What Is Evil?

[diurnal_lee]

A few days ago, njc2007 talked about an answer than sprang, fully formed, visciously drawn, and passionlessly delivered, to her lips in response to an ethical question. I know I've answered questions before without conscious processing or formulation of the answers, but I think never in the articulate way she described. My unconscious answers tend to be

Comments

[fajrdrako]

See my reply on my LJ.

[amazon_syren]

Unneccesary cruelty.

I mean, you'd think that all cruelty, being cruelty, would be unneccesary. But what I mean is... If you tell your kid that, no, zi can't stay out late on a school night, well, zi's going to think that you're the cruelest mom in the known universe because it's Really Important to go to this social event and everyone else is going and zi needs to remain part of the scene.
But I would argue that it's a necessary cruelty, because the kid does need to get up the next morning and be awake enough to absorb at least some of the stuff zi's required to absorb so that zi can graduate highschool (or whatever) and get on with hir life.

Whereas an unneccesary cruelty would be, like... ostrascizing someone because they wore the wrong brand/colour/style of shoes. Or what have you.

So that's my thought on that one.

[dewline]

I might suggest that "neglect" is too all-encompassing, and yet not thorough enough at the same time. There needs to be a qualifier of "willful" and/or "deliberate" or "planned", as well. At minimum.

I've hung around too many courtrooms and watched too many legal dramas, hence the abovewritten. Because it's not thorough enough.

[duncanmac]

Agreed. I too came up with my own definition to try and cover this.

[njc2007]

What is evil to me?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, evil is defined as morally wrong or wicked. Of course, this raises a plethora of questions. What is morality? What is right and wrong? Define wicked. I could go on ad nauseum.

In my opinion, the word evil is bandied about so frequently that it has lost its meaning. It is used too often to mean something that is unacceptable, undesirable, or simply bad. Bad does not equate to evil. The mandarin orange that had gone bad in the box of oranges was not evil.

For me, evil would have to be something or someone with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Where there is still capacity for redemption of some kind, there may be badness without evilness. Also, there may be a requirement for intent; but I haven't been able to get my head around that yet.

On another note, thank you for calling my response articulate. Also, the lyrical way you described that response brought a smile to my face. Lee, you have a wonderful way with words.