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Thread #: 1114

What makes a person evil?

Imitation Gruel

Sun Oct 28 13:05:24 2001

"I've never believed in evil. Throughout all of my years of fighting, despite all of the war-horrors I've seen, I always tried to see things from all sides, understand the issues in context. Even the Saiyajin, despite their evil actions, are not truly, inherently, completely evil; we have seen that even the highest of them is capable of kindness . . . conscience . . . love. Indeed, it is only the complete absence of these capabilities that I would postulate as evidence of 'evil.' And so the concept of evil goes against all probability and logic; surely there is no Human, demi-Saiyin, or Saiyajin whose heart is so completely bare of these simple, basic qualities.

"And if there is . . . well. I've never been particularly religious, either, but . . . may the gods help us all."

---The Leader, Memoirs of the Occupation, Pt. 13.

This is a quote from one of my favorite fanfictions; a DBZ fanfic to be specific. If you discard the stuff about Saiyajin, and simply apply the definition of evil to regular people, how do you guys think it stands up?

Is it truthful? Accurate? Over-reaching? Under-reaching?

I think that it's a bit under-reaching, but what it says is true. A truly evil person, I believe, would also probably get pleasure from seeing the misery of others, and perhaps inflicting misery upon them -- i.e. sadism.

[url=http://www.geocities.com/nkjem/circle25.html]The source[/url]

[color=red]Legal disclaimer[/color]: Full Circle is a DBZ fanfic copyrighted to Nora Jemison; all text lifted from such is done with references. No intent to profit from this text exists; it is merely being used to start a discussion.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Sun Oct 28 17:53:21 2001

Some times what makes one evil is obvious, sometimes it isn't.

DuffMan

Sun Oct 28 20:59:10 2001

To say that people are basically good because everyone has at least a little good in them is a fallacy. By the same token you could say that people are basically evil because everyone has at least a little evil in them.

I think people are basically fallible, and have both in them. Whether or not someone is good or evil depends on your point of view of this person.

OscarWilde

Mon Oct 29 03:48:00 2001

First of all define evil.
One can't say evil is the absence of virtue and vice versa.
Can one even formulate evil? For example can we even say if someone is more evil then another? Do we weigh vices differently and if so do we then go on to add the different vices together to get a "total" of the evil in a person? And then from that total do we negate the various weights of virtues and then get a grand total of the person? All vices are negative. All virutues are positive. If the total sum is negative you are evil and vice versa.
If a person is a serial rapist, but is a good father, a charitable man, a soilder of the disinfranchised, a teacher of the young, then is he evil? Go by virtues and vices, then one could say no.
To cold and mathematical in my opinion.
And this is what your text to an extent aludes too.
Measure a man as a total.
If a man kills one but saves many, is he a hero or a murderer? And no I'm not going to make it easy. The one this man killed was innocent as the many he saved. So is he a hero or a murderer?

Keep in mind i'm not talking about petty crimes above. I am talking about extreme examples of crimes (although in philosophy that would not be considered a fair argument, but I believe in this case it would be allowed).

Now here is another view point.

If we say a man is capable of love, but if we say that love to an extent is a biological drive, i.e. its in our nature to love because it benifits the the species in the long run, then how do we consider love as a virtue when we discuss morals/ethics when in essence morals/ethics are not biological but rather a device of the social intellectual collective.
In other words, a man can love but it is in part his primitive nature to do so. However morality is not neccesarily a primitive drive but maybe a civilised necessity.
Civilization needs order otherwise what is civilization without it?
Our morality stems from our ability to think and put order in a world of chaos.
So if we compare we must do so within the same sphere, i.e. intellectual "thesis" against intellecutal "anti-thesis" versus the intellect against the biological.
To love is to be in part animal.
To act morally (or immorally) is to be man.
Well to finally conclude this extremely long winded post. I disagree with the writer. It is unfortunately a mark of an "immature" writer if all they do is write an idea because to them in their minds it sounds very clever but never allow other characters or themes in the book to counter the originally stated idea. For example if she had wrote what she did, but then allowed the book to progress and suggest counter arguments then that would be all good, but I don't know if she does. IG you'll have to answer that.
As for your question. The answer, for me at least, is complex. I don't think that evil is the absence of good, but rather that evil is indeed "far more evil" in the presence of good. How can a man with one hand love and the other hand kill? That is true evil. To know the value of life and so easily take it away or reduce it to a worthless and miserable existence.

Okay i'm done for now even though i have more to say on this. Maybe i should put this in my yet unfinished philosophical work.

Hmmm....

