Evil people?

[enchanted spirit]

This has sort of been bugging me the past few days, so I decided to broach this subject to see what you all think.

The other day someone was telling me about a famous football player who is "evil". I don't follow football and know little about the situation, so I asked why the person would say something like that. They responded with a list of this person's wrongdoings, which aren't very nice, granted, but evil? I don't know. So I said, "That's interesting that you would say that, but I don't believe that people are evil. Although it doesn't seem that the person is making very good choices." Then this person when on rather heatedly that there ARE evil people in the world, what about murderers? Aren't they evil? Etc.

I changed the subject and haven't revisited it. My concern is that this a person that I am considering letting into my life in a big way. Am I being nitpicky? I truly don't believe that people are evil. Is that unusual? I think that it is necessary to have positive and negative in the world, and while we should have our boundaries and not be doormats, we shouldn't judge others. I try not to comment on another person's actions because I don't know why they do something. IF I do comment, I try to keep it action based, not person based. I can't even imagine saying that a person IS evil.

What do you all think? Are there EVIL people in the world? And is it extreme to say something like that about someone? Or am I just overly sensitive about this? And that said, please be nice! Obviously this is already weirding me out.

 

[olivia1]

What do you all think? Are there EVIL people in the world? And is it extreme to say something like that about someone? Or am I just overly sensitive about this? And that said, please be nice! Obviously this is already weirding me out.

yes, i believe there ARE evil people in the world. i think people who physically torture others for kicks are evil. Those who molest and kill children, animals, and the elderly (hell, any human who feels the need to torture another in that way) is evil. I was watching crime tv and it talked about these two guys who kidnapped 2 teenage girls and drove them up to a canyon. prior to killing them, they had the girls beg for their lives and then would jam a knife in their ear anyway to kill them. that's evil.

and i wouldnt feel the need to convince others that these kind of people are evil to justify my own belief. however, it would puzzle me how anyone would not think that these people are evil.

 

[Bhavana]

I suppose this depends on your definition of evil, which can be broad. Let's say that a member of your family is murdered - not a crime of passion, but a planned, thought out crime for money or some other gain. Suppose the murder was brutal, and your loved one died a horrible painful death, and the person who did it felt no remorse. Would you think that someone like that is evil? Or do you think that they just need a nice hug and a good therapist?

What about people who hurt children? Predators who kidnap innocent kids and say, keep them in a shed in their backyard for 20 years? Or worse - rape and murder a 3 year old?
I don't know you personally, but I sometimes think that people who have never been the victims, or never had a family member who was a victim of a violent crime, have a hard time grasping the idea of there truly being people in the world who are just no good. I always think of this one interview I heard with a man who worked for the FBI as a profiler - he said that people who don't believe that evil exists have never listened to some of the tapes he has that were made by killers who liked to keep video mementos of their crimes - tapes of grown people crying for their "mommy" as they were being tortured to death.

To me, an evil person is someone with no empathy, no conscience, that would hurt another person for their own gain, or for personal satisfaction - i.e. serial murderers. Whatever the reason, the fact is that they are capable, unlike most of us, of causing - without any regretful feeling - extreme pain to another human being - or even innocent animal. Hey, maybe your friend was talking about Michael Vick, convicted torturer of animals and football star? Well - not really a star - he ain't doin' so good professionally these days, poor guy... =)

I am with your friend. I think that there ARE evil people in the world. There may be different levels of evil, but it exists, just like good exists. Of course some murderers have bad childhoods, or were abused themselves - but so have many people been thru those things, they don't all go down the wrong road in life...so I think that there is just something missing in some people, and combined with a bad enviroment, they are capable of horrible things...and then there are some people who have come from perfect loving homes and turned out bad. So you never know.

As long as you respect each other's opinions, I think that it is ok to have a relationship with someone who has some different views than your own...you can't expect them to think exactly like you do, and that would be boring anyway..having different ideas about things is good, and helps you to learn to look at things in ways you wouldn't have. As for me, I love a good debate. And as long as the person is on the same level as you (for the most part) morally and about life long goals and plans, things should be ok.

 

[Carla]

I don't believe that people are evil as in born in a sinful, degraded state and in need of salvation. But I do believe that SOME people are evil, and it's not just because of what has happened to them in this life. I think that some people are just evil. These people are very rare, and they do unspeakable things. Sometimes people are labelled evil when they are merely mentally unbalanced. I do not include those people, though they do often perform evil actions. It's sociopaths that I consider evil. There is no known successful treatment for sociopaths, and I would class them as actually evil. This condition exists, I've read, in approx 4% of the population. I know that many would class this as another form of mental illness, but in my mind it is their lack of conscience and inability to rehabilitate that makes sociopaths personifications of evil.

 

[Debra]

There are people who not only do good, but seem to exude goodness; they attract others and leave a trail of light behind them.

I think it goes the other way as well, thinking of the same examples as Carla, bhavana, and Olivia1.

 

[caridwen]

This has sort of been bugging me the past few days, so I decided to broach this subject to see what you all think.

The other day someone was telling me about a famous football player who is "evil". I don't follow football and know little about the situation, so I asked why the person would say something like that. They responded with a list of this person's wrongdoings, which aren't very nice, granted, but evil? I don't know. So I said, "That's interesting that you would say that, but I don't believe that people are evil. Although it doesn't seem that the person is making very good choices." Then this person when on rather heatedly that there ARE evil people in the world, what about murderers? Aren't they evil? Etc.

