way off topic evil or insane

[Alistair Hosie]

I have a friend of mine a psychologist who thinks there is no such thing as evil he believes that people who are commonly categorised as evil are insane or suffer fro psychological problems.I say poppycock there are some really evil people.I do think that people like Herr Hitler was both insane and utterly evil and some just bent on doing bad to others ,what do you guys think???Alistair

[dan s]

you freind is a psychologist, enough said......

A lot of the sudo scientists hate it when they can't easily catagorize something.

[SGW]

Okay, so insane people do evil things. What does that get you, except a semantic exercise?

[Alistair Hosie]

SGW no my friend makes the excuse they are insane therefore are not evil.I think many people are just evil "insane or otherwise".Alistair

[malbenbut]

A friend of mine who was a counseller at a local prison said 99% of prisoners had mental problems and that the other 1%were in for stealing to fund their drug problem
MBB

[Blacksmith]

I think I pretty much look at it the same way. Some people are evil, and others are insane. That is pretty much the devision in the public and also in the law. If one is lucky that is about as complex as it gets. If you are unlucky you may run into evil lunatics, some whose lunacy and evil overlap, or maybe are discreet. Luckily in my life I rarely run into these people, or know that I have. Psychopaths for instance are said to be about 3% of the population, but they cover it pretty well, bosses aside.

I don't really get what Hitler was up to, in the sense that he seemed to have seriously conflicting objectives, like the social project in many ways cost him progress in the war; What he wanted seems stupid, but he could write a book on it and convince massive groups of people, not all of whom could have been equally deranged (in the rest of their lives).

There is also evidence that some of his more menacing themes arose from his early political days, and consisted mainly of finding what kind of themes could elicit sufficient support to advance his political career. So was he a true believer or an opportunist. More labels.

He was an Iron Cross winner (more than once I think) in the first world war.

His personal story is pretty complicated. I'm not trying to argue anything about the history of that time, I admit to being mostly ignorant of it. My main point is that it serves us to have simple catagories for various purposes. Hitler is one of those guys who makes catagorization difficult, It's not that there is any doubt of his evil, it's just a mater of there being so many possible labels, it stretches my understanding to even contemplate them.

Sanity is basically a go or no go gage for determining whether non-criminals, none the less get comited, medicated, whatever. Or that criminals get streamed into either prisons, executions, or if "insane", go to mental fascilities. That is largely a word with institutional force, or of utility in comedy "he's so nuts...". Does it really explain the world at some deep level?

Evil is a somewhat complicated term depending on the religious or other world views of the people using it. It allows one to quickly determine whether certain actions, or people, are in line with moral beliefs, etc... That is very important also, but it isn't as though we are describing taxonomy here, where you belong to this group if you have six legs, but not if you have 8. I asume that Al Quaeda still see the difference between spiders and insects.

[Alistair Hosie]

My friend Roberts argument is that evil does not exist.Alistair

[Allan Waterfall]

My friend Roberts argument is that evil does not exist.Alistair

Tell him to look under the bed and see if the "guzunder" is full.

Allan

[rotate]

My friend Roberts argument is that evil does not exist.Alistair

To your friend this may indeed be true. Ask him what his defintion of evil is? I bet it's some twisted and delusionary one.

[Doc Nickel]

There is no such thing as "evil". For that matter, there's no such thing as "good", either. They're conceptual constructs like love and hate.

Just as two people can look at the same piece of artwork, and one will love it while the other will hate it, the similar concepts of "good" and "evil" are very little more than points of view.

But since one person "hates" that art, that doesn't make the art hateful or evil, or any other descriptor. It's the same piece of art the other loves. The difference is merely one of viewpoint, opinion, and personal morality.

Doc.

[Alistair Hosie]

Doc I wouldn't equate disliking a peace of art with real hatred they are both very different are they not? nobody really hates art in the real sense of hatred.Alistair

[lazlo]

I think your friend the psychologist is evil Alistair

[J.Ramsey]

All a psychologist is IMO is a person with a degree who gets paid to tell a person what they already know.

[Evan]

The people that would be normally characterized as "evil" are the psychopathic personalities. The main common characteristic is a complete lack of empathy for other people and even animals. Think Hannibal Lecter.

Evil is a religious concept and is/was used to demonify those whom the church didn't like for some reason. It is the antonym of good as in "doing good works" vs "doing evil". The Devil is evil, the insane are merely ill. To believe in the concept of evil as it has been used through the ages means also believing in the Devil. That of course presupposes a belief in God as well.

If one does not believe in the existence of a supreme being then the concept of evil is meaningless in the classical sense.

[dp]

One form of evil is when people take complex and very esoteric topics and reduce them to inane platitudes. Not that any of us would do that...