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I think the worst about our media, is that most stories are based on dividing people into good and evil. This way of thinking is also very common in our society

I think the worst about our media, is that most stories are based on dividing people into good and evil. This way of thinking is also very common in our society. Why do criminals and terrorists act like they do? If you ask people they will tell you because they're evil. But actually nobody is evil, everybody wants something positive. The question is just for whom they think it will be positive and why they think it is positive to do. When you think that they're evil on the other hand you don't have to think about anything and just fight them, because good needs to fight evil.

dawnbreez 11y ago
I've been saying this for at least a year. Finally, someone else gets it.
- globba22 11y ago
  Wise thinkers throughout history have been saying it too :)
mikeash 11y ago
Some people really are evil. Some psychopaths, for example, know that what they're doing is negative and do it anyway. (Many more cover it up and try to do the right thing, of course.) But of course this doesn't apply to terrorists or most criminals. The occasional serial killer fits the bill and not much more. What really gets me is that if you start taking about terrorists like this, saying you should understand what makes them tick, that they think they're doing the right thing, etc., people freak out. I just think we should understand them better so we know how to stop them, but any attempt at understanding is taken as justification for what they do.
arethuza 11y ago
Look at what happened in the UK with the IRA - for years we had the approach of refusing to talk to them. Eventually we did, found that they had some legitimate complaints and when those were addressed we eventually got an end to the Troubles. Now we have people like Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader, as active politicians in Northern Ireland.
ignoramous 11y ago
I don't know why you would think that killing innocent people isn't evil. If you delibrately disturb harmony, or deny someone their rights, or take away something by force that isn't yours, you need to be stopped. Because one thing would lead to another and life as everyone knows it would become a living hell. Step back and look at oppressive regimes over the course of history. They all have traces of evil in them. It's that simple. I admit that good for one might be evil for another, but there's a basic set of things, I guess, the majority can agree on about what's good and what's not.
- Aeolos 11y ago
  What if you kill innocent people in retaliation to the other side killing innocent people? As happened, say in 9/11? Is that evil? Or is that justified?
  - evunveot 11y ago
    I don't see a quandary. Yes, that's evil.
- delluminatus 11y ago
  Are you familiar with the Trolley Problem? [0] It's a simple thought experiment, which is intended to make you re-think whether murder is always an evil act. Suppose a trolley is barelling down a track towards five tied-down people. If it continues, it'll kill them. But, you have access to a lever which would send the trolley down a side-track instead. But the side-track also has one person tied to it. By pulling the lever, you are effectively murdering that helpless, innocent person -- but you would save the other five. If you don't touch the lever, then you are just an innocent bystander who happened to see a quintuple homicide. In this case, if you insist that murder is evil, and you refuse to be evil, then you have no choice but to let the five people die. But if you allow that murder is sometimes okay -- which is a utilitarian perspective, in the sense that you care more about the ends than the means -- then it becomes much fuzzier whether murder is inherently evil. Indeed, as soon as you give an explicit definition for evil, it becomes very difficult to defend it. The fact of the matter is, the good/evil dichotomy is false and artificial. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
bane 11y ago
I agree with you that it's more nuanced than the binary thinking often advocated. But I also think that "evil" exists in the world: ISIS is evil, the Nazis where evil, serial killers are evil, and so on. I think the question of "do they think they are doing good or bad" is an interesting question as well. There's also, like you say, people who do things we perceive as "bad", but it often comes down to misunderstandings of motives, imbalances of power and so on. If somebody steals bread to eat, it's not a good thing, but I can't condemn the act either. As somebody who likes to think they're a force for good, I should probably see what I can do to improve their situation so they don't have to steal in the future.
jhallenworld 11y ago
People like and want heroes and kings. It's not supposed to, but I think the role of US president often satisfies the role of king (much more so than prime ministers of other democracies). Some radio hosts promote this: I remember in the last election some host (I don't remember which one) was very clearly promoting Mitt Romney as the new king. (Not to say that this is shared by all of the right-wing, it certainly is not- the right-wing would say that the left-wing doesn't want kings, but dictators). Also, I think this explains a lot of populist animosity towards Obama: How can our king not be one of us? Anyway Star Wars (and many other fantasy) is all about this kind of mythology.
pinaceae 11y ago
history and facts are proving you wrong. you don't think anyone is evil? from charles manson to josef mengele, from the killing fields of the khmer rouge to the zetas in mexico - if you have no problem, no qualms, when you're taking an unarmed human being, shoving them in a barrel then lighting them on fire - you should qualify as evil. some people cause harm for fun. they enjoy it, take pleasure from it. if you don't label them as evil, then you belittle all the people that put themselves in harms way to help others.
oldmanjay 11y ago
Effective leadership is difficult. It's relatively easier to whip people into an us v. them frenzy to get a group on your side. Good v. evil is the most basic way to delineate the groups, although there are others.
ra1n85 11y ago
>But actually nobody is evil, everybody wants something positive You can't characterize all human motivations along this line of rationale. Psychopathy is real. Even recent history is littered with sadistic madmen.
woopwoop 11y ago
The two hallmarks of modern blockbusters, the sanitized but intense violence and the simplistic morality, are actually joined at the hip. On the one hand, if your idea of a rollicking good climax is lots of people being killed, you need to make sure that those people are working in the service of some evil power so great and immovable that it can't be dealt with in any other way. On the other hand, if the world is divided between uncompromised good and uncompromised evil, it is actually okay for the good guys to resort to violence.

