• Do you think we are born with evil in us or do you think it is something we learn?


  • @TheGoldenMole Something we learn.


  • @TheGoldenMole acquired. Haha


  • @TheGoldenMole If we believe that evil is learned then we would be with Jean Jacques Rosseau, who says that man is pure and society corrupts him. If evil is innate then we would be in accordance with the Christian Jewish conception of original sin.
    My opinion is that evil comes from the ignorance of good. From the moment the creature develops its emotions on a higher level it does not regress to evil. If the person looked good and became evil then it was all falsehood.


  • @User-Left Then how did it start?


  • @cjko Do you then think there is also good in everyone?


  • @Berin Do you think "good" and "bad" are labels we created because we felt them, or created because we made them?


  • @TheGoldenMole I think that we are creatures who tend more to evil by not being able to understand the good and its sacrifices. We create situations that lead to bad consequences due to our ego and its satisfaction. We reveal the lack of good that still exists in us.


  • @TheGoldenMole Often we are more sensitive to the evil they do to us than to what we do to others. Again the ego covering our responsibility, but the ego is our construction


  • @TheGoldenMole nobody is born evil ,
    if someone is raised evil then yes


  • It's hard to disagree with anything @Berin says, and in fact, it behoves me as a communist to agree that evil comes from the ignorance of good. Howevz ...I don't really understand what good can come from discussing it. It's like reading a William Peter Blatty novel: all that'll happen is that you'll get nervous and depressed. There's just too many variables to take into consideration, whether they're in the world, luck, or our minds. A lot of stuff happens on a whim.

    An equally weighty question, I think, is whether the 'path of least resistance' always leads to evil. I'd say that it does. Normal people become politicians to replicate their super-easy bourgeois lives among the rest of population -- it's hard for a non-communist to argue that they're doing anything evil, and yet ...look how thoughtless and precarious our economies are, look at the plight of the working classes. <--and that's my sulky hobby horse getting his exercise for today.


  • @Indrid-Cold You may disagree with what I said Indrid. It is always good to have the counterpoint and a pleasure to receive your notes.


  • @Berin said in Is Evil Learned or Inherent?:

    @Indrid-Cold You may disagree with what I said Indrid. It is always good to have the counterpoint and a pleasure to receive your notes.

    Life is ripe with suffering and tragedy, as it is, but what brings people to their knees, what brings us to desperation and contempt is suffering intentionally brought into the world, by other's and ourselves. Soldiers often experience PTSD not after having seen incredible evil in front of their eyes, but by seeing the evil they are capable of themselves.

    What hurts us most is the suffering that didn't have to be, that was caused by someone willing to hurt others. We have seen immense evil done in the past century, by the third reich, and multiplied even by all the communist empires the world has seen so far.

    If we were truly born evil, then the suffering we cause would be tragedy, it would not actually be evil, because it would not be intentional. For anything to be evil, it needs to stem from a decision. Thus all evil, without exception, is freely committed and not innate.


  • @Shadow what about people that are born and raised into decent homes and become serial killers or master mind manipulators?


  • @lego-batman If it stems from decision then does that mean everything we like and dislike is by choice?
    if I laugh at a joke is it because I chose it to be funny? or do I actually feel it is funny?
    or is this question unrelated? Is choosing to laugh different from choosing to hate?


  • @Indrid-Cold said in Is Evil Learned or Inherent?:

    I don't really understand what good can come from discussing it.

    Insight to others perspectives. What bad could come from discussing it?

    An equally weighty question, I think, is whether the 'path of least resistance' always leads to evil. I'd say that it does. Normal people become politicians to replicate their super-easy bourgeois lives among the rest of population -- it's hard for a non-communist to argue that they're doing anything evil, and yet ...look how thoughtless and precarious our economies are, look at the plight of the working classes. <--and that's my sulky hobby horse getting his exercise for today.

    This seems like evil is something activated. As if it is in us all but some of us end up using it and others don't...


  • @TheGoldenMole it's a pretty tough question cuz ppl might think of it in many other ways. Some say someone teaches us to be evil, while others say someone was born evil.....Some ppl might even say that it might be passed on by "bad genes" or so.....it is hard to decide what it really is, but I assume it might be due to evil influences.


  • @TheGoldenMole said in Is Evil Learned or Inherent?:

    @lego-batman If it stems from decision then does that mean everything we like and dislike is by choice?
    if I laugh at a joke is it because I chose it to be funny? or do I actually feel it is funny?
    or is this question unrelated? Is choosing to laugh different from choosing to hate?

    I believe it's quite hard to chose not to laugh when you find something funny :joy:. No, I think humor just happens. And so do the things we like and dislike, they rarely happen by choice, even though it can happen, that we will like for example our career, only after we have put in quite some effort.

    Maybe this is where your question is going: You do have a choice what you spend your time with. Do you spend it playing with your friends? Or do you use it to watch videos of people being beaten up, and rob the convenience store with your friends? Point is, you grow into it, you will become what you nurture. So there is kind of a choice that influences what you like and dislike in the future. But it's not a simple choice, and it is not easy to figure out how much of it is your responsibility and how much you were influenced by others.

    My point of view is that the things you do (like laugh about something) or like, happen to you. Thus they are not evil. If you grew up to hate people of different skin color because everyone around you does it, that is a tragedy. It becomes evil the moment you encounter a real chance to question that point of view but willingly close your eyes. By real I don't mean someone starting to argue with you about racism, I mean for example starting to work with a guy of another race and realizing he's not that different. Cause let's be honest: Would you change your mind because someone called you names (racist, bigot, you name it)?

    You can have a strong aversion from something or someone. But that is not the same as hating them. Hating them means wishing something bad for them to happen, and potentially implementing it. You have the choice to think those thoughts, and follow up with actions or you could note your dislike and then simply move on to do something meaningful with your life instead.


  • @TheGoldenMole Nah is born as innocent bt this world
    teach us evilsense & we learn :joy:


  • Evil is a product of survival instinct at the individual and group level. People commit atrocities when the collective mob ego possesses them, without ego there is no evil at the group level. So evil is something that one group of people agree to be contrary to the collective survival instinct. So one person's "evil" might be another's "good"