People we see as "evil", are we being ignorant of their brilliance?

[Xshu]

I suppose that is true, you have to remember all of the gray areas in the world.

I submit that all gray can be divided into shades of white and shades of black. For example, using the RGB system there are 16777216 colours. Exactly 8388608 of them are more bright than they are dark, and exactly 8388608 of them are more dark than they are bright. There is no middle ground colour.

I know the real world doesn't operate on that system, but I still think all acts can, on some fundamental level, be divided into good or bad. Some are so close together that figuring it out is an effort in futility, where killing 1301 old ladies for a hundred years of world peace is evil but killing 1300 and two dogs is good, but they can still be separated. Of course, I can't possibly claim to know what the true morality actually is, I just try to figure out what I think it would be. In the end I don't end up acting any different than a person with subjective morality, but I do it for different reasons. They're trying to draw a picture they like while I'm trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together that includes nigh-infinity pieces which are almost all slightly defective versions of the real parts of the picture. XD

And no, I'm not actually saying that killing 1300 old ladies and two dogs for a hundred years of world peace is good.

 

[Adam Jenson]

Leni Reifenstahl. A film German filmmaker who made the Nazi Propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Due to the fact she made a film for Hitler, but in no way shared his beliefs, she was ostracized from Hollywood despite the fact she was a pioneer. Her film of the 1940 Olympic games Olympia was the first to use innovative Editing techniques and underwater photography. Even years later when she was 104, when an exhibition of her Nuba Tribe photography was being held in Berlin she was hounded by protesters who labeled her a Nazi.

Forget Hitler. The man was a screwed up wreck of a man who threw a hissy fit because he thought he had bee dealt a raw deal. Leni on the other hand was a genius whose work was never recognized for it's own sake.

 

[Dele]

You say I limit my options with fundamentalist idealogies, I say you're a cynic.
I have had death much too close to home, as my father passed away earlier this year (Now last year) and as such I am currently a huge "There is no way the ends can justify the means" fanboy, at least not in this case, as there is absolutely NOTHING worse than death. And thinking about - for instance - how many people Hitler is the reason got killed, it's absolutely appalling.

Yes, I realise that trees don't grow into heaven, but since I don't have to mastermind a plot to overthrow the government, or try to justify any means, I am free to any opinion. "What if you had to choose..." I don't, not currently anyway, and hopefully not ever.

I'm clinging to beautiful idealogies, knowingly that it will never work.
You're a cynic.
We could argue all we want, it would get us no-where.

I respect your point of view, but I believe that in order for us to make this world a "better place" we need to realise morality, try to resolve things peacefully to all means. Turn the other cheek.

I understand if you're against that, completely, I had your point of view not long ago.

What is Good and Evil? It's Right and Wrong.
I believe we should do what is Right no matter the price, at least in the subject of our current discussion.

On the contrary I believe this discussion might get us somewhere.

Id say there are a lot of worse things than death in this world and some of them can be easily identified when you think about a world WITHOUT death. Also a world without Hitler could have been much worse off than our current one and while it cannot be used to justify his existence it can be used as an argument against Hitler being 'pure evil'.
I partly agree with your morality sentence but sometimes we cannot afford such luxuries and thus it seems pointless to strive for such things when the situation makes them unreasonable. Peace always requires two parties and so it needs to be bilateral.
If Good = Right then I find it hard for you to claim that Good is universal and non-subjective. Obviously we have different 'Rights' and 'Wrongs'.

 

[Helnurath]

If I only had 30 minutes to redirect a small comet (enough to destroy a small country and create minimal global impact)from hitting the United States, and now it will hit India, Does that make me evil?

 

[GunnerGraye]

Ignorance is not "rudeness" but "lack of knowledge; stupidity"

A very good point.

 

[Grenbyron]

so drunken kitty, it sounds like George W to me

Lets be fair, we are looking for evil brilliance, not stupid wrapped in an idiot.

 

[Grenbyron]

Perhaps "Evil Brilliance" is hard to define because there is no original crime or set of actions that can be defined as "Brilliant". Hitler was into Genocide, yet the middle east has been playing that game for centuries. Serial killers kill, but mostly its just the same crime with different players. The poster was correct that Rasputin was just a bat-sh1t crazy friend that was along for the ride. His killing of them and over through of the government was an old story retold. We have all heard the saying "There are no original ideas, just reflections of past accomplishments." Perhaps it is hard to dictate Brilliance when that word implies a genius of work. "Evil" is easy and never defined the same by any two people. Hitler is an easy example because he was wrong. Look at the other side of the coin, what if he had been right. Would that have changed his actions? I do not pose this in any way as a support of him and his actions. Just the philosophical proposal of would Hitler still have been evil if the Jews really had been the cause of the suffering of the German people. I pose this as an exercise on letting of a singler view and look at the global whole.
When I was in school my instructor set up this exersise: "Would you kill a child if the result would save millions from death?" The quick answer is no because killing an innocent is evil, yet letting the child grow up to harm others would also be an evil through inaction.
And I think I just went over into the deep end... oops.

