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Post 0

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 4:01pmSanction this postReply
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I would have to vote for Satan. You know, the devil, evil incarnate, the great tempter. What do you mean he not real? You mean the nuns lied to me. :-)

Okay, seriously, I voted for Stalin, the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world. I know its Kant that gave Stalin and the evildoers of his ilk the excuse for their barbarism, but no one has to accept Kant's irrationality. Stalin had the free will to act as he did and I can think of no one who is more heinous.

(Edited by Bob Palin on 11/15, 4:03pm)


Post 1

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 4:07pmSanction this postReply
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Judging by some of the post at this forum, it must be George W. Bush. Theocratic fanatic, muderer of women and children, and bumbling idiot; all rolled into one! Move over Stalin and Pol Pot - W has you beat. If you don't believe me, just ask your typical Libertarian. 

George


Post 2

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 6:37pmSanction this postReply
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Mao Zedong desperately needs to be on this list also.

Post 3

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 7:09pmSanction this postReply
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Hitler is and most likely always will be the gold standard of evil. True Stalin killed more people and Kant set the philosophical "buliding blocks" for the both of them, but neither was nearly as much a dramatic characterization of evil as Hitler. If Stalin was a slow posion that eroded the freedom of the world, Hilter was a flash flood of tyranny.

Post 4

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 7:38pmSanction this postReply
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I haven't voted yet.  I would like more comments first.  Comments on my view of evil would be helpful:  Evil is the willful avoidance of The Shadow (a concept from Jung).  This militant ignorance is achieved either from the denial of introspection or, from the inclination and ability to introspect with unconditional praise for what you see inside yourself - no matter how heinous.

With this definition in mind, my first guess was Myra Hindley, who sullied several children into being molested and murdered by Ian Brady.  Brady says that he should never see the light of day again, due to the gravity of his crimes - though, contrarily to this stance, he's an existentialist who liked the "will to power" advocated by Hitler, Heidegger, and de Sade.  Myra thinks it's right and good to let her go free.

The biggest difference between Myra and Hitler, for example, was the extent of their power - not necessarily the extent of their willful ignorance.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that any serial child-rapist and murderer - who also happens to think they should be free - is pure evil personified.  The NAZI trials unveiled pure evil, I believe.  I can't remember the lines spoken or the persons speaking (Himmler? Eichmann?), but I remember the "self-righteous rancor" of at least one of their testimonies.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/15, 7:39pm)

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/15, 7:41pm)

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/15, 11:22pm)


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Post 5

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 7:48pmSanction this postReply
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Rand called Kant the most evil person in human history -- and, as usual, she was right. He was the intellectual father of pure cultural illiberalism, pure philosophic unreason, and pure personal and social destruction.
 
Kant builds magnificently upon the raw irrationality and depravity of Berkeley and Hume while leaving Hegel virtually nothing left to lie about or destroy. Kant was the kung fu master of empty talk, double talk, and false talk. So too of general nihilism, intellectual skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, today's deconstructivism and Objectivism's intrinsicism. 
 
No-one writes in a more incompetent, incomprehensible, serpentine, tortured, tedious way. His impure thoughts lead to his impure words which lead to impure deeds done by and to everybody.
 
It's hard to imagine a more false and corrupt title than his tour de force Book One: 'The Critique of Pure Reason.' And nothing in the whole written universe is more unreadable and presumptuously outrageous than his 500-page (!) Introduction -- his ultra-pretentious "prolegomenon" -- to that 'Pure Reason' abortion. 
 
Nothing is, or ever can be, more false and evil -- or more non-existent and yet destructive -- than his absurd "noumena" and "things-in-themselves." This "a priori" rot is unprecedented and unequaled.  This pure nonsense (literally) and utter bullshit (esthetically) inevitably leads to the (mental) destruction of all real phenomena and the people who depend upon it (i.e. all of us). This nihilism taken to a height and state of perfection ultimately leads -- via Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Khomenei, Osama, etc. -- to utter annihilism.
 
His best buddy Moses Mendelssohn had it right: this malicious clown really is "the smasher of everything." All of reality dies and obtains non-existence in his theories -- and all people soon thereafter in the realization of his theories.
 
What can be more omni-destructive morally than his Categorical Imperative? Written in his trademark tortured, garbled snytax this ethical "ideal" is as self-repudiating, self-destructive, and universally annihilating as a thing can be.
 
If Plato and Aristotle are the two great archetypes of philosophy -- the Goofus and Gallant of intellectual endeavor and the life of the mind -- then Kant brings alive the pure falsity and evil of Platonic "forms" and "idealism" like never before or since.
 


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Post 6

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 7:51pmSanction this postReply
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I said Immanuel Kant's mother, since she made Immanuel Kant possible.

