People often respond to me this way, assuming naivete. That if I come to fully understand the depths of suffering well enough the blinders will fall away and I will understand, finally, that cruelty is the only just response to cruelty. I have seen enough of the depravity of humanity firsthand to understand the feeling of helpless rage, and I know firsthand how just it feels to give payback in kind. But I don’t think setting the bar of acceptable behavior to whoever does the worst thing is a wise solution. And I think if you see evil and your response is to match it with like, you must then consider yourself evil. I don’t want to be evil even if it feels just in the moment. I’ve tried it and it feels shitty. I like my way better.
I don’t think it’s useful to classify people into good and evil. I think the exercise of power is a vice and some people get addicted to it. Causing other people to suffer (and getting away with it) is an exercise of power, and it’s one of the most accessible ones, because there’s always someone you can hurt if you look around. Children, homeless people, criminals, or anyone else deemed unworthy of protection by the more powerful. I reckon some people may be more susceptible to it the same way some people are more susceptible to alcohol addiction, but it’s complicated and there’s a lot I don’t know about how abuse of power compares to abuse of alcohol. But classifying them as evil is a thought terminating cliche: they do bad things because they’re bad people, simple as that. I think thinking about other people that way lets us self-justify a lot of horrific shit in the name of punishing bad people.
This is apparently a hot take with this crowd but I think you are entitled to basic human rights even if you’ve committed a crime.
I have a feeling you have not faced much of evil people. Some of them are too far gone
People often respond to me this way, assuming naivete. That if I come to fully understand the depths of suffering well enough the blinders will fall away and I will understand, finally, that cruelty is the only just response to cruelty. I have seen enough of the depravity of humanity firsthand to understand the feeling of helpless rage, and I know firsthand how just it feels to give payback in kind. But I don’t think setting the bar of acceptable behavior to whoever does the worst thing is a wise solution. And I think if you see evil and your response is to match it with like, you must then consider yourself evil. I don’t want to be evil even if it feels just in the moment. I’ve tried it and it feels shitty. I like my way better.
Hitting them more doesn’t make them better.
We can afford humane quarentine for people who can’t stop harming others. But profit and opportunities for working sadists.
You’d be disgusted at how many people are morally bankrupt & evil & masturbate to the thought of break laws & getting away with it.
I don’t think it’s useful to classify people into good and evil. I think the exercise of power is a vice and some people get addicted to it. Causing other people to suffer (and getting away with it) is an exercise of power, and it’s one of the most accessible ones, because there’s always someone you can hurt if you look around. Children, homeless people, criminals, or anyone else deemed unworthy of protection by the more powerful. I reckon some people may be more susceptible to it the same way some people are more susceptible to alcohol addiction, but it’s complicated and there’s a lot I don’t know about how abuse of power compares to abuse of alcohol. But classifying them as evil is a thought terminating cliche: they do bad things because they’re bad people, simple as that. I think thinking about other people that way lets us self-justify a lot of horrific shit in the name of punishing bad people.