Where does it come from?

[Chaigidel]

Where does the willingness to do absolute evil come from? where is it in ourselves that we find the need to destroy with cruelty, with malice?

I cant remember the beginning of that movie but there was a movie, that had this long ass dissertation on where does evil come from, and I thought it was neato-- so here you are, a new topic in ethos not god related !!!

because we can operate for the sake of this discussion on the idea and understanding that it comes from mankind.

so more specifically is it our survival instinct? is it being territorial(sp)? is it our religions? is it our logic? is it our passions? is it our dreams? how did we get so creative with how we hurt one another? why do we do it with such unending fervor and madness?

[removeduser_4563362]

I don't think anyone knows. It's best you not think about it so much that you go crazy.. But that's just me.

[Ummagumma]

so here you are, a new topic in ethos not god related !!!

I'll give it no more than 4 posts before 'divine morality' or the devil being God's creation pops up..

Evil is superiority, jealousy, fear and/or a lack of understanding. There must be a dehumanisation of the victim. For some they do only what they consider the 'right' thing - even to the point of 'helping' the victim. Others do it as it has become the only way they can get a nice natural dopamine/oxytocin hit. As much of a bad cliché as it is, every serial killer I am aware of has had some form of emotional disturbance as a child, which must have forced their mind to develop in a different way to the rest of us. (Which also brings up the question of is it really their fault - most cannot help themselves due to their past...)

[Chaigidel]

well does it really matter at that point whose fault it is? it is a disease which continues itself eternally in every little crevice (evil) , my experience has taught me alot about evil I think, not only in myself but in others.

there is a kind of childish twisted glee, that you see in the eyes of people who are doing wrong and know it, ive seen it and lived it , and I regret it. but I feel evil within myself, great evil as Im sure every human knows is within themselves--- but the urge to do evil only comes with being self-centered. among one of the many great evils of amphetamines is its amazing ability to destroy the very substance of a person, it changes them into something that delights in wrongness, that revels in filth, and is in extasy with horror.(this all comes from the gradual self-centered existence that the addict develops this is probably true of more than just meth)
people do things every day that would turn our stomachs if we think too much about it, do you think that is within you ? to do such evil?

so my position is that evil is derived from selfishness.

[Maverick]

Where does the willingness to do absolute evil come from? where is it in ourselves that we find the need to destroy with cruelty, with malice?

Most people don't need to, they do it because it makes them feel good.

how did we get so creative with how we hurt one another? why do we do it with such unending fervor and madness?

Experience and probably environment, like how boys tend to physically abuse victims at school where girls prefer to abuse emotionally.

why do we do it with such unending fervor and madness?

I think a lot of people who you would call sadists were victims at one time or another. The animal response to victimization is rage, some people cope by externalizing the emotion through sadistic violence and others by internalizing it through self-hate -- it depends on the individual whether he or she identifies with the aggressor or victim, whatever is more cathartic. A lot of people who get off on violence or self-violence are probably like the rest of us -- they always want more. More money, more things, more rush, more power or submission. In the case of the former (is self-hate "evil"?), before we hear the news headline that someone was raped, beaten and strangled there is always the "making of the monster", over time to the point where violent fantasies eventually cross the finish line and the excitement comes from the act of murder, not sex.

Now, not all sadists go out and kill people, sadistic impulses to a point are probably extremely common. A lot of people get enjoyment out the failures of others, for example but that's not necessarily "evil".

Where does the willingness to do absolute evil come from?

I don't think evil comes from anywhere specifically. I think evil is from a void. Most evil people are easily distinguishable from average people, not for what they have but for what they are missing psychologically and biologically. Many don't experience any identifiable emotions like sympathy. Many don't have normal brain functions like a natural negative response to violent stimuli. These people are most commonly called sociopaths and I think they are the most capable of absolute evil, if they associate pleasure with other's pain and have no sympathy for the victims or guilt after the fact then they are capable at least of becomming serial killers and other monsters.

I think "evil" is probably not the best word to describe them. Evil implies "wrong" and "immoral", sociopaths only understand the concepts as words, they don't experience the necessary emotions and can't understand them.
I think "inhuman" is a little better, of course it's just a personal preference since neither accurately describe them but these people are human beings, they have "a" human experience but seem to lack "the" human experience... love, kindness, sympathy or any of our higher virtues, even if we average folks only have a microscopic amount in us, they have none.

