Quiz time!

[andrewducker]

[Poll #117530]

Comments

[sneaks.livejournal.com]

i can see the answers, nah nah nah nah nahh :P
think theres a bug in here. hmm

[weetanya.livejournal.com]

I had to make up my own answers...

1. Violence is permissible
Tough question. I think we've all got filters for when violence is and isn't appropriate. I'd say the short answer is "when it feels right." This would make my natural alignment Chaotic Neutral.

2. If an evil person does something
Are there evil people, or are we all self-interested to varying degrees?

3. If something is illegal
You have to figure out for yourself whether you agree. (With that Chaotic Neutral again.)

4. If everyone else thinks you're doing the wrong thing
You should probably think hard about whether or not you're sane, they're sane, or the situation is sane.

5. If there are lots of evil people
We call them "pro football players" or "politicians".

6. If it's not possible to do a major good thing without some bad consequences
We shoot the baby.

[broin.livejournal.com]

'Evil people'.

Point one out to me, wouldja? ;)

[andrewducker]

I'm going to classify both Saddam and his elder son as "evil".

I'm happy to agree that evil is a purely subjective term, with no real meaning apart from "does things I really don't like" but when people indulge in torture and murder for fun and profit, it's an easy word to use.

Oh, Hitler too. and Stalin.

I'm not saying htose people didn't have good in them, or couldn't be rehabilitated, or that they couldn't have turned out differently in a different world. But bearing in mind all the caveats of the second paragraph, I'm happy enough to use it occasionally for people that commit acts that I find despicable.

[shannon_a]

Ah. I thought we were talking about Bush.

[andrewducker]

Bush hasn't done nearly enough for me to classify him as evil. Rumsfeld comes closer, but even then I don't know about it.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Of course, John Ashcroft should also go on that list as would at least a quarter of all world leaders (most but certainly not all being in the 3rd world) and a great number of corporate heads. Ridding the world of any sensible definition of evil is neither simple nor easy and if done via violence, the war would likely never end (especially since more vile leaders are almost certain to spring up like the regenerating heads of a hydra).

can't answer the poll

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

You sure you don't work for a polling place in the States? Your questions are set up to get very specific answers, and I'm not sure I even agree with the questions.

Evil people? Don't believe in them. Case in point: my father.

1.) Burned my face with a cigar when I was five.
2.) Killed a few kids his own age (and a few older men) when he was in Korea.
3.) Carried me to the hospital in his arms when I was fourteen and almost dead.
4.) A beautiful artist, before his hands started to shake.
5.) Went to church three times a week when he was a kid.
6.) Hooked on crack and heroin and methamphetamine when I was a kid.
7.) Believes in heaven, doesn't know if he's going there.

Is my dad evil? I don't know. Am I? Is anyone?

A.

Re: can't answer the poll

[mysticlegacy.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. Those questions were definitely geared towards trying to catch people out over Saddam.

[rainstorm.livejournal.com]

too, um, exacting. the thing about doing something illegal being wrong or not always wrong, um. i think it can be wrong and right. on one level it *is* always* wrong - laws are there to be obeyed, they're there for a reason. however, i put it could be right or wrong, because i believe there are times when the good outweighs the bad (classic robin hood scenario), but there's still an element of "wrongness"..

Dr. Evil And The House Of Glass

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, like Evil is so easy to define! I'm Evil because I smoke, I do Ritual Magic(k), am a Discordian, trust no-one, can never say "I would NEVER do that!" and generally think mass culling of humans is a not too bad idea. And that human cloning is a Good Thing. And that children are not cute EVER. And the moral philosophy test said my morals (or lack of them) are 100% in agreement with Ayn Rand.
Saddam is evil? No, just a power-crazed dictator like so many others. Winston Churchill, recently voted "Greatest Britain of All Time" bomed the Kurd with poison gas himself back in 1920. Evil is a relative term usually meaning "That which you do I disagree with and since I'm Good People you must be Bad People."
Sorry, kids. There are no absolutes. Personally I think Saddam should have been assainated rather than destabilise the entire Middle East with this ludicrous war. Or We should have supported the uprising after Gulf War I when 14 of 18 provinces in Iraq tried to depose their leader rather than sitting back and letting them get gassed...
Um, any chance Bush will invade China and free Tibet? Didn't think so.

Re: Dr. Evil And The House Of Glass

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Well said, I completely agree. In addition to be difficult to define, the results of any strictly applied definition are likely to be a bit unusual. If one defines evil as killing innocent people, the US government has certainly done far more of that than Saddam Hussein in the last decade (bombing Iraq for the last decade, providing money and weapons to murderous despots...) Is the US government more or less evil than Saddam Hussein?

[kimberly-a.livejournal.com]

I began to answer this, then realized that I objected to some of the questions, and so couldn't really answer in any way that felt comfortable.

I think my largest objection is that I don't believe in "evil people". I do believe that actions can be wise or unwise, cruel or kind, rash or considered, greedy or generous, angry or calm, etc. But I wouldn't even classify actions as "evil" unless I was speaking carelessly or hyperbolically.

We all do good things and bad things during the course of our lifetimes. And we all have varying ideas about what "good" and "bad" mean. To some, I would be "evil" because I committed adultery. Some would consider my action of committing adultery to have been "evil". I think I committed a rash, unwise, ill-considered, desperate act of betrayal ... but I don't consider that to make me an evil person.

There are few people who are easily classified as purely "good" or purely "evil" ... where do you draw the line if you consider such things in black and white?

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I wanted to tick more than one choice (at least for question1) goddammit!

Eeevil

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

The definition of an "evil person" must be something of the form "someone whose behaviour can be categorized as being evil for more than a threshold amount of that behaviour". I would imagine that the threshold would be more than, say, 50%, otherwise most people wouldn't consider them evil, they'd be neutral or otherwise.

Therefore, by (admittedly my) definition someone that is evil must carry out more evil than good actions, therefore answer (b) is tautologically true.

Why, then, does it only get 4 answers out of 21? Please fault my logic.

Re: Eeevil

[andrewducker]

Hmm, I'd disagree with your definition, I think.

If someone spends most of my life doing nothing particularly bad, paying sall amounts of money to charity, helping little old ladies across the road, etc. but then kidnaps a bus load of nuns and schoolchildren and torture them all to death with fishhooks, I'd say that they were evil (insert disclaimer on the nature of evil here). It's a qualitative thing, not a quantitative thing.

Re: Eeevil

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, yes, if their personality had suddenly changed radically and that was the kind of person they'd become then fine. Normally I'd call them psychotic (i.e. having a psychotic episode) and mentally ill rather than evil.

Being that who we are is a transient thing I find it difficult to denote an individual as being defined by any single action. It would be easy to say that the man in your example was evil, but I'd imagine that the man he was must have been starkly different to the man he used to be and I'd argue that who he had become was evil but who he used to be wasn't.

You could say that he'd been plotting all his life to torture nuns and that everything else was just a cover, in which case I'd argue that behaviour is not just external, perceivable action, but also internalised thought processes.

It's all lovely and subjective anyway (o' course).

Mike

Re: Eeevil

[andrewducker]

Well, in many ways I view the kind of people who are capable of acts of extreme nastiness to be mentally ill in some way.

Except that it seems that 99% of the population are capable of these acts (cf: Stanford Prison Experiment or the one with the people thinking they are administering eletric shocks).

It seems perfectly possible to love dogs, eat vegetarian, get on well with the wife and still think that a group of people ought to be wiped from the face of the planet (as Hitler thought).

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Nothing is black and white, bub. Everything is shades of gray.