Ignorance Is The Root Of All Evil

[CHADS]

I suppose you could be ignorant of everything but if you lived your life and managed never ever to cause anyone any emotional discomfort you would surly be negated from any charateristics of evil... so i suppose good and evil evolve around emotional feelings .. emotions that human beings have evolved a high state of awarness .. its our duty as aware adult humans to always be aware of how we make others feel because as our lives are hectic and full of desires its easy to become selfish and blissfully hurtfull towards others .. of course children are totally innocent and not fully aware of the logic of emotion so they are negated ... evil has no conscience in the sense that although evil knows of conscience logically.. it is negated with the full empathic knowledge that evils hurtful ways will cause pain...... Sorry im trying to sum up evil and may be waffling a bit.......So maybe the route of all evil is not being ignorant of hurt and consciously inficting pain anyway . . emotionally or physically with empathy....... On a happier note my computer is now safe and i can join back in with the forums......

[mother engine]

in this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers

- kobayashi issa

[Aquagem]

Originally Posted by mother engine

i will try to be careful here because i do believe in the power of linguistic influence as well...

I'd like to suggest a couple of things about this whole discussion, which I think is suffering from some linguistic/semantic problems. I wrote a couple of posts last week sometime, and when I was done I had the feeling I'd done a disservice to an important topic. It's been on my mind ever since. Here's what I see as a problem.

• The word, "evil", is so overburdened with centuries of religious dogma that just to use it in a sentence makes associations all the way from the bottom-most levels of biology to the stratospheric heights of our imagined theology. My somewhat flip comments about the subject, I realized, were rebellion against what I see as a pollution of sorts in the stream of thought brought about by this influence.
• Therefore, I'd like to leave "evil" out of the discussion for a while, and ratchet things back down a couple of steps. That would be to talk about "good" and "bad" -- tasty food good; rotten food bad -- that sort of thing. Starting with a general, simple definition of good and bad in a biological, individual sense, we can get a grip on where our loftier metaphors come from. Good and bad have perfectly usable and relatively unambiguous secular uses that predate our religious meanders by millions of years.
• Recent research into the process of metaphor formation would be useful to gain a perspective on how we turn basic biology into abstractions, how early emotional/cognitive experience translates into adult ideas that allow us to communicate easily with one another. We have a sense of what a "warm" person is because we have all felt the soothing, pleasant sensations of warmth from our first day on Earth. These are associations we all have and that become our shared basis for communication through cultural and other linguistic interchange. "Good" and "bad" are derived through the same process. "Too little vitamin A, bad; enough vitamin A, good; too much vitamin A, bad."
• "Good" and "bad" become abstractions in our minds, as all empirical experiences are abstracted into concepts through the automatic operation of the brain. We can, at a level or so above that of an infant, say, "He's a bad boy", meaning that he shares some sense of badness we developed because of a toothache, watching bread mold spread to other slices and ruin the loaf, and so on. A bad cold, a bad hair day, and a bad stretch of weather fall into the same category because of our abstract sense of badness.
• "Good" and "bad" operate on different levels. What is good for me as an individual is not necessarily good for my local population, town, state, nation, or world. "Hummer good" may be true in my mind while the planet groans under the weight of my heavy foot and disregard for others.
• Looking ahead, an old definition I still like for "evil" stresses that it is intentional harm. Harm may be perpetrated in ignorance (a predator stalking and killing prey) but not be evil. (It's entirely possible that ignorance is productive of a lot of good, but nobody seems to talk about that.) Planning a murder would generally qualify as evil, as probably would planning a war in which you know a large number of civilians will die. Likewise, a mercy killing would be "intentional harm", but with the best of motives. Then, although evil may occur, it may be outweighed by a "greater good", by somebody's definition. Then again, evil, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder.

So, whaddya think? I'm advocating for a reintroduction of some precision in our terminology in order to make some measurable progress in moving from basic to more complex understanding of one of the world's very oldest of questions. I'm suggesting we get our heads around something workable, rather than wandering among the highest levels of abstraction, where we are at a loss even to comprehend what they have in common.

So, whaddya think?

[infamous]

Hello Aquagem; I would like to put forth one simple example of "good" and "evil" if I may. Frankly my purpose here is to extablish some groundwork upon which to build a logical base. I agree that good and evil are relative terms when applied to dfferent individuals or different circumstances, so let us first apply these standards to only the human race as a whole. Firstly it would be evil for the human race to become extinct, and logically any thing that would help bring this about would be evil. On the other hand, anything which could prevent this extinction would be a good thing. Understand that we are only considering the continuation of our species when determining what is good or evil. By definition, this can only apply to the extinction or continuation of the species. If we as humans don't understand this simple example, we had better check our pedigree.

[lindagarrette]

Originally Posted by Aquagem

I'm advocating for a reintroduction of some precision in our terminology in order to make some measurable progress in moving from basic to more complex understanding of one of the world's very oldest of questions. I'm suggesting we get our heads around something workable, rather than wandering among the highest levels of abstraction, where we are at a loss even to comprehend what they have in common.

So, whaddya think?

I'm quoting you again in hopes that everyone reads and pays attention. Even so, I'm guessing that someone will still try to explain their interpretaion of good and evil as abosolutes. Very frustrating.

[mother engine]

the problem with the use i the word 'evil' as i have experienced it is that when it is used often the speaker is implying that this is universal law. i have provoked several people when using the word to expand on what they meant by it. for many the word 'evil' seems to be defined as 'an act deemed offensive to the universal consciousness' and not just the same as wrong or bad. but somehow these words all bring to mind in myself the idea of justice. is it spoiled behavior when someone thinks that they deserve something good or bad or that another person does. i have never liked words such as good, bad, right, wrong and evil because i have always assumed the connection to an arrogant claim that justice exists and we all must bow to it (i have assumed though i have yet to be contradicted in my assumtion so i do not believe it to be invalid).

[Michaelangelica]

Nah!
The mind that made this is evil.

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Who do you hate that much?