, all history, if properly read, stands testimony to the fact that evil is real, and it is always with us, though its power may wax and wane.
How to deal with brutal people: if they are instinctively and intensely brutal, first try to reform them, then restrain them (as in prison), and, if they are unmanageable and too dangerous, eliminate them swiftly and with the minimum of horror and pain.
It is good to feel the evil within ourselves now and then: it keeps us from getting holier than thou. And it is good to try and better ourselves as far as we can. But it doesn’t do to brood over it.
I shall be glad to answer more questions which may arise in your head.
Many thanks for responding Suvro da. The second and third part of your response remind me of what the Dalai Lama is noted to have said...
I see what you mean but only you would say something like: it is good that I/we feel the evil within myself/ourselves....!
Oh, and I haven't been brooding over this at all. I'd been obsessing over the whole thing...
Thank you too for saying that you'll answer any other questions. I'll be asking of course. I just don't want to be asking 77 million questions in one go - that's all.
Take care.
Shilpi
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