What is Evil?

[Steve bennet]

He's one of those "9-11 was an inside job" people.

Figures.

Not even worth the effort to talk to those people. It's easier to save your energy.

[Danny]

Evil is any action motivated by hate, greed or for the pleasure of watching someone else suffer.

Republican policy hits on all those

No! in order to have those negative constructs, evil has to be in place in the same way good will produce postiive constructs. When pure good produce good things, evil comes out of it. When pure evil produce evil things, good comes out of it. This is the universal law.

[Danny]

I really, really don't like to judge but if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.....

Narcissists are evil. I believe this due to my personal experience.


Is it evil to belittle, denigrate, scapegoat, and make fun of someone until they are demoralized, subjugated, and traumatized? Is the verbal and emotional abuser who keeps his victim in suspense and fear an evil person? Is the person with the need to control others evil?
According to M. Scott Peck, M.D, psychiatrist and author of The People of The Lie, the answer is yes.
According to Peck, most of us view a situation in light of how we are affected by it and only as an afterthought do we stop to consider how it might affect others involved; we do eventually consider the viewpoint of the other.
Not so those who are evil. Theirs is a brand of narcissism sototal that they seem to lack this capacity for empathy....We can see then, that their narcissism makes the evil dangerousnot only because it motivates them to scapegoat others, butalso because it deprives them of the restraint that results fromempathy and respect for others....The evil need victims to sacrificeto their narcissism, their narcissism permits them to ignore thehumanity of their victims as well. ..The blindness of the narcissistto others can extend beyond a lack of empathy; narcissistsmay not "see" others at all.

STOPPING THE NARCISSIST and Concept of Evil

If you have ever lived in quiet desperation fearing the release of age from the narcissist, then decided to stop the abuse, you have been the victim of a campaign designed to destroy you. It is as systematic and well thought out as that of any battle plan of war.


Sam Vaknin disagrees:

• As opposed to what Scott Peck says, narcissists are not evil - they
  lack the intention to cause harm. They are simply indifferent, callous and careless in their conduct and in their treatment of their fellow humans.

I read this and recognize the narcissism in the words. Because Sam is a narcissist, he can say "simply indifferent". Sam does not see that indifference is not simple. The results of indifference, callousness and carelessness are destructive and malignant. In a talk he gave at the White House, Elie Wiesel, concentration camp survivor and philosopher, says that from anger and hatred we can often make a difference, but to be indifferent is evil.

Using the argument that by definition evil people have no choice in their actions [[even if it harms them, they will choose the morally wrong act) Vaknin argues that narcissists will act with malevolence only if it benefits them, but not if they are harmed. Does this prove narcissists are not evil? or does it show us they are smarter? or maybe we cannot partition evil into "partly evil" as we cannot be 'very unique' or 'a little pregnant.'?

Vaknin addresses this in a question at the crux of this discussion: are the words good and evil, used as opposites, appropriate for describing behavior of a narcissist? Or is there a continuum and we do not have a rich enough diversity of language to describe the moral condition of the narcissist? It would not be the first time language has acted as barrier to thought.

Scott Peck describes for us the characteristics of the personality disorder that encompasses evil:

• consistent destructive scapegoating, often subtle
• excessive, usually covert intolerance to criticism
• pronounced concern with public image, denial of vengeful motives
• intellectual deviousness with likelihood of mild schizoid disturbance
  
  

CHILDREN and EVIL

[[the child living in the midst of evil) can emotionally survive only by a massive fortification of its psyche. While....essential for survival through childhood, they distort and compromise its life as an adult....Children of evil parents enter adulthood with very significant psychiatric disturbances. To come to terms with evil in one's parentage is perhaps the most difficult and painful psychological task a human being can be called on to face. Most fail and remain its victims. Those who succeed in developing the necessary searing vision are those who can name it. "To come to terms" means to "arrive at the name."

SURVIVING EVIL

Evil then must be named but doing so can be enormously frightening. It means that some must do battle with a destructive psychological [[not supernatural) force.
The ones most in need of help are those that choose or must stay with a narcissist, or those that divorce them. Divorce a narcissist and you will find every characteristic magnified and enlarged. Divorce a narcissist with a narcissistic lawyer and you are the victim of a reign of terror.

It does not have to be divorce, it could be any lawsuit or other such campaign. It is the opposition, the challenge to the narcissist's world view and the need to control that unleashes the campaign to destroy.
There were no examples in Dr. Peck's book that appeared to be as evil as what I have seen. I have seen evil that has torn a child from normality, taken the voice of the child so he could not speak and impaled such jolts of evil that the child would awake in terror screaming. "They're throwing javelins at me, oh, the pain, the pain" and clutch his heart and chest in agony and fall into a coma like sleep for hours.
Evil leaves its mark at the cellular level. There is a physiology to evil. Cells are imprinted at the moment terror engulfs us. Brain cells are destroyed by stress and facing evil is neverending stress. The body never leaves flight or fight mode. Children silently suffer the slings and arrows of the narcissistic parent who is unable to care. What happens to the child is of no concern to the narcissist, he must prevail no matter the cost. The child as collateral damage is unimportant. Winning is everything.
Can you survive the evil and the abuse? Yes, though it won't be easy. Stay with the narcissist and you may be damaged. Some can leave and they are changed - stronger, wounded, wiser, educated in the techniques of disengaging and mindfulness. A journey, deep and dangerous has been made by those who have been companions with "the people of the lie."