Post 7

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 9:21pmSanction this postReply
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"Rand called Kant the most evil person in human history -- and, as usual, she was right."

Thank you, Leonard Peikoff.

"Kant builds magnificently upon the raw irrationality and depravity of Berkeley and Hume"

I'm really uncomfortable with this idea of calling bad ideas, as such "evil". Hume's skepticism, unlike Kant's, was in no way "impurely" motivated. There is no Hume-ian equivalent of that Kantian one liner "I have found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith". Hume was merely a skeptic, who put out an argument that still holds a lot of weight to this day, not because of some inherent "cultural bankruptcy", but because its a very persuasive argument if you don't know better.

"No-one writes in a more incompetent, incomprehensible, serpentine, tortured, tedious way"

if he's so incompetent and incomprehensible, how did he come to be taken seriously at the peak of the enlightenment? The very fact that he managed to get his works read implies that A: either his works are not "incompetent" and "incomprehensible" in their writing-- If they were, no one would understand them to follow them, or B: that the culture of the time, of the enlightment, was already corrupt enough to want to read them-- in which case he is no longer culpable for the world's descent into hell, as the train was already en route.

"His impure thoughts lead to his impure words which lead to impure deeds done by and to everybody."

1: "impure thoughts"?? you sound like christian. Bad ideas do not constitute some sort of moral "impurity", only direct evasions do.

2: First you call him incompetent, now you use language which paints him out nearly as an omnipotent devil. "done by and to everyone"? that's a lot of credit.

"Nothing is, or ever can be, more false and evil -- or more non-existent and yet destructive -- than his absurd "noumena" and "things-in-themselves."

If you wanted to say he had the most evil ideas ever, that's one thing. But to claim they are not only the most evil ideas ever to exist, but the most evil ideas that ever could possibly exist, implying that it is impossible to make anything more evil? You've got to be kidding. Surely, even if kant is history's greatest villain to date, surely someone will outdo him given enough time.

"This nihilism taken to a height and state of perfection ultimately leads"

Kant was no nihilist. whether or not he made nihilism possible, he certainly wasn't one himself. His "categorical imperative" is a monstrosity, a horrible horrible excuse for an ethic. It still is an ethic. Kant wasn't interested in destroying ethics, or value, or anything else. He was interested in, in his own, twisted way, preserving the intrinicist values of his time. And putting forth a quasi skeptical epistemology also.

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Post 8

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 10:44pmSanction this postReply
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Is there *anyone* else here who thinks this treatment of some of the greatest minds in history is barbaric?

I for, one, would give a year of my life for a day spent in conversation with Plato, Kant, or Hegel.

Jeanine Ring
no tiles.


Post 9

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 11:26pmSanction this postReply
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Hegel, sure.

But Kant was, from what I know about him, far too much of an introvert to converse much with.

And as for plato, I've always felt that all the savageries which have ever been heaped on him do not come close to giving him what he deserves. If I had to pick a "most evil philosopher ever", I would pick plato.

Post 10

Monday, November 15, 2004 - 11:53pmSanction this postReply
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I think that Robert's best point was this:

"Bad ideas do not constitute some sort of moral 'impurity', only direct evasions do."

With this point in mind, Kant's "unprecedented evil" is no longer self-evident (ie. to any rational mind) upon immediate regard - as has often been argued.

It seems that pragmatism (seeing the consequences of Kant's work, as co-opted by all brutal statists) plays a weighty role in the judgment of the morality of Kant. I myself would prefer a definition by causes, to a definition by consequences. But this requires a further delineation of what - at rock bottom - evil is.

The easy distinction is to declare that evil is anti-life and be done with it (whichever thoughts have killed the most lives must be the most evil). This distinction is correct (ie. accurate) but, in my view, not precise enough to capture the dynamics of human evil (the only kind there is).

There is an act, and there is an actor, and ne'er shall they be severed. Evil is not just when something bad occurs (otherwise hurricanes would be "evil") - evil is when an actor chooses an action that is anti-human (anti-life) in order to avoid the responsibility of being a rational, productive creature (a "human").

I think that the formula for evil requires 4 ingredients:

1) adversity

2) the option of whether to let pain instruct oneself into becoming a disciplined thinker/actor

3) a willful evasion to "opt out" of #2 - ie. to "opt out" of the legitimate personal growth which human life demands of human creatures

4) a scapegoat; either real or imaginary - to maintain a shabby semblance of integrity, which is required for continued sanity. This last ingredient is where the "anti-life" check is paid, mostly by killing the human spirit (or the body) of others associated with the evil one.

M. Scott Peck, in writing People of The Lie, said his 8 year-old son got it right on the first try: "Why, Daddy, evil is 'live' spelled backward." (p. 42)

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/15, 11:56pm)

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/16, 12:02am)


Post 11

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:07amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine: "Is there *anyone* else here who thinks this treatment of some of the greatest minds in history is barbaric?"

