I. It occurs to me that I would not want to call anyone evil - or bad or any word like that. Deeds are good and evil. People are people.
I'm not sure whether or not I have ever heard such a distinction (between moral charged actions vs. morally neutral people) made before. But I ask: would you actually not call anyone evil, or would you just "not want to call anyone evil" (as you wrote).
II. If I did, I would need to label entire cultures as mentally ill - such as those that practice female genital mutilation.
When you say that you would label whole cultures as "mentally ill", do you mean this as a metaphor (after all, cultures do not have literal minds), or do you literally believe in Carl Jung's idea of a collective unconscious?
And on the topic of genital mutilation: while we Westerners feel that female genital mutilation is disgusting and cruel, there are many people out there who believe that the (minor) genital mutilation that we Jews perform on newborn males is disgusting and evil. In fact, many of the anti-circumcision people might say that Judaism is a mentally ill culture. (And perhaps it is, at least some branches of it-- see below.)
By the way, I hope that Fuzzy Pink isn't reading this. Fortunately, there is no link to this blog from Fresh Samantha, and FS has told me that she doesn't follow this blog.
III. That having been said, I do know of at least one form of mental illness that is connected to religion. I believe it is called scrupulosity. It is one specific type of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the obsessive compulsive thoughts/behaviors are connected to religious practice.
Hmmm (as you would say). If we are talkiŋ about illness of the "collective mind" of a culture, one might say that the entire of Ashkenazic Jewry, or at least Orthodox Ashkenazic Jewry, has this collective mental illness. Look all over the Mishna Verurah (yes, that beis/bet is supposed to be soft, because the previous word ends in an open vowel): "ובעל נפש יחמיר" (one who has a soul will be stringent, said about matters that are technically permitted), and "וירא שמים יצא ידי כולם" (one who fears heaven will fulfil all the various opinions, said in a case like the one that you mentioned above about tzitzit, that one should be afraid that each pair doesn't count according to one medieval Rabbi, so one should wear 300 pairs, to make sure that one has fulfilled the mitzvoh.
This is all a far cry from suicide. But who knows what can lead to what?
(And to thiŋk that I have finally accepted the label Orthodox... See the entry in my blog entitled "Relativistic Orthodox": http://margavriel.blogspot.com.
By the way, I may have mentioned this before, but perhaps not: it is discussions like this one that make bloggiŋ worthwhile.
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Re: Evil, Mental Illness, and OCD
Date: 2005-07-15 10:06 pm (UTC)I. It occurs to me that I would not want to call anyone evil - or bad or any word like that. Deeds are good and evil. People are people.
I'm not sure whether or not I have ever heard such a distinction (between moral charged actions vs. morally neutral people) made before. But I ask: would you actually not call anyone evil, or would you just "not want to call anyone evil" (as you wrote).
II. If I did, I would need to label entire cultures as mentally ill - such as those that practice female genital mutilation.
When you say that you would label whole cultures as "mentally ill", do you mean this as a metaphor (after all, cultures do not have literal minds), or do you literally believe in Carl Jung's idea of a collective unconscious?
And on the topic of genital mutilation: while we Westerners feel that female genital mutilation is disgusting and cruel, there are many people out there who believe that the (minor) genital mutilation that we Jews perform on newborn males is disgusting and evil. In fact, many of the anti-circumcision people might say that Judaism is a mentally ill culture. (And perhaps it is, at least some branches of it-- see below.)
By the way, I hope that Fuzzy Pink isn't reading this. Fortunately, there is no link to this blog from Fresh Samantha, and FS has told me that she doesn't follow this blog.
III. That having been said, I do know of at least one form of mental illness that is connected to religion. I believe it is called scrupulosity. It is one specific type of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the obsessive compulsive thoughts/behaviors are connected to religious practice.
Hmmm (as you would say). If we are talkiŋ about illness of the "collective mind" of a culture, one might say that the entire of Ashkenazic Jewry, or at least Orthodox Ashkenazic Jewry, has this collective mental illness. Look all over the Mishna Verurah (yes, that beis/bet is supposed to be soft, because the previous word ends in an open vowel): "ובעל נפש יחמיר" (one who has a soul will be stringent, said about matters that are technically permitted), and "וירא שמים יצא ידי כולם" (one who fears heaven will fulfil all the various opinions, said in a case like the one that you mentioned above about tzitzit, that one should be afraid that each pair doesn't count according to one medieval Rabbi, so one should wear 300 pairs, to make sure that one has fulfilled the mitzvoh.
This is all a far cry from suicide. But who knows what can lead to what?
(And to thiŋk that I have finally accepted the label Orthodox... See the entry in my blog entitled "Relativistic Orthodox": http://margavriel.blogspot.com.
By the way, I may have mentioned this before, but perhaps not: it is discussions like this one that make bloggiŋ worthwhile.