Back on topic, I propose these as some possible evil brilliance people. Jack the Ripper: committed gruesome murders and was never caught. Zodiac Killer: murdered and was never caught even though he taunted the police.

Zodiac Killer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer

Pardon my spelling, wont never no good at it.

 

[cyber_andyy]

Perhaps "Evil Brilliance" is hard to define because there is no original crime or set of actions that can be defined as "Brilliant". Hitler was into Genocide, yet the middle east has been playing that game for centuries. Serial killers kill, but mostly its just the same crime with different players. The poster was correct that Rasputin was just a bat-sh1t crazy friend that was along for the ride. His killing of them and over through of the government was an old story retold. We have all heard the saying "There are no original ideas, just reflections of past accomplishments." Perhaps it is hard to dictate Brilliance when that word implies a genius of work. "Evil" is easy and never defined the same by any two people. Hitler is an easy example because he was wrong. Look at the other side of the coin, what if he had been right. Would that have changed his actions? I do not pose this in any way as a support of him and his actions. Just the philosophical proposal of would Hitler still have been evil if the Jews really had been the cause of the suffering of the German people. I pose this as an exercise on letting of a singler view and look at the global whole.
When I was in school my instructor set up this exersise: "Would you kill a child if the result would save millions from death?" The quick answer is no because killing an innocent is evil, yet letting the child grow up to harm others would also be an evil through inaction.
And I think I just went over into the deep end... oops.

Back on topic, I propose these as some possible evil brilliance people. Jack the Ripper: committed gruesome murders and was never caught. Zodiac Killer: murdered and was never caught even though he taunted the police.

Zodiac Killer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer

Pardon my spelling, wont never no good at it.

Damn thats almost a whole new topic in its self, although, i would say you would have to be more cunning to evade the police. But on the other hand that could come into brilliance...:S

 

[ElephantGuts]

This is a very interesting thread, and I feel bad that it's already too long for me to read through all the responses, but I will say that I agree that Hitler was a very smart man. Fucking crazy (especially and progressively more so as the Third Reich approached its final years) but he was definetly smart. He created his own political party, got it to fascistly(word?) rule the entire country of Germany and completely convince/brainwash the German people. He rescued Germany from the depression (both economically and mentally) and overall horrible state it fell into after WW1. He convinced so many people to commit the horrible atrocities of the Holocaust, yes its bad but it takes a lot to get people to do something as big and horrible as that. And arguably most importantly he devised and employed the blitzkrieg tactics to great effect, sending warfare in a completely new direction while Britain and France were sitting there ready to fight in the same trench warfare of WW1.

Unfortunately, of course, he was completely crazy and either had no morals or horribly twisted ones, and some very cruel ideas of how to gain power.

I believe, with Hitler being the exception that proves the rule, that there is no real evil out there. Everybody has reasons.

Also, I agree with this. I don't think there's really such a thing as "evil". Everyone just does what they decide is the best way to achieve whatever goals they decide to accomplish. The problem is when they have some very different ideas of morals and what is and isn't excusable. And, if you could be in a person's head and see things from the same perspective they were seeing them from, maybe you wouldn't consider what they did to be so "evil" or "crazy". I do think that this applies to Hitler as well, he's just an extreme example.

And so, from this opinion, you can see one of the reasons I don't like my English teacher when she says that she believes that all humans are naturally evil. Somehow, she uses Lord of the Flies as evidence of this. I see the book as perfect evidence against all people being naturally evil. I did not care enough to debate my opinion in class. Especially not at 8:30 in the morning.

 

[antipunt]

You say I limit my options with fundamentalist idealogies, I say you're a cynic......

On the contrary I believe this discussion might get us somewhere.

Id say there are a lot of worse things than death in this world and some of them can be easily identified when you think about a world WITHOUT death. Also a world without Hitler could have been much worse off than our current one and while it cannot be used to justify his existence it can be used as an argument against Hitler being 'pure evil'.
I partly agree with your morality sentence but sometimes we cannot afford such luxuries and thus it seems pointless to strive for such things when the situation makes them unreasonable. Peace always requires two parties and so it needs to be bilateral.
If Good = Right then I find it hard for you to claim that Good is universal and non-subjective. Obviously we have different 'Rights' and 'Wrongs'.