dawnbreez 11y ago

I've been saying this for at least a year. Finally, someone else gets it.

globba22 11y ago
Wise thinkers throughout history have been saying it too :)

mikeash 11y ago

Some people really are evil. Some psychopaths, for example, know that what they're doing is negative and do it anyway. (Many more cover it up and try to do the right thing, of course.) But of course this doesn't apply to terrorists or most criminals. The occasional serial killer fits the bill and not much more. What really gets me is that if you start taking about terrorists like this, saying you should understand what makes them tick, that they think they're doing the right thing, etc., people freak out. I just think we should understand them better so we know how to stop them, but any attempt at understanding is taken as justification for what they do.

arethuza 11y ago

Look at what happened in the UK with the IRA - for years we had the approach of refusing to talk to them. Eventually we did, found that they had some legitimate complaints and when those were addressed we eventually got an end to the Troubles. Now we have people like Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader, as active politicians in Northern Ireland.

ignoramous 11y ago

I don't know why you would think that killing innocent people isn't evil. If you delibrately disturb harmony, or deny someone their rights, or take away something by force that isn't yours, you need to be stopped. Because one thing would lead to another and life as everyone knows it would become a living hell. Step back and look at oppressive regimes over the course of history. They all have traces of evil in them. It's that simple. I admit that good for one might be evil for another, but there's a basic set of things, I guess, the majority can agree on about what's good and what's not.

Aeolos 11y ago
What if you kill innocent people in retaliation to the other side killing innocent people? As happened, say in 9/11? Is that evil? Or is that justified?
- evunveot 11y ago
  I don't see a quandary. Yes, that's evil.
delluminatus 11y ago
Are you familiar with the Trolley Problem? [0] It's a simple thought experiment, which is intended to make you re-think whether murder is always an evil act. Suppose a trolley is barelling down a track towards five tied-down people. If it continues, it'll kill them. But, you have access to a lever which would send the trolley down a side-track instead. But the side-track also has one person tied to it. By pulling the lever, you are effectively murdering that helpless, innocent person -- but you would save the other five. If you don't touch the lever, then you are just an innocent bystander who happened to see a quintuple homicide. In this case, if you insist that murder is evil, and you refuse to be evil, then you have no choice but to let the five people die. But if you allow that murder is sometimes okay -- which is a utilitarian perspective, in the sense that you care more about the ends than the means -- then it becomes much fuzzier whether murder is inherently evil. Indeed, as soon as you give an explicit definition for evil, it becomes very difficult to defend it. The fact of the matter is, the good/evil dichotomy is false and artificial. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

bane 11y ago

I agree with you that it's more nuanced than the binary thinking often advocated. But I also think that "evil" exists in the world: ISIS is evil, the Nazis where evil, serial killers are evil, and so on. I think the question of "do they think they are doing good or bad" is an interesting question as well. There's also, like you say, people who do things we perceive as "bad", but it often comes down to misunderstandings of motives, imbalances of power and so on. If somebody steals bread to eat, it's not a good thing, but I can't condemn the act either. As somebody who likes to think they're a force for good, I should probably see what I can do to improve their situation so they don't have to steal in the future.

jhallenworld 11y ago

People like and want heroes and kings. It's not supposed to, but I think the role of US president often satisfies the role of king (much more so than prime ministers of other democracies). Some radio hosts promote this: I remember in the last election some host (I don't remember which one) was very clearly promoting Mitt Romney as the new king. (Not to say that this is shared by all of the right-wing, it certainly is not- the right-wing would say that the left-wing doesn't want kings, but dictators). Also, I think this explains a lot of populist animosity towards Obama: How can our king not be one of us? Anyway Star Wars (and many other fantasy) is all about this kind of mythology.

pinaceae 11y ago

history and facts are proving you wrong. you don't think anyone is evil? from charles manson to josef mengele, from the killing fields of the khmer rouge to the zetas in mexico - if you have no problem, no qualms, when you're taking an unarmed human being, shoving them in a barrel then lighting them on fire - you should qualify as evil. some people cause harm for fun. they enjoy it, take pleasure from it. if you don't label them as evil, then you belittle all the people that put themselves in harms way to help others.

oldmanjay 11y ago

Effective leadership is difficult. It's relatively easier to whip people into an us v. them frenzy to get a group on your side. Good v. evil is the most basic way to delineate the groups, although there are others.

ra1n85 11y ago

>But actually nobody is evil, everybody wants something positive You can't characterize all human motivations along this line of rationale. Psychopathy is real. Even recent history is littered with sadistic madmen.

woopwoop 11y ago

The two hallmarks of modern blockbusters, the sanitized but intense violence and the simplistic morality, are actually joined at the hip. On the one hand, if your idea of a rollicking good climax is lots of people being killed, you need to make sure that those people are working in the service of some evil power so great and immovable that it can't be dealt with in any other way. On the other hand, if the world is divided between uncompromised good and uncompromised evil, it is actually okay for the good guys to resort to violence.