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Evidence of true evil

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  • 18-04-2016 11:55am
    #1
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,412 ✭✭✭✭


    I was listing to an interview with Robert Frisk on RTE radio, he was talking about the origins of isis : Anyway he talks about coming acreoss beheaded bodies in a morgue and then coming across a beheaded body with a dogs head sewn on to it is that evidence of true evil or maybe mental illness or evidence of nothing except savagery.

    Not talking about a man with horns or evil in a religious sense and I don't mean any disrespect to any one with mental health issues.


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    #2
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,261 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    No such think as evil. 'Evil' abdicates a responsibility to explain.


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    #3
    AnonoBoy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,559 ✭✭✭✭AnonoBoy


    I was pretty sure this was going to be a thread about Louis Walsh.


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    #4
    Speedwell
    Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭Speedwell


    AnonoBoy wrote: »
    I was pretty sure this was going to be a thread about Louis Walsh.

    I thought it was going to be a thread about Irish Water.


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    #5
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,412 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    endacl wrote: »
    No such think as evil. 'Evil' abdicates a responsibility to explain.

    The problem with that is that society or who ever always wants to frame the answer in some value based way i.e its the fault of colonial societies in the west ect.

    Why cant an individual act be examined in its entirety with out context.


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    #6
    AnonoBoy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,559 ✭✭✭✭AnonoBoy


    Speedwell wrote: »
    I thought it was going to be a thread about Irish Water.

    That's True Incompetency you're thinking of!


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    #7
    Speedwell
    Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭Speedwell


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The problem with that is that society or who ever always wants to frame the answer in some value based way i.e its the fault of colonial societies in the west ect.

    Why cant an individual act be examined in its entirety with out context.

    Because the "entirety" includes context.


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    #8
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,412 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    Speedwell wrote: »
    Because the "entirety" includes context.

    In a wider context yes, but beheading someone and sewing a dogs head on to a body should be examined as an act in and off its self first.


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    #9
    Speedwell
    Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭Speedwell


    mariaalice wrote: »
    In a wider seance yes, but beading someone and sowing a dogs head on to a body should be examined as an act in and off its self first.

    The act does not exist in isolation. That's just not how it works. If you were to go to court for that act, they would be required to evaluate it in context.


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    #10
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    mariaalice wrote: »
    In a wider context yes, but beading someone and sewing a dogs head on to a body should be examined as an act in and off its self first.
    If someone is willing to behead another person then an act such as sowing a dogs head on to a body doesn't really surprise me. Both acts are psychotic.


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    #11
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,261 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The problem with that is that society or who ever always wants to frame the answer in some value based way i.e its the fault of colonial societies in the west ect.

    Why cant an individual act be examined in its entirety with out context.

    Not at all. The colonial context provides a convenient framework. But asks the wrong question.

    The individual act is what I was referring to.


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    #12
    K-9
    Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    endacl wrote: »
    No such think as evil. 'Evil' abdicates a responsibility to explain.


    While I'd agree to an extent the likes of Ted Bundy, Fred West, Shipman... Some of the stuff in the news is very difficult to explain, murdering children eg. While often there are mental health and up bringing issues, sometimes there just is evil.

    ISIS and beheadings, probably. Sending 9 year old kids out as suicide bombs, definitely.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



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    #13
    RGDATA!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,324 ✭✭✭RGDATA!


    mariaalice wrote: »
    Why cant an individual act be examined in its entirety with out context.

    You're not examining it in its entirety without looking at context. What does "pure evil" mean to you anyway?


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    #14
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    K-9 wrote: »
    While I'd agree to an extent the likes of Ted Bundy, Fred West, Shipman... Some of the stuff in the news is very difficult to explain, murdering children eg. While often there are mental health and up bringing issues, sometimes there just is evil.

    ISIS and beheadings, probably. Sending 9 year old kids out as suicide bombs, definitely.

    I don't think it's comparable. You're listing people who killed for some form of pleasure whereas ISIS are killing for a cause they've made up in their own heads. They're for the most part uneducated, naive and brainwashed.


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    #15
    Princess Consuela Bananahammock
    Registered Users Posts: 33,241 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    mariaalice wrote: »
    I was listing to an interview with Robert Frisk on RTE radio, he was talking about the origins of isis : Anyway he talks about coming acreoss beheaded bodies in a morgue and then coming across a beheaded body with a dogs head sewn on to it is that evidence of true evil or maybe mental illness or evidence of nothing except savagery.

    Not talking about a man with horns or evil in a religious sense and I don't mean any disrespect to any one with mental health issues.

    Sounds like something that actually happened in Game of Thrones.

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



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    #16
    AudreyHepburn
    Registered Users Posts: 5,673 ✭✭✭AudreyHepburn


    I would be very slow use mental illness as an excuse for the barbaric things Isis do.

    For one thing it's unfair to those are genuinely mentally ill to lumped in with mad men who behead and blow people up because of some fanatical rubbish they've dreamed up.

    Secondly it does seem to imply some of sort diminished responsibility for their crimes, in much the same way as pointing fingers at the poverty in these countries or the interference of Western powers does.

    Isis, Isis, alone are responsible for their crimes, scapegoating and shifting responsibility for their horrific acts is just wrong.


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    #17
    K-9
    Registered Users Posts: 43,311 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    smash wrote: »
    I don't think it's comparable. You're listing people who killed for some form of pleasure whereas ISIS are killing for a cause they've made up in their own heads. They're for the most part uneducated, naive and brainwashed.