I have ™ this whole post.
:cheesy:

Imitation Gruel

Mon Oct 29 04:36:21 2001

OW: Although I can't speak for M(r)s. Jemison, I believe, when she wrote that quote, she was alluding to the great cruelty and utter coldness of Vejiita Ouji; a man, who in that particular dimension, cared about nothing but himself and power, and would do absolutely anything, hurt absolutely anyone to serve those two masters.

Because of one moment on a sparring field when his lieutenant surpassed him in strength, even just barely; he threw decades of loyalty out the window -- his lieutenant had served him (by my calculations) for over 20 years at that point, nearly 30. He took his lieutenant's mate away before their relationship really crystallized, stole the son she was carrying away from her, and sold her off to another master -- she'd been one of the lieutenant's slaves. He then raised the son to kill his own father; raised him to hate his father; lied to him repeatedly, telling the boy that his "enemy" was weak in strength and spirit; and lying about the boy's history and parentage.

He pretended to care for the boy, pretended to love him even, all to continue his "games", and when the games were over he attempted to kill the lieutenant and the son, just as he'd killed so many millions of others for the sake of power. He failed, and died; but that's irrelevant.

At any rate OW, the alleged memoir that the quote came from does not exist -- I believe the author put that there for effect, to add to the ambience of the chapter. I think it was there for foreshadowing purposes, and to help with the gloom, to truly shed the light on the darkness of Vejiita Ouji.

I think it works, but a person probably would have to have read The Last Warrior, plus the rest of Full Circle to truly understand the significance of the passage I quoted. And even after reading the stories, it's likely that you still wouldn't understand them if you didn't understand the characters from DBZ -- at least the ones who are in the two novels, in one form or another.

OscarWilde

Mon Oct 29 04:58:20 2001

Art gives us the freedom to make absolute statements in a world we can create with absolutes. So all is fair.
None the less a good book always explores different viewpoints no matter how cruel a character might be. Then again its unfair for me to say what good and bad art is. Also its equally unfair to subject a book to criticism when I haven't read it. Sounds interesting none the less, i might check it out after I'm done with the many various books I have yet to finish reading.

Anyhow and whatnot™ are we to continue in discussint the original subject matter of this thread or do we start discussing topics that go the wayward course as defined by the map of OSY?
;) Whatnot™ makes no difference as its is not what the whatnot™ is really not about.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Mon Oct 29 05:19:30 2001

Can one even formulate evil? For example can we even say if someone is more evil then another? Do we weigh vices differently and if so do we then go on to add the different vices together to get a "total" of the evil in a person? And then from that total do we negate the various weights of virtues and then get a grand total of the person? All vices are negative. All virutues are positive. If the total sum is negative you are evil and vice versa.
If a person is a serial rapist, but is a good father, a charitable man, a soilder of the disinfranchised, a teacher of the young, then is he evil? Go by virtues and vices, then one could say no.

I don't think so.

No serial rapist can be good.  Good deeds cannot be spent as money to void out acts of vice and evil.  The line between a good man and a bad one may not be a fine one, but it is there and such crimes as rape clearly launch one on the bad side of that line.

Nobody's perfect as far as doing the right thing for their whole lives, but a good man is one who is constantly considering right versus wrong and tries to do the right thing.  A good man also learns from past mistakes.

An evil man usually cares less about such things.  Rather he seeks gratification at the cost of integrety.

Imitation Gruel

Mon Oct 29 05:27:55 2001

I don't think so.

No serial rapist can be good.  Good deeds cannot be spent as money to void out acts of vice and evil.  The line between a good man and a bad one may not be a fine one, but it is there and such crimes as rape clearly launch one on the bad side of that line.

Nobody's perfect as far as doing the right thing for their whole lives, but a good man is one who is constantly considering right versus wrong and tries to do the right thing.  A good man also learns from past mistakes.

An evil man usually cares less about such things.  Rather he seeks gratification at the cost of integrety.

AYB: Wow. I have just three words for that:

Hammer. Nail. Head.

Riso

Mon Oct 29 14:43:37 2001

There is no good or bad.

Just a damn big grey zone.

Madan

Mon Oct 29 20:16:23 2001

Watch me be an ass...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote: "I've never believed in evil. Throughout all of my years of fighting, despite all of the war-horrors I've seen, I always tried to see things from all sides, understand the issues in context. Even the Saiyajin, despite their evil actions, are not truly, inherently, completely evil; we have seen that even the highest of them is capable of kindness . . . conscience . . . love. Indeed, it is only the complete absence of these capabilities that I would postulate as evidence of 'evil.' And so the concept of evil goes against all probability and logic; surely there is no Human, demi-Saiyin, or Saiyajin whose heart is so completely bare of these simple, basic qualities.

