The Myth of Pure Evil

[Magical Realist]

Insightful little clip of Rainn Wilson explaining one of the biggest delusions of our time:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/25404228045941449

[C C]

Insightful little clip of Rainn Wilson explaining one of the biggest delusions of our time:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/25404228045941449

Ultimately, MOPE boils down to frugalness or laziness. Humans aren't LLMs that can analyze all the vast details of an unruly concept within mere seconds or micro-seconds. And in the real-world one must often make decisions fast, not defer to days of uncertainty and hesitancy. Discerning complexity in rivals (even in the home team) takes time and effort, and it's just easier to interpret Brand-X in simple packages of unadulterated homogeneous content.

And the limitations of everyday conversational language do not accommodate large file sizes for exporting a torturous picture of Brand-X to others anyway, even if one could hold it or was holding it mentally.

[Magical Realist]

Hence the oversimplifying labels like terrorist or fascist or leftist or illegal alien or radical or subversive or addict or homeless or mentally ill---categorical abstractions that permit automatic moral condemnation if not imprisonment and elimination. Not only do we speak now in 10 second prepackaged sound bites, we also think in them too.

[Syne]

Hence the oversimplifying labels like terrorist or fascist or leftist or illegal alien or radical or subversive---categorical abstractions that permit automatic moral condemnation if not imprisonment and elimination. Not only do we speak now in 10 second prepackaged sound bites, we also think in them too.

Or:

MAGA

MAGA incels.

MAGA phobes

trigger-happy fascist goons

9_9

Where "illegal alien" is a legal term, "terrorist" denotes actual violent actions or plans, etc..

[Magical Realist]

MAGA and incels are terms used by such people to name themselves. Homophobic is a psychiatric term. And fascist in this case is adjective describing a kind of behavior. And "terrorist" is also a legal term used by the govt to justify killing without arrest or trial. Anything else?

[Syne]

Those are examples of you using them as blankets terms to "permit automatic moral condemnation", not people labeling themselves. You can't diagnosis psychiatric ailments without a clinical evaluation. And fascism has a definition you ignore, again, to "permit automatic moral condemnation." Yes, "terrorist" is a legal term, which you're misconstruing to, again, "permit automatic moral condemnation."

Hypocrite. 9_9

[Magical Realist]

Yep..even I'm guilty of it at times. Hence:

Not only do we speak now in 10 second prepackaged sound bites, we also think in them too.

[Ostronomos]

Evil is real. It is not a chimera. Morality without qualification too is real.

[C C]

Evil is real. It is not a chimera. Morality without qualification too is real.

Doubtless in Plato's intelligible stratum or realm of pure, general abstract forms (and formulas). But their concrete instantiations become mixed and compromised, non-ideal items in the pied specifics of the phenomenal slash physical world.

[Magical Realist]

By the very fact that the property we project as absolute evil so unnerves us and repulses us, as if instinctively and without much thought, signifies that is likely a very primitive pattern in our brains. It has always been the case that we respond with fight or flight at the immediate implication of life-threatening presences, giving rise to all sorts of beliefs in demons and monsters. 9 times out of 10 such a reaction might be overkill or even mistaken. But if once in a blue moon it kept us from being attacked and killed by some predatory being, be it animal or human, that was enough to get it programmed into our DNA.

Hence absolute evil lurks about in our world, as a malicious shadow, but only because it is a shadow of our most primitive collective selves--an archetype. It is expected of others only because, given the right circumstances, it can also be expected of ourselves. It is the seething bestiality just below the surface of our every day civility. Watch any road rage clips lately? This unsettling truth is at the root of all horror. The call is coming from inside the house!"

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1RkAGDjfHvU