Evil – acts committed by deeply moral people ‘for the greater good’.
Just wanted to highlight that ‘evil’ is not some guy with a cape, twirling his mustache; it is good people bringing about a better world. Those who do evil consider themselves to be deeply moral, even morally superior to others. The acts they take are for the benefit of mankind, to bring about peace and prosperity to the world, to end hunger and suffering ….. at least that is how they see themselves.
“If I am bringing about a paradise, and some few are acting against me, they are clearly deeply evil and deserve the most severe punishment.”
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, pol pot ….. the guards at Auschwitz …. all went to bed at night thinking themselves to be moral people – and the worse their acts became, the more fervently they believed in their righteousness, because they NEED to believe they are righteous.
5 replies on “Evil”
Personally I think that Esmerelda Weatherwax said it best:
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that -’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
I like to define ‘evil’ as ‘the obsession to control others.’ Nothing more sinister than that. We may all have a bit of wanting to control in us. But it is the ‘obsession. that can never be satisfied that marks true evil..
I agree, but the point I was making was that those doing evil, imposing themselves on others, consider themselves to be doing good, that they are virtuous people.
See also: Wizard’s 2nd rule.
Believing they are better than others has been the cause of much suffering over the ages.