There's at least one person.

Barbara


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Post 12

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:52amSanction this postReply
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We've had this discussion before, & I want to say again: to aver that Kant or any other thinker was "the most evil person in history" is nonsensical. It's ARI hysteria, born of slavish devotion to the foolish notion that Ayn Rand never said anything foolish. We all know what she was driving at ... but to insist that Kant was *literally* the most evil man in history?! Listen to the hilarious contortions John Ridpath, who should know better, perpetrates in trying to justify that description in his ARI-sponsored taped lecture on Kant!

Thinkers don't force anyone to agree with them. Thinkers whose ideas had bad consequences didn't usually (if ever) intend them; usually (if not always) they intended the reverse.

Stalin (& Hitler & whoever) was *not* "made possible" by Kant. It's true that Stalin was not rendered *impossible* by Kant, but a hell of a lot more made Stalin possible than Kant (whose contribution to Stalin was neglible if not non-existent), including, not insignificantly, *Stalin's own choices*! Had Stalin heeded Kant's politics (& I doubt he was even aware of them) he would not have been the Stalin we know & loathe. And, to anticipate one objection, Stalin most certainly would not have agreed with Kant's epistemology (except perhaps in his youth when he studied to be a priest), so Kant can't be blamed for Stalin in that respect either.

This is not to glorify Kant (see "Kant Can't"); it's simply to distance oneself from the hysterically lopsided demonisation of him that Randroids engage in.

This poll question is actually silly. Before asking it, one should at minimum specify one's criteria. Failure to do so makes it possible to posit such wildly divergent answers as are offered, even allowing that some are flippant. Which brings us back to the question of "What *is* evil?"

Personally, I think "most evil man in history" is a toss-up between Leonard Cohen, Rod Stewart, Leonard Peikoff & Richard Quest. Creatures with voices like theirs should have been drowned at birth. Failing that, they should have had the decency to stay at home.

Linz





Post 13

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 1:22amSanction this postReply
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I've always thought Peikoff should start a headbanging cauterwauling band. Then again, so should Linz. Linz writes the lyrics while he's drunk and angry at "saddamites", Peikoff screams them out in that atonal voice of his.

Post 14

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 3:39amSanction this postReply
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Stalin! Why? For knowingly and deliberately committing heinous crimes over a prolonged period on a vast scale while leading a popular movement that had world-wide appeal. He could have ended civilization if it were not for the Anglo-American alliance that withstood and held steadfast against him and his legacy. 


Post 15

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 3:43amSanction this postReply
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Oh, yes. You forgot my first choice: Mohammad - a man who plundered, slaughtered, terrorized, conquered, oppressed, ethnically-cleansed and created an ideology to justify his actions and the subsequent rule of this followers. The first totalitarian movement! Of course, I'm assuming he was a real person described by Islamic mythology. If he wasn't strike that choice.

"Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French revolution with those of the rise of Islam.

Marx has tought that Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahommet.

Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world" - Bertrand Russell, "Theory and Practice of Bolshevism," 1921

(Edited by Jason Pappas on 11/16, 3:50am)


Post 16

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 8:17amSanction this postReply
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Jason, you said above:

"Stalin! Why? For knowingly and deliberately committing heinous crimes over a prolonged period on a vast scale while leading a popular movement that had world-wide appeal."

and

"You forgot my first choice: Mohammad - a man who plundered, slaughtered, terrorized, conquered, oppressed, ethnically-cleansed and created an ideology to justify his actions and the subsequent rule of this followers. The first totalitarian movement!"

You are apparently judging evil on a results-based (evil is that which creates bad results; the more bad, the more evil) standard. This might be viewed as the Consequentialist Standard for Evil.

The issue I have with the consequentialist standard for evil derives from the imperfections of "vulgar utilitarianism." The primary imperfection of utilitarianism is the pragmatic oversight of the necessity of discovering the identity of the agents or objects involved in an action-plan.

To be pedantic, evil is anti-human-life; and so, what it is that is left for us to judge evil objectively, is to explain what it means to be human. I think that your largely-correct analysis misses this subtlety.

Ed


Post 17

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 8:30amSanction this postReply
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I've always thought Peikoff should start a headbanging cauterwauling band.


Thank you for that hilarious (and spot-on) mental image!  Imagine Peikoff squealing into a microphone while wearing a pair of snakeskin pants.  <shudder>  It would be utterly suitable. 


Post 18

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 8:39amSanction this postReply
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hmmm I'm thinking chartreuse pirates shirt?

Post 19

Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 9:20amSanction this postReply
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Jenn:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fatalrupture/album?.dir=/f9f7


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