RoR: Forum

I disagree...it is the evil of a Toohey-esque nature, secretive yet psychologically dishonest, that is the most evil of all. I would prefer that evil stand up and say it's name rather than hide behind so-called benevolence. For an example, see, Union, Soviet Communist.

Post 1

Friday, September 9, 2005 - 7:59pm

I don't like either of them.

Michael

Post 2

Friday, September 9, 2005 - 8:31pm

I agree with Steven. It is the cloaked (not uncloaked) evil that is -- at rock bottom -- our worst underminer of value.

Insidious force is the pinnacle of what it is that is the most anti-life (it is the most scary thing in the world).

Ed
A wrongful bias that is recognized, is -- from that very fact -- sterilized.

Post 3

Friday, September 9, 2005 - 9:25pm

Still don't like either of them.

There's also degree in my own evaluations.

Michael

Post 4

Saturday, September 10, 2005 - 6:58am

I prefer uncloaked. That way I have a clean shot.

Post 5

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 4:04am

"And when the war broke out, its real horrors, its real dangers, its menace of real death were a blessing compared with the inhuman reign of the lie, & they brought relief because they broke the spell of the dead letter."
- Dr Zhivargo

Concur with Drunkenmiller. An enemy you can name, identify and understand has less power over you. The greatest terror of all is reserved for those at the mercy of perils beyond their understanding. Where the vigour of one's mind prevails over the superstitions, mystiques and other deceptions of one's adversary a man is already half-way home.

Post 6

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 1:05pm

Those disagreeing with Mr DeSalvo share a similar focus: the initiator of evil. The true power of the observation is better appreciated when one conciders the meaning of the audience implied by a confident naked evil.

Yes, Toohey as the subterfuge is difficult to capture because of the evasive defense he can employ. The covert enemy gains personal power through perception or threat of insubstantiality, disappearing behind the shade. The overt enemy though, comes out because he knows he will be unopposed or even supported.

Which is the worse place to live: Israel or Saudi Arabia? While Israelis have long had to stoke a caution of gathering, in case a Palestinian suicide bomber should be sharing the bus with them, they needn't fear everyone in their country. They can go to thier homes secure in the belief that thier neighbors condemn the attacks. Christians in Saudi Arabia have no such security. There they are openly arrested and law officials look askance at private persecution/beatings. The fear there is not so much a fear of a fluid enemy coming from the cracks or subliminal messages perverting us. The fear stems from the perception that one is surrounded by the implicit supporters of evil.

The perfect fear is that of unmitigated chaos, a purely malevolent universe where one has no anchor. It is Paranoia.

Post 7

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 12:20am

Nicolas, welcome to SOLOHQ.

While respecting its point (well made, by the way) I do have an objection to your analogy.

bin Laden is making his bold statement from a secluded cave. He is not out in front of the faces of us all (evil never is). Genuine evil is found in shadows, not in the light. The most evil people in the world -- are those masquerading as good people in the world. They can be found, religiously, in church on Sundays (as there is no more perfect place for evil to hide -- than in the house of 'God').

Deception is a cardinal sign of evil -- a hallmark -- if you will. It is a necessary condition that must be met for a noncontradictory concept of evil. In this respect, 'honest evil' would be a contradiction. Evil is a denial of reality -- a consciously-chosen "blank-out" (in Rand-speak). It is evasion and sacrifice (of others) -- and there is no other way for evil to exist; it is powerless (on its own 'merits').

If Osama were to come to my neighborhood and openly declare his intention (and, due to the nature of evil, he never would actually do this), then he would abruptly meet his demise. We would call him brazen, callous, perhaps even crazy -- but we reserve the term 'evil' for something more insidious than this. Another insight is that most of the truly evil folks are NOT currently jailed (criminals, though brutal, are often honestly brutal).

Deception and sacrifice (of others) are NECESSARY conditions for the concept of evil. That said, it could be argued that the self-deception of an anti-life religion qualifies as the pre-condition for this man's evil (his wrong beliefs meet the deception benchmark). Even so, his inescapable relationship to us is necessarily ulterior.

Ed

Post 8

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 9:02pm

Ed,

While I do agree that evil requires deception and sacrifice, the quote makes no claim of which is a 'worse' type of evil. DeSalvo invokes a confident evil, so my comment was directed at reminding us where that could be the case.

Your own example is lacking in just that manner. Osama shouts in the square and is promptly arrested. If he were confident he would not be, that would require a severe irrationality that would obviously leave us unaffected. KKK members could openly lynch black americans without fearing the same sort of reprisal because their confidence was 'justified.' I see no reason to deny them the epithet evil merely because they are "honestly brutal."

Deception is certainly present in all evil people/paradigms, but it need not be present in the object of their attention. An act of evil is merely made more efficacious by employing deception, there is no need to 'elevate' Al Sharpton above Timothy McVey simply because McVey didn't give some foul promise of benevolence beforehand.

What do you mean by "Even so, [Osama's] inescapable relationship to us is necessarily ulterior"?

Post 9

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 11:14pm

Nicolas, I see your point. The evil of which you speak -- is the evil of conformity to evil, appeasement to evil, sanction of evil, compartmentalized "group-think."

In this sense, the magnification of evil (from your viewpoint) occurs from the multiplication of individual supporters. One is reminded of this peculiar theme in Orwell's 1984 -- where even the children turn their parents in to the authorities. Everyone, everywhere, has become evil -- by attrition.

Keeping with this viewpoint of yours, it is less fearful to be a black in the south if only isolated factions of KKK exist, whereas it would be more fearful to be black in the south before the slave-trade was abolished (ie. when nearly everyone -- via acceptance of the evil notion of chattel slavery -- was your 'enemy').

You asked:
===========
What do you mean by "Even so,�[Osama's] inescapable relationship to us is necessarily ulterior"?
===========

I meant that OBL can't face us off directly -- as it would mean his immediate destruction. As a subhuman maggot (a purely-evil, counterfeit human being), Osama is ipso facto an unproductive life-form. What this means is that it is not within his power to produce power (he can only acquire power via deception of the existing producers on this planet). Though he is a potential cancer to us all -- he is already an actual cancer to himself.

He has chosen the path of (J.R. Tolkinen's?) Lord of the Rings character: Gollum -- a completely unproductive being who is now completely consumed by an ineffible desire for an anti-life "value."

Ed

Post 10

Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 2:16pm