I'm not exactly well-read so consider this inspired from the reader's digest version of psychoanalysis and behavioral science but at the same time I hesitate to think any of it is categorically incorrect, it makes sense to me and nobody out there truly understands the human mind anyhow.

***********

My earlier question "is self-hate 'evil'?" is on my mind right now. Assuming my oversimplified analysis is somewhat accurate, neither aggressors or victims consciously chooses their role, somewhat like sexual orientation. Why do we feel anger towards one and pity for the other? Now, the quick, smartass response to the question would be something like "it's your life, it's your right" but suicide, for example can seriously hurt other people indirectly. Now compare suicide with murder. Assuming the impetus, depression or sadism is involuntary and the result, the death of a human being is the same and we have no moral, religious or legal right to commit either act, why is it that we only feel murder is evil? Do we necessarily regard murder as evil because it's the more asocial of the two -- sadists can hurt many people, depressives only hurt themselves. Or is murder more evil in objective reality, outside evolutionary necessity, social sensibilities and herd mentality?

[KingDesra]

Well first off, everyone of us has the potential to do evil, from the smallest thing to something on a grand scale like genocide innocents. Where does it come from? Our human nature is where it comes from, its part of who we are as a people. I mean we all have our own personalities but even the most calm of men has the potential to become a murderer I mean we see it all the time and they know what they are doing all though some claim insanity, I find that just an excuse not to get the death penalty.
But within us we have evil, sometimes it can be brought out into the open and manifest itself as the most horrific.

[Gwendylyn]

Give me an example of absolute evil.

If it is the Hitler-type of evil, then you have to take into account that he believed he was doing good. If its the torture-little-animals-and-small-children type of evil, then you have to take into account mental illnesses and things like sociopathy and lack of empathy.

[KingDesra]

Well torturing and killing small children I really don't care what the guy has, he doesn't deserve to live. I mean like on the news, alot of these guys that do that sort of thing isn't crazy or suffer from mental illnesses, they have some sick sense of humor etc. So we can't say all these people have something wrong with them.
What burns me is that these people who do this gets life after taking so many. How does such deserve to live after killing women and children? But yeah its a form of what I consider absolute evil. Even more so the people who allow these people to live after committing such acts of disregard for human life.

[Gwendylyn]

It's not a debate about justice in relation to people who commit such abhorrent acts. It's more of a debate of what is evil any why it exists.

Plenty of them have mental illnesses or disorders. I'm sure the more psychologically inclined forum members will be free to elaborate or correct me, but there are many people that lack empathy in the world, and a handful of them develop sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies. Many of those people you see on these news have dissocial personality disorders or similar. That in no way is a statement on punishment of those individuals, but rather calls into question what one can define as absolute evil and partly answers the question of why people commit certain acts.

[Chaigidel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Evil- found this while puttering around this morning, somewhat reasonable scale of evil and what it is.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

"The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor causes a war betwixt princes."
-- Montaigne --

Very fitting if you ask me.

[kev-o]

Free will. Evil exist because one has the choice to do such evil. Like wise with good.

[Amorphos]

‘evil isn’t created it is made’ [quetz] ~ spot the difference.

one has to look to blame those who make people evil as much as those who perform the acts of it. can’t escape god and religion on this one; a religion that centres around demonizing and a god who punishes the unfortunate victims of evil made in them, are as much the problem as evil itself. similarly a society and environment that does the same just exasperates the problem, political correctness is an example of this.

this does not mean that individuals have no blame as they do, however we must look to how people react to things and take different roads accordingly. for example; many witches of old became satanists because some aspects of their religion was seen that way.

if you don’t follow the ‘right’ road you inevitably follow the wrong road, the tighter the restrictions on what the right road is, then the more people will follow the wrong road. once down that track it is difficult to go the other way especially as humanity covers a lot of ground in terms of difference.

indeed it is the differences between us that make us great; ‘genius is the result of the entire product of man’, thus we need to look to the whole rather than the individual to find ways of ridding us of evil ~ although that itself is probably impossible.

[Dayman]

There isn't such a thing as "absolute evil", because I don't think there is anything that anyone would condemn as absolutely evil.

[Ms. Theodora]

There is no such thing as absolute evil. There is opportunity, fear and desire.