None of those constucts would work if the understand of the knowledge of good and evil! Narcissists is a construct created by either good and evil. Good use narcissisism for positive actions while evil used it to produce negative actions. Since you discuss narcissism, you should have discuss negative nacissism. [[ That is narcissism produce by evil.) Not are narcissists are evil.

[Gannon]

Figures.

Not even worth the effort to talk to those people. It's easier to save your energy.

With that statement, you prove that you are willingly and wantonly ignorant and devoid of any backbone. Congratulations!


Cheers,
John

[Gannon]

None of those constucts would work if the understand of the knowledge of good and evil! Narcissists is a construct created by either good and evil. Good use narcissisism for positive actions while evil used it to produce negative actions. Since you discuss narcissism, you should have discuss negative nacissism. [[ That is narcissism produce by evil.) Not are narcissists are evil.

Danny,

You apparently don't understand the whole 'die to oneself' portion of the good book. I fail to see where ANY rampant egoical exercise can be in any way shown as 'good'.

Perhaps you don't know the definition of narcissism. Here...

nar·cis·sist

  /ˈnɑrsəsɪst/ [nahr-suh-sist] noun

1. a person who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish.

2. Psychoanalysis . a person who suffers from narcissism, deriving erotic gratification from admiration of his or her own physical or mental attributes.


That, thanks to the dictionary.com website...


Cheers,
John

[maxx]

We take it one step further at work. Not only is there evil, but it's passed down through generations. Out of those 800 people living in the African sea cave that we all supposedly came from, at least one of those people were a complete asshole. We often speculate that our Boss' relatives were key in the Nazi movement, related to Attila the Hun, and even Judas.....all descendants from that one bad seed.

Bulding on that thought: If you look at history, a lot of it is the story of warfare with the most ruthless winning. Gives one pause when considering one's heritage.

Until recently, I didn't like to use the word "evil" when describing someone because I think "evil" means that there is not one shred of good or potential for good in that person. Now when I look at people like Mitch McConnell or the people of Brown & Williams who wanted to destroy Dr. Wigand the whistleblower, I find it difficult to restrain myself.

And once again, power not atheism was behind Stalin's atrocities. He even did in his closest subordinates. That is true of all totalitarians, especially the religious one. Their god tells them they are doing the right thing.

[Detroitnerd]

This thread is stupid.

[rb336]

And once again, power not atheism was behind Stalin's atrocities. He even did in his closest subordinates. That is true of all totalitarians, especially the religious one. Their god tells them they are doing the right thing.

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion"

Nobel Laureate in Physics Steven Weinberg

[Gannon]

That one is pretty powerful, Rb. Thanks.

[Danny]

Danny,

You apparently don't understand the whole 'die to oneself' portion of the good book. I fail to see where ANY rampant egoical exercise can be in any way shown as 'good'.

Perhaps you don't know the definition of narcissism. Here...

nar·cis·sist

  /ˈnɑrsəsɪst/ [nahr-suh-sist] noun

1. a person who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish.

2. Psychoanalysis . a person who suffers from narcissism, deriving erotic gratification from admiration of his or her own physical or mental attributes.


That, thanks to the dictionary.com website...


Cheers,
John

The text was later taken out of context. The earlier days of narcissism means looking into yourself with beauty. We have to watch the prestigious diction of every word that has a etological origins. Also the word narcissist came from a Ancient Greek young man who is so beautiful that the gods punished him by looking himself in the pool and was turned into a flower.

[MizMotown]

I never seen, heard of, read about or experienced a good narcissists. They are users and when they are done using they discard. Most people don't understand the dynamics of narcissism. Narcissists are soley about themselves. I'd compare them to vampires. We all have ego. We have to in order to survive. By having a sense of identity we know which mouth to put the food in. Some of us [[actually alot of us) have superego's. We will see more and more of these. Usually totally spoiled as children or completely deprived they learn how to manipulate. We all have what can be considered good and bad in us. I believe we are wired for good. Our bodies function better under love, joy, peace, forgiveness etc... When we are unforgiving, bitter, suspicious, depressed, unloving our bodies are stressed we operate in fight or flight mode.

Narcissists lives are usually chaotic and unhappy. They truly believe they are confident and have high self esteem. The truth is they have less esteem than the rest of us.

[rb336]

Just remember, Narcissus was a character in Greek mythology who was so vain Nemesis used it as a weaponagainst him, luring him to a pond where he fell in love with his own reflection, couldn't leave, and starved to death

[Steve bennet]

With that statement, you prove that you are willingly and wantonly ignorant and devoid of any backbone. Congratulations!


Cheers,
John

If you say so.

[maxx]

MizMoTown:

su·per·e·go/ˌso͞opərˈēgō/


Noun: The part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience, reflecting social standards learned from parents and teachers.

[maxx]

No! in order to have those negative constructs, evil has to be in place in the same way good will produce postiive constructs. When pure good produce good things, evil comes out of it. When pure evil produce evil things, good comes out of it. This is the universal law.

Examples of this universal law?

[maxx]

The fellows who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks were godless atheists only focussed on their own money and power. So I guess you could say they DID have a 'god', just a tainted dirty one.


Oh, because it wasn't anyone the official story said it was...and if you believe THAT conspiracy, saying 19 Saudi Arabian hitchhikers could get NORAD to stand down for an hour and a half...then there is no discussion here.

Do you really believe this or am I not catching your irony? Are you saying that you don't believe that a few S. Arabians could get NORAD to stand down but a couple atheists could?


.