Agreed totally. There are TOTALLY things worse than death. To not realize this statement alone means you haven't thought outside the box. I can name two off the bat: 1) eternal damnation by JC 2) being tortured alive until unconscious, then awakened, and tortured repeatedly

The notion of 'pure evil' and Hitler being brought up time and time again as the 'pinata' for moralistic hypocrites is something I see time and time again. really guys, there is NO SUCH THING AS PURE EVIL. It's really that simple. Everything from Hitler to Mom's salisbury steak is in shades of grey. Hitler was nothing more than an unfortunate combination of a certain set of genes interacting with his particular environment. For example, if he was accepted into that Art School, mebbe he wouldn't have been so pissed.

There are many many "Hitlers" in the world (and on the blogs xP) that just need to be put in Germany, at that time period with Germany's run-down state, and an opportunity to be put into power. I hate it when moralistic ppls say things similar to "oh Geez. that killer is SO EVIL." which implies "i am SO GOOD, I would NEVER DO THAT". My answer is: you just never had the opportunity and/or weren't pushed enough.

I mean c'mon think about it: what % of serial killers had TERRIFIC PARENTS. I've seen documentaries and most psychokillers had horrible parents (think sexual molesting, chronic arguing, etc.)

 

[Akasha666]

So my questions to you all is this:
Are these "evil" people simply misguided?
Should they be treated as the "evil" people that people see them as?
Is "evil" just brilliance used in the wrong way?

I didn´t read the whole thread yet... but I just felt an urge to reply ~

About me

I am born German, grew up in western Germany and got the whole indoctrination thrown at me that you get in Germany about the Third Reich. The effect this had on me was that I went out to look for some information that you don´t find in every history textbook. And what I found made me feel relieved that there weren´t many of those promised 3000 years come to past. I am born in 1980 but without the fall of Hitlers regime it would have been 1984.

About Hitler

Hitler was a very small person - considering his intellect. Just read his book or books written about him. There are no big achievements in his life, there are no big philosophies (like for example with Mao Zedongs), there was no plan on how to make the world run once it was conquered ~ no economic model (Marx and Co), no political establishments that would haul the the task of administration ... nada.
Hitler was a puppet that was played but a lot forces - intellectual circles that gave him ideas like the whole antisemitism, money sources who guided him to expand their interests and the military that gave him the means once he was on the "right" track. He was played and nothing else. Did you hear his first speeches? They were embarrassing! He took courses as an actor before he step on that stages to wield the masses. Please read up on him and tell me one thing where Adolf Hitler showed greatness.

About Great Persona

In history those people who did the cruelest things usually get handed greatness by testbooks. People who formed unions of separate states, people who freed countries from occupying forces or a leading minority, those people brought swords to the conflict and left bleeding wounds that sometimes took centuries to heal. What is the difference between them and tragic figures like Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Emperor Hirohito? They won. Their enemies were gone and everyone who supported them started to talk highly of them and their deeds.

My 2 cents

When you are looking for greatness look for names that you rarely hear in public discussions. People behind the scenes who hold the strings. Just look at the politicians out there that try to force a new world order on us but still can´t do a political speech without serious grammar mistakes a five year old would be embarrassed about - do you think a few acting lessons would have made them Great? Neither did they lead Hitler to enlightenment.

 

[Akasha666]

Well, look at it this way.

I have heard people praise the Spanish Inquisition, another hateful act of murder. I look at it and say that those people were, by my definition, evil. And yet people have praised them. Would this not be enough proof that evil, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder?

There are two different philosophies in psychology. One says humans are born evil and need strict guidance to stay in line. The other humans are innocent in their infant state and need to be protected from evil influences. Those are just two extremes and a common believe is that a baby born is the purest form of selfishness that exists - it just screams when something doesn´t go its way until someone fixes it.

While selfishness itself isn´t evil it needs restraints to make a collective work. A common interest sometimes needs to weight more than a personal one. But the moment you look at a collective from a broader perspective it again becomes selfish - just as the baby, the single unit of the collective was.

Social collectives rarely accept the needs of others outside of their holy boundaries. Therefore, were the acts of Conquistadors and the knights of the Inquisition on the other side of the world not to be condoned as they merely worked on expanding the collective for the greater good of "all".

Evil is what causes you harm without serving your community.

 

[Akasha666]

...What is Good and Evil? It's Right and Wrong.
I believe we should do what is Right no matter the price, at least in the subject of our current discussion.

On the contrary I believe this discussion might get us somewhere.

Id say there are a lot of worse things than death in this world and some of them can be easily identified when you think about a world WITHOUT death. Also a world without Hitler could have been much worse off than our current one and while it cannot be used to justify his existence it can be used as an argument against Hitler being 'pure evil'.
I partly agree with your morality sentence but sometimes we cannot afford such luxuries and thus it seems pointless to strive for such things when the situation makes them unreasonable. Peace always requires two parties and so it needs to be bilateral.
If Good = Right then I find it hard for you to claim that Good is universal and non-subjective. Obviously we have different 'Rights' and 'Wrongs'.