    Yeah, I suppose sending out 9 year olds as suicide bombers is incomprehensible though.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



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    #18
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    AudreyHepburn wrote: »
    For one thing it's unfair to those are genuinely mentally ill to lumped in with mad men who behead and blow people up because of some fanatical rubbish they've dreamed up.
    Not really. Mental illness covers a broad range of things. They're not all related but they're covered under the umbrella definition.


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    #19
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    K-9 wrote: »
    Yeah, I suppose sending out 9 year olds as suicide bombers is incomprehensible though.

    Of course it is. These guys don't discriminate, and that's the issue.


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    #20
    mariaalice
    Registered Users Posts: 12,412 ✭✭✭✭mariaalice


    RGDATA! wrote: »
    You're not examining it in its entirety without looking at context. What does "pure evil" mean to you anyway?

    I don't know. I but I did see an interesting documentary about Fred West not normally something I would watch.

    The psychologist explained it like this: Fred West grew up in a situation where incest and bestiality were normalised and then he met his future wife who has a very distinct sexual and emotional disposition and it was the combination of both their personalities that lead to the behaviour. In other words if they had never met they might not have become killers.


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    #21
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,419 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The problem with that is that society or who ever always wants to frame the answer in some value based way i.e its the fault of colonial societies in the west ect.

    Why cant an individual act be examined in its entirety with out context.



    Beheading in some quarters is not seen as a particularly barbaric act,nor is skinning and hanging a still living dog.


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    #22
    Steppenwolfe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 416 ✭✭Steppenwolfe


    mariaalice wrote: »
    I was listing to an interview with Robert Frisk on RTE radio, he was talking about the origins of isis : Anyway he talks about coming acreoss beheaded bodies in a morgue and then coming across a beheaded body with a dogs head sewn on to it is that evidence of true evil or maybe mental illness or evidence of nothing except savagery.

    Not talking about a man with horns or evil in a religious sense and I don't mean any disrespect to any one with mental health issues.

    What do you mean by true evil ? If you're not talking in a religious sense it means nothing.


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    #23
    Shenshen
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    If anyone's interested, a good read on the subject is Steven Pinker's "Better Angles of our Nature", where he's exploring violence in human history.

    Two of his arguments stand out in particular:

    1) If you build your life and identity on an unproveable idea, an idea that's insubstantial in nature, one you can't draw up any facts for, you will have a tendency to react more violently if you find that others reject that idea. Simply because that's the only way of action you have - you cannot argue for something you can't make others "see".
    It's an effect that's been seen in any culture that was built on religion anywhere.

    2) If you assume, based on your religion, that this life is nothing but a test and that death is a sort of rite of passage, life won't matter. Souls will.
    You will be much more ready to inflict pain and suffering in life, if you assume it all to be nothing but an illusion of sorts. You might even convince yourself that you are doing good by saving souls - both by killing unbelievers before they can sin more, and by deterring people who share your faith from renouncing it.


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    #24
    everlast75
    Registered Users Posts: 19,237 ✭✭✭✭everlast75


    As Morrissey once sang... "is evil something you are, or something you do?"


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    #25
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    The worst 'evils' are committed by those who are able to distance themselves from, and even politically legitimize, murderous acts - thus drawing-in entire countries/societies into the cumulatively 'evil' acts.

    The many-orders-of-magnitude difference between the two, make them wholly incomparable - legitimized evils are vastly worse, and far more damaging to the entire world, than the actions of a single psychopath (no matter how deranged).

    When we fail to recognize this ourselves and fail to act politically to stop it - failing our civic responsibilities - we're in on it too and share responsibility as well really.
    Everyday normal people are perfectly capable of accepting/assenting-to all sorts of 'evils' - though that term is such a non-descriptive/emotive one, that it's not very useful.


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    #26
    Stigura
    Registered Users Posts: 3,413 ✭✭✭Stigura


    KomradeBishop wrote: »
    Everyday normal people are perfectly capable of accepting/assenting-to all sorts of 'evils'

    Browning and 101 would seem to support that :(

    Of course, there'll be those in denial. Young Googleistas with dull axes :rolleyes:


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    #27
    darkpagandeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 24,465 ✭✭✭✭darkpagandeath


    Religious tomes are evil.... When will we got passed opinions from 2 thousand years ago ?


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    #28
    Stigura
    Registered Users Posts: 3,413 ✭✭✭Stigura


    Bible; 2000 years ago.

    Koran; Not 1500 old.

    Mein Kampf; Less than a century.

    Some people just can't put a good book down ;)


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    #29
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The psychologist explained it like this: Fred West grew up in a situation where incest and bestiality were normalised and then he met his future wife who has a very distinct sexual and emotional disposition and it was the combination of both their personalities that lead to the behaviour. In other words if they had never met they might not have become killers.

    But...he had killed before he met her...


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    #30
    Chain Smoker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,484 ✭✭✭Chain Smoker




    sorry.


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    #31
    Colser
    Registered Users Posts: 5,572 ✭✭✭Colser


    There were a few cases in the media very recently of what I would consider true evilness and related to adults (mainly parents)inflicting terrible pain and suffering on children.These werent a quick slap/beating in temper but long term unimaginable pain and torture. That to me is true evilness and I would have no problem seeing an eye for an eye kind of punishment being given to those responsible as they are the lowest form of life imo.


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