"And if there is . . . well. I've never been particularly religious, either, but . . . may the gods help us all."

---The Leader, Memoirs of the Occupation, Pt. 13.

This is the crap that you consider to be "great writing"?

Man, you need to pick up books more often.

:evil3:

M.

(Edited by Madan at 12:19 pm on Oct. 29, 2001)

HitScan

Mon Oct 29 21:01:19 2001

Watch me be an ass...

Hey, you said it, not me ;)

This is the crap that you consider to be "great writing"?

Man, you need to pick up books more often.


We have liftoff! I may be mistaken, but I would theorise that by calling something by IG's favorite FF author crap is an excellent way to get him to bitch at you for nigh on 20 posts. I expect to be entertained boys. :biggrin:
Riso

Mon Oct 29 21:54:19 2001

I shall mark this thread.
Madan

Mon Oct 29 22:25:57 2001

Well, I mean, it DOES suck.

Not original. Overly verbose and hardly descriptive.

Over-intellectualized, psycho-posturing.

ANd this is the crap he tried to pass off as Tolstoy?

Geez.

M.

Madan

Mon Oct 29 22:31:21 2001

Huhmn...


Legal disclaimer: Full Circle is a DBZ fanfic copyrighted to Nora Jemison; all text lifted from such is done with references. No intent to profit from this text exists; it is merely being used to start a discussion.

I don't know if this "Nora" actually placed the copyright on the stuff herself, or if IG is doing it for his/her/my benefit *BUT* if it has *any* connection to DBZ, it is legally impossible for her to copyright it.

It belongs to the creators and producers of DBZ.

That copyright is meaningless.

It's like me coming out with pink, cherry-flavored Tylenol and calling it Cherrynol.

It's still based off of their formula and, therefore, no cosmetic changes void their ownership.

Man, IG's never going to talk to me again. ;)

M.

(Edited by Madan at 2:41 pm on Oct. 29, 2001)

Madan

Wed Oct 31 00:16:27 2001

Me maketh the IG mad. Don't be mad, IG. I be jus' playin'....mostly...

:)

Talk to me IG....TALK TO ME!!!!!!

M.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Wed Oct 31 00:22:32 2001

yes,

talk to madan and give him what for!

:cheesy:

and then post naked pics of katie holmes.

Imitation Gruel

Wed Oct 31 00:24:52 2001

No, Madan, I'm not mad; I simply don't care. Keep your opinions if you want; I will keep mine.

But, some advice, Madan:
 a) Don't assume that one small passage is equivalent to the writing style of a 100,000+ word novel.

 b) Don't pursue the subject further. If you do, I will continue to ignore you. And eventually, I may decide to ignore you in perpetuity.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Wed Oct 31 00:30:35 2001

What?

No Katie Holmes Pics?

:Sigh:

I wish she would come up to me and put her soft arms around me and wisper sweet (or maybe dirty) nothings (or perhaps whatnot) in my ear and we could snuggle while trolling on OSY.

That would make for a romantic evening, no?

DuffMan

Wed Oct 31 01:48:50 2001

Perpetuity, is that even a real word. If so it is a cool word.
Imitation Gruel

Wed Oct 31 03:06:00 2001

Perpetuity, is that even a real word. If so it is a cool word.

DuffMan: It's roughly equivalent to 'perpetually', meaning that when I say I would ignore Madan in perpetuity, it means I would ignore him forever.

It's generally a noun, though; not an adjective.

Madan

Wed Oct 31 17:53:47 2001

No, Madan, I'm not mad; I simply don't care. Keep your opinions if you want; I will keep mine.

No, you're not mad...I'M Mad. ;)

Yes, you have your opinions and I have mine.... bingo.


But, some advice, Madan:
a) Don't assume that one small passage is equivalent to the writing style of a 100,000+ word novel.

I certainly hope not.


b) Don't pursue the subject further. If you do, I will continue to ignore you. And eventually, I may decide to ignore you in perpetuity.

Gee, do you PROMISE?! Don't tease...

;)

Jk. Listen, I'm sorry but I just *don't* like that fanfic excerpt and I have a right to my opinion on it. I laugh with AYB about detatchable gens on my iFruit and I take hits on personal tastes all the time.

It doesn't mean you have to get so upset. :)
You're acting more poopy than Poopy.

Oh, and perpetuity is also a term in accounting that represents a payment made ad infinteum.

Ciao,

M.