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 was discussing this with a friend of mine over Shabbos. (In fact, I gave her the URL for this site, and indeed, she very well may be one of the anonymous posters below. I really have no idea.) She said that while anyone may do bad actions, an evil (or bad) person is someone who has no conscience. I objected that the only person I know who seems to have absolutely no conscience is a homeless guy on Broadway, the huge black guy with the snot running down from his nose, who shifts his weight from side to side. He seems to have no sense of self-respect, even to the extent that he doesn't think of wiping the snot off from his face. Yet I would hardly call him evil; he is probably mentally ill.
In fact, if you don't have a conscience, how can one be considered good or evil? In fact, I may have exactly the opposite criteria for evility ;-) than my friend who spoke about conscience. Perhaps this goes to show that taylweaver and mysticengineer are right: it is impossible for us to judge the evility of people-- only of deeds (and grins, and giggles, and laughs, of course-- heh heh heh).
And perhaps this will open up another can of worms, but I shall mention that I don't know whether or not "conscience" should be identified with the Jewish concept of yetzer ha-ra`, or the Freudian concept of the Super-ego, or some combination of the three, or some mental lightbulb which should be telling me that if I no longer know how to count to two, it's probably time to go to sleep...
And why is it that as I write these final lines, I'm fading in and out of a dream about being in the synagogue of the Tahana HaMerkazit in Jerusalem? I guess it really is time to go to sl...
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Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-20 04:33 am (UTC)I was discussing this with a friend of mine over Shabbos. (In fact, I gave her the URL for this site, and indeed, she very well may be one of the anonymous posters below. I really have no idea.) She said that while anyone may do bad actions, an evil (or bad) person is someone who has no conscience. I objected that the only person I know who seems to have absolutely no conscience is a homeless guy on Broadway, the huge black guy with the snot running down from his nose, who shifts his weight from side to side. He seems to have no sense of self-respect, even to the extent that he doesn't think of wiping the snot off from his face. Yet I would hardly call him evil; he is probably mentally ill.
In fact, if you don't have a conscience, how can one be considered good or evil? In fact, I may have exactly the opposite criteria for evility ;-) than my friend who spoke about conscience. Perhaps this goes to show that
And perhaps this will open up another can of worms, but I shall mention that I don't know whether or not "conscience" should be identified with the Jewish concept of yetzer ha-ra`, or the Freudian concept of the Super-ego, or some combination of the three, or some mental lightbulb which should be telling me that if I no longer know how to count to two, it's probably time to go to sleep...
And why is it that as I write these final lines, I'm fading in and out of a dream about being in the synagogue of the Tahana HaMerkazit in Jerusalem? I guess it really is time to go to sl...