Sure, we can disagree, Storm. I'm startled anyone could interpret my post as me defending evil.
I don't use the word, mostly. Many people do and it's a very powerful word. For me personally, I'm sure because of the particular way I evolved in my particular life, it has a primitive feel to it that conjures up something I don't like to participate in. I find that my own thinking about evil, or about human indifference to suffering, locks up, gets frozen, when I label a person "evil". I don't progress. I did not like People of the Lie for this reason.
I just progress more when I set boundaries in my own mind, my own personal way of using language to guide my thoughts and my life. This is an example. It has been helpful for me. I can see that the word is important to you, and I see its utility. Nobody else's brain has to work like mine does. (Thank heaven.)
My resisting using that label personally might be misunderstood. But that's why I said it has nothing to do with condoning cruelty or wanting perpetrators to not be held accountable. I think the way I would be more likely to describe people who torture animals, or human beings, is insane, or morally broken. I wish they were all safely locked up, and permanently.
Hmmm. Another thought. I think the word "evil" increases fear in my world. I don't like to feed that part of myself, because I am working on becoming happier and more effective. One example is trying to follow GS' example of paying closer attention to what I place in my head. In terms of thoughts, and the words that make up my thoughts.
But...I "see" with words, and I do see broken and dangerous people as human beings. I am not in the slightest denial about how destructive and amoral humans can be.
We are a stunningly complicated species.
Hops
Thanks, Hops. Indeed we are, but I think we also complicate things for ourselves quite often when there is no need. Now that they've discovered chimpanzees are spearing little sleeping bushbabies to death in their nests, I'm even more convicted with regard to the inhumanness of certain actions.
Here's a bushbaby. Fast asleep, defenseless against a spear? Talk about doomed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GalagoHere are some raccoon dogs, unwilling contributor to those stylish coats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_DogIf you wish to extend love to people who skin these pretty little animals alive because you truly believe that they are just like you, really, deep down inside, and that you are capable of that yourself, that's your choice; I hope, though, that if you had to face the natural consequences of that decision in realspace, you would recoil in utter horror.
I prefer to avoid such people, keep those I love out of range of any such, and work diligently, insofar as is within my scope, to limit their opportunities to do harm in this world.
But then, I know absolutely that I will never, under any circumstances, deliberately choose to skin an animal alive. I am a coward in some major ways, a lot of them places where I haven't figured out a 'good' way to respond to something 'bad'. But there are things I am willing to die for, and that includes certain convictions. I would starve before I would do something like that to any creature. I've put my money where my mouth is on a number of other occasions, over several other convictions, to the point where I've endured significant personal privation as a direct consequence. So I know this with certainty.
I think the bottom line is just that I'm less afraid of certain things than you are, and more afraid of certain other things than you are. I don't see that as stunningly complex - it's just a fact of life.
In a few decades, give or take, we'll both have our answers, and then we will know how well we chose the things we fear. Meanwhile, we disagree, and I will try to respect your choices while continuing to respect mine.
