The Way I Figure It

I must say that Brianna is right when she states that nowhere did she say one is either good or evil. She said evil must be confronted. You take issue with this statement, TW, because of the atrocities which have occurred in the name of confronting a supposed "evil." Am I correct in this understanding?

I know that evil DOES exist. I also realize that each side believes that it is on the side of the angels even as its members go about commiting unspeakable acts. Arendt called this this the "banality of evil." She came to her conclusions when she witnessed the trial of Eichman in Neurenberg. Eichman appeared as a person of small intellect, given to answering his questioners with cliche's and party propaganda. Arendt felt that people who think deeply about issues, who do not accept the party line - whether it be religous dogma or political idealogy - will not commit evil acts. Her belief was that any intelligent person will realize that by harming others, one ultimately harms oneself.

I think our current world situation is a beautiful example of the banality of evil in action. George Jr. is hardly an intellectual giant, in case no one has noticed. He buys into the dogma of the religous right and mouths its cliche's at every turn. Thus, we have the current conflict in Iraq. Were Junior to brought up before the judges at Nuremberg, I suspect that he would come off much as Eichman did. The same would be true of Saddam, of Bin Laden, of Pol Pot - the list goes on and on.

I agree with Brianna that evil must be confronted. It is the MANNER in which it is confronted that is crucial. There lies the crux of the problem.

[tw]

Originally Posted by marichiko

I must say that Brianna is right when she states that nowhere did she say one is either good or evil. She said evil must be confronted. You take issue with this statement, TW, because of the atrocities which have occurred in the name of confronting a supposed "evil." Am I correct in this understanding?

Brianna's post says evil exists - from the perspective of a god or from history - long after the fact. Therefore, she says evil must be confronted. But that is a completely different perspective. It assumes that evil can quickly be identified today and now. Not possible. Please tell me that an early 1930s Hitler was obviously evil in the early 1930s? You cannot. In fact, an early 1930s Hitler did good things for Germany - making him wildly popular among most all Germans and only suspected by his future victims. Even his victims did not see an "evil" Hitler. How does Brianna expect to see 'evil' during a time when Germans - people who lived with it - did not even see the evil?

We have a same example today. No one ever thought the US would attack another sovereign nation for no good reason. That would be 'evil'. That literally violates everythng the US stands for. And yet now we have a president who does just that. IOW according to Brianna's reasoning, we should have confronted evil - George Jr - even before the FL fiasco. Please show me anywhere that George Jr meets the critieria of evil in 1999? Or George Jr was right to confront evil in Iraq. Today we have a president that now meets the critieria of evil - having killed 200 iraqis per week - only because George Jr wanted to liberate a people who did not want to be liberated. He rationalized the axis of evil - which is sufficient to justify an invasion? By viewing everything in 'black and white', then George Jr became evil. He literally invaded Iraq for same reasons why Tojo attacked Pearl Harbor. Why is George Jr not evil and Tojo is evil?

We don't declare George Jr or Tojo as evil. Misguided. Ill informed. Stupid. Power crazed. All these can explain those gross mistakes. But that is not sufficient to define 'evil'.

Did Hitler liberate the Germans trapped in a racist Checkoslovakia? Did he annex Austria? Tell me in 1938, we should have been confronting evil when so many locally did not even regard the annexation of Austria as evil. How do we confront evil when it is not possible to identify pure evil?

Perspective. To confront evil, first Brianna must first say "one is either good or evil". Unfortunately many things that appear evil - Saddam's weapons of mass destruction - do not even exist. Show me all the evil held in Abu Ghraid? The greater evil appears to be the guards (actually their bosses) - not the prisioners. Having arbitrarily declared them as evil, then instead America became evil.

That is the problem with confronting evil as if everything is clearly 'black and white'. To confront evil means evil must first be identified - now and without question. Not possible. Again we have this problem with perspective. By the time evil is properly identified, evil has long since gone. How do you confront something that no longer exists?

When we made knee-jerk reactions to perceived evil, then we had the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquistion because nobody thought we would murder and torture innocent people. That happened because we arbitrarily defined everythng now - this minute - in 'good and evil' terms.

Perspective. To confront evil, Brianna must first decide immediately that "one is either good or evil". There are people with many different perspectives and opinions. In the south, blacks were evil because their skin was the color of evil - black.

Only after those perspectives and opinions so violate the norms (ie massacres), do we then confront the offenders. We call them wrong, or misguided, or illegal. But we don't call them 'evil'. The concept of 'evil' is something decided long after everything becomes historical. Far too late to *confront* the 'evil'. How do you confront evil if you cannot immediately see it? Again, a question of perspective.

Much too often, the innocent are murdered only because we then thought they were 'evil' - and immediately confronted them. It is the danger that religion can bring onto the world. This kneejerk reaction to evil is but another reason why religion does not belong in due process, the rule of law, and international relations. Nobody wants another Spanish Inquition - created because decisions were based upon 'good verses evil'. Confronting 'pure evil' results more often with intolerance - a greater evil.