I changed the subject and haven't revisited it. My concern is that this a person that I am considering letting into my life in a big way. Am I being nitpicky? I truly don't believe that people are evil. Is that unusual? I think that it is necessary to have positive and negative in the world, and while we should have our boundaries and not be doormats, we shouldn't judge others. I try not to comment on another person's actions because I don't know why they do something. IF I do comment, I try to keep it action based, not person based. I can't even imagine saying that a person IS evil.

What do you all think? Are there EVIL people in the world? And is it extreme to say something like that about someone? Or am I just overly sensitive about this? And that said, please be nice! Obviously this is already weirding me out.

Interesting subject

From my point of view we are all capable of every part of being human and that includes bad as well as good. I don't believe in good or evil as I think those terms are subjective. To one person a great evil may be to another, a great good. One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.

I'm not going to go the Hitler route and cite war crimes and many countries and so called 'great leaders' have been guilty of atrocities. I very much doubt a footballer has done anything in comparison to Reagan's Foreign policy for example. However it depends on one's moral compass. I believe adultery is wrong yet some cultures condone polygamy and others view fidelity as dependent on whim.

There was a very famous experiment (the Milgrim Experiment) carried out after the second world war because those who learned about the death camps (which the British invented btw) couldn't comprehend how a human being could treat other human beings so appallingly. This is not about the leaders but those ordinary people who carried out the most brutal and inhumane orders. What we think we are capable of and what we are actually capable of are two very different things.

 

[Debra]

Being a soldier is a far cry from torturing someone for pleasure.

Funny you mention the Milgram experiments. Researchers did find that a surprisingly high percentage (roughly 2/3) would obey instructions to "hurt" someone (it was all an act) if they thought it was for a good purpose (in the original experiments, the purported purpose was a scientific experiment). However, when people had physical proximity to the person supposedly being "hurt" --the more clearly they could hear them, or see them--they much more quickly refused to cooperate. The researchers themselves distinguished between ordinary and sociopathic responses.

 

[obeygravity]

I feel like the idea and concept of good and evil is soo... silly. People often times like to look at certain kinds of people like murderers and rapists and call them evil but then you have to look at animals that do the same thing and wonder, are they evil too (as mallard ducks are prone to gang raping their females and there are acts of 'murder' that occur throughout nature, and I don't mean acts of killing done for food, either). It's a man made concept and I think it's just kind of silly. To me, it seems to simplify the human psyche way too much. We are not good or evil, we just are. Some people do certain things, not because they have the blood of the devil coursing through their veins, but because their brains are hardwired in such a way that causes them to not fully understand a lot of social norms. I mean, when you boil it down, good and evil is just way too relative. Everyone has their own guidelines for what's good and what's bad and to try and state that someone is evil is almost foolish because there's no universal guideline for what's good and evil.

Even when you talk about people like sociopaths, I feel like it's very difficult to try put them in a 'bad' class. Not all sociopaths kill, not all sociopaths rape, or do bad things. Sociopathy just means that they do not fully understand and comprehend the way the rest of society works and they actually believe that they exist outside of that jurisdiction. I know people with sociopathic tendencies and I can honestly say that they are not by any means evil, they just function differently.

I guess I'm also under the impression that everyone, at some point in their life, will do something that falls outside of society's standards for what's appropriate and what isn't. It may not be something as big as committing murder, but I feel like everyone will, at one point in their life, experience a moment when they do something without any want, need, or care of how it will effect other people. Will we regret it at a later date? possibly, not always. But I just feel like there's just too many things that go on in the human brain, too many variables that we, quite simply, do not understand, to possibly try and state that anyone or anything is good or evil.

 

[obeygravity]

Yeah, but we're not ducks, you know? Right and wrong exist for us.

Doing something wrong is not necessarily the same thing as being evil, in my mind. I guess for me the big distinction is not the capability of doing wrong, which we all possess, but the complete absence of conscience. I find that deeply frightening and it's my definition of true evil. I hope no one who 'functions differently' ever crosses paths with anyone you love. Not meaning to sound rude.

Right and wrong exist because we made it exist. The things that we use to define what is good and evil are things that we personally invented, and as time will go on, these standards will change, and the more we learn about ourselves as individuals and as a species, those standards will change as well. There are many kinds of people who kill in cold blood and have no real conscience for it, but what separates them is that some are actually getting paid to do it, because our society finds some forms of cold blooded murder to be perfectly acceptable. Though, also, truth be told, I don't appreciate that comment hahaha. I suppose I'm also speaking as someone who was actually going to make a career out of studying people who, by our society's standards, are sociopaths and psychopathic, because at the end of the day, there is a cause for what makes them function, be it genes or simply how they were raised. There is a cause for everything and, again, I guess I also feel like it's almost naive to try and label anything as good or evil. It's just too easy to judge what it is that we do not understand.

 

[Debra]

Well, sure, events and behaviors have causes. That doesn't negate the legitimacy of the label.

Someone who deliberately and persistently demonstrates loyalty is a loyal person.
Someone who deliberately and persistently demonstrates patience is a patient person.
Etc.
Do it enough, and it becomes a hallmark of your character.

There are a zillion good examples of how different cultures have different views on right and wrong, but there are limits. We're a flexible species, but not infinitely flexible.

Do you think that "foreign" cultures accept serial murderers as okey-dokey?