Genocide, Rape and torture - all of them have been used in excess in history and sometimes textbooks tell that it was for the greater good. Or more common - those weary facts that lead to the result are left out so they may not soil the triumph that was reached. I personally started believe that those evil deeds were just. Those are military decision where dead bodies get translated into algebra and end up in statistical projections. I found that rather appealing. But reading about more and more decisions that had been made in the past I become more and more appalled by the thought as those numbers have become such a strong argument in so many discussions. Leave alone the fact that statistics now allow to calculate body counts into units like USD or ?.

I agree that there are theoretical situation where a genocide would have actually prevented a lot more bloodshed. But who is to decide when the killing of a whole nation or its leading elite is the right way to go? Are you qualified to make such an decision? If you are I´d pity you for your burden. There is so much ignorance in this world that it seems to be impossible for me to solve it with a surgical strike to a single base.

I am not yet driving around in my brightly rainbow colored VW beetle and teach peace and happiness <- sarcasm . But seeing corporate interests commit or condone genocide for financial gain or lack there off... Well, just say - You would have spoken to my heart only a few years ago. But no human being is able to make a decision that you would ask him to do. I still agree that in dire situation a quick decision to kill will save life. But such tactics should be taught to officers who are heading to the front. We, the fortunate who sit in our peaceful countries and have time to discuss Adolf Hitler on a Game forum, we should spend more time on a non-violent approach to threatening situations. And no - I am not going to quote Gandhi now - but I could if forced to

 

[Cangoose1]

Hitler was smart, lets not mince words with that but thats what made him so dangerous. Hitler had terrible ideas, but he executed them in effective, however terrible ways. But i think its a bad idea to call them "brilliant" because that could add fuel to the fire of those who want to emulate them.

 

[Marv21]

I think we all agree here and this is the pinnacle of our conversation that Good and Evil are just words. Their is not true good, and their is no true evil, always 2 sides of the coin.

The positive and negative perceptions we give people like Hitler are of like, dislike, or middle-ground, and the reason for this is because of our background and our opinions. But no one can commit mass genocide without a reason and for pure hate of humanity. If it betters his country, then its a reason why he would do it.

Hitler did this to cleanse his country and to give Germans pride for well, being Germans. He did the wrong thing for the right reasons.

 

[Dele]

Genocide, Rape and torture - all of them have been used in excess in history and sometimes textbooks tell that it was for the greater good. Or more common - those weary facts that lead to the result are left out so they may not soil the triumph that was reached. I personally started believe that those evil deeds were just. Those are military decision where dead bodies get translated into algebra and end up in statistical projections. I found that rather appealing. But reading about more and more decisions that had been made in the past I become more and more appalled by the thought as those numbers have become such a strong argument in so many discussions. Leave alone the fact that statistics now allow to calculate body counts into units like USD or ?.

I agree that there are theoretical situation where a genocide would have actually prevented a lot more bloodshed. But who is to decide when the killing of a whole nation or its leading elite is the right way to go? Are you qualified to make such an decision? If you are I´d pity you for your burden. There is so much ignorance in this world that it seems to be impossible for me to solve it with a surgical strike to a single base.

I am not yet driving around in my brightly rainbow colored VW beetle and teach peace and happiness <- sarcasm . But seeing corporate interests commit or condone genocide for financial gain or lack there off... Well, just say - You would have spoken to my heart only a few years ago. But no human being is able to make a decision that you would ask him to do. I still agree that in dire situation a quick decision to kill will save life. But such tactics should be taught to officers who are heading to the front. We, the fortunate who sit in our peaceful countries and have time to discuss Adolf Hitler on a Game forum, we should spend more time on a non-violent approach to threatening situations. And no - I am not going to quote Gandhi now - but I could if forced to

I used to strongly believe in ideologies, just causes and the goodness of a fellow man. How could have I not when I was goodygoody myself? Gradually my eyes began to open as I saw some of the forces at the backround of these ideologies and deeds. Now I see them as ways of getting masses moving, those people who settle for black and white truths. Pure idealists are too rare to usually change the world.

Who is to decide killing? Why he who has the power to do so of course. If we agree that there are no universal goods or bads, rights or wrongs then we agree that all deeds are equally good or bad unless a certain mechanism is specified to quantify the amount of good and bad a decision has. Usually this mechanism is the demographic majority of people sharing similiar morals on a certain issue but seeing how the death of a few people in US 2001 justified invasion of two countries in the eyes of a majority, this mechanism is obviously vulnerable to manipulation. I claim that non-violent and violent approach have no difference, only the result has any meaning and how it effects you and those you care about.

 

[Volothos]

We probably label them "evil" because we're afraid or can't comprehend(?).