"Evil Men"

Mannix · 10-17-2006, 07:08 AM

First off I want to clarify that I want this thread to focus on linguistic particulars rather than on any particular "evildoers." Now that that's out of the way...

I think the English language is limited in its capacity to describe people that do bad things. I believe this is the case because far too often when discussing men like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, various serial killers and the like (that weren't actually, physically, clinically insane) we tend to default to terms such as crazy, insane, evil, monster, etc etc etc to describe their actions and nature.

I believe that conducting a dialogue on such people using the outlined terms and the categories they represent cheapens the consequences of their actions and provides them with an existential "out."

Why? Because crazy/insane people are not in control of the mental faculties, and saying, for instance, that Saddam is 'insane' because of the crimes inflicted on the Kurds gives him the psychological excuse of 'hey I couldn't stop myself, I can't control my own mind.'

Evil/monster present the same problem. Evil and monsterous beings do not posess the capacity for good in their nature. They act in a vile nature because they can do no other - its what they are to their very core.

The people that perpetrate these crimes are human beings that posess the capacity for choice. Each and every situation presented to an individual allows for essentially two choices - help or hurt. I'm not saying that there aren't situations that have multiple solutions, just that those solutions can be categorized as helping something or hurting something. Yes, sometimes those things conflict - hurt one person to help another, etc - and sometimes the solution results in nothing at all, but those situations are rare and I'm speaking in general terms.

Every time the DC sniper pulled the trigger, he had a binary choice - kill/don't kill. Every step on the way to invading Poland, Hitler had the choice to reverse his path. The list can go on and on, so my point is this; these guys that are refered to with the terms I listed at the begining made deliberate descisions they were fully cognizant of. They had every chance and capacity to do otherwise and they willfully chose not to.

What I haven't been able to figure out is what kind of language we should use to discuss these kinds of situations, because the way we do it now just doesn't cut it for me.

10-17-2006, 07:08 AM	#1
Mannix Tenacious C Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 991	"Evil Men" First off I want to clarify that I want this thread to focus on linguistic particulars rather than on any particular "evildoers." Now that that's out of the way... I think the English language is limited in its capacity to describe people that do bad things. I believe this is the case because far too often when discussing men like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, various serial killers and the like (that weren't actually, physically, clinically insane) we tend to default to terms such as crazy, insane, evil, monster, etc etc etc to describe their actions and nature. I believe that conducting a dialogue on such people using the outlined terms and the categories they represent cheapens the consequences of their actions and provides them with an existential "out." Why? Because crazy/insane people are not in control of the mental faculties, and saying, for instance, that Saddam is 'insane' because of the crimes inflicted on the Kurds gives him the psychological excuse of 'hey I couldn't stop myself, I can't control my own mind.' Evil/monster present the same problem. Evil and monsterous beings do not posess the capacity for good in their nature. They act in a vile nature because they can do no other - its what they are to their very core. The people that perpetrate these crimes are human beings that posess the capacity for choice. Each and every situation presented to an individual allows for essentially two choices - help or hurt. I'm not saying that there aren't situations that have multiple solutions, just that those solutions can be categorized as helping something or hurting something. Yes, sometimes those things conflict - hurt one person to help another, etc - and sometimes the solution results in nothing at all, but those situations are rare and I'm speaking in general terms. Every time the DC sniper pulled the trigger, he had a binary choice - kill/don't kill. Every step on the way to invading Poland, Hitler had the choice to reverse his path. The list can go on and on, so my point is this; these guys that are refered to with the terms I listed at the begining made deliberate descisions they were fully cognizant of. They had every chance and capacity to do otherwise and they willfully chose not to. What I haven't been able to figure out is what kind of language we should use to discuss these kinds of situations, because the way we do it now just doesn't cut it for me. __________________ Dangerous, mute lunatic.