Where does evil come from?

What happened to ‘bad’?

These days human acts are getting more and more terrible, atrocious, etc. such that the term ‘bad’ is insufficient to convey the essence of those acts to motivate the relevant preventive strategies. The term ‘bad’ these days invoked a sense that such a ‘bad’ act is like child play and deserved merely a spank.

This is why more and more people, example philosophers and others are invoking the term ‘evil’ to represent the full range of the worst of human acts.

The term ‘evil’ give a stronger bite and grip on the problem.

Since we are using the term ‘evil’ to deal with the very serious issues, we have to use it as a common denominator to represent other bad acts [to facilitate communications] and thus we introduce “evil” within a continuum from low evil [say 5/100] to very evil [99/100] within a hierarchy and taxonomy.

Human acts of bad or evil have not increased. Actions are just broadcasted more. Something horrible occuring in a little town would not have made national news fifty years ago unless a well known person was involved.

That’s the perception that people now have because of the influence of mass media. The media makes money by reporting extreme behavior and extreme events. ‘Bad’ won’t make the 6 o’clock news.

It distorts by putting behaviors which are on a spectrum, into two extremes categories. Now things, which were classified as only bad in the past, are called evil and people react to them as though they are truly evil. One sees this in social media when someone makes a small mistake and it brings forth an extreme reaction - often proposing death as a suitable punishment.

Exactly

In big cities it is just the other way around. Criminal activities are more and more kept secret by media, politics, police, … and so on (at last also by most people). More and more people live in bigger and bigger becoming cities. Since 2008 more than 50% of all humans have been living in cities (for comparison only: in 1950 that percentage was 30%; and in 2030 it will estimately be 60%). So, unfortunately, one has to state that human acts of bad or evil have increased. The reason is a simple one, bioecologically and anthropologically said: Humans are not made for cities, for living in such a settlement density, population density; humans are made for a life in a relatively small group.

[tab]An example: The city Shenzhen in China had 30000 inhabitants in 1979 but 10.5 million inhabitants in 2011.

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I can agree with all that but still in a normal human way of living , it has not changed. Cities like that are abnormal… Oh there are just a few smartass things running through my head about people and cities, I better not…

Cities like that are abnormal, but they exist. They are architectural facts of human history.

As I said: Humans are not made for big cities or cities at all but for thorps, villages; because they are living beings of relatively small groups (like packs, prides, flocks, herds).

Humans are made for adapting… Though we can reallllllllly fight it. As humans adapt to large communities self preservation kicked in, you ceased to see faces and identifiers. Ever live in a huge city? I spent most of my life in large cities. You really just float through life not thinking about the humanity surrounding you, they in essence become objects. Yet I see change /adaptation beginning . The most notorious community,Harlem, is changing becoming more humane.

Humans are are capable of both adaptation and non-adaptation. Humans can dissociate from nature, can fight against nature. The more culture/civilization humans have, the more anti-natural they are.

In the same time, more and more other notorious communites are becoming more and more inhumane.

Nobody knows, when and how this is going to stop.

Hi Krissy. I don’t know about that. I think we have seen and can say that ~~ let’s say in the case of technology itself or the way in which humans have used and abused it, because we are such mental and emotional pigmies where it is concerned, has most definitely contributed to unethical and immoral acts. I speak both subjectively and objectively. Can one do both? :-k

The further back in time one goes the more barbaric human civilisation was. The present [ any present ] is therefore the least barbaric time one can live in since
by definition it is an improvement on all previous times. Though it could change if something detrimental to human existence occurred on a global scale. Such as
for example a nuclear war or universal epidemic or ice age. However barring such apocalyptic scenarios modern life is on average significantly more comfortable
than compared with previous eras. For more on this read Steven Pinker

google.com/search?q=the+bom … M7yynRM%3A

That was not on a global scale and was justified as being the lesser of two evils but there will always be atrocities regardless of anything else so it has
to be factored into the equation. But as I said modern life is on average significantly more comfortable. Also in the interests of objectively one should
reference in all the ways in which knowledge has been used for positive benefit also. Such as for example in medicine to name but one. You are never
going to have Utopia for that is simply not possible. But you can have a world which on balance is less imperfect than all of the ones that came before

Have you heard about the Mississippi police chiefs? Local news here. Pretty damn dramatic. Pretty damn criminal.
And yea one can do both :slight_smile:

First of all I have to say that the two different semantic fields for the two English words “culture” and “civilisation” are different from the two German words “Kultur” and "Zivilisation, so that we we would get a problem of contrastive linguistics, if we equalled them. So (1.) the English word “culture” and the German word “Kultur” do not always mean the same, and (2.) the English word “civilisation” and the German word “Zivilisation” do not always mean the same. I would say that the said semantic fields could look like this:

Kultur_Culture_Zivilisation_Civilisation.gif
So the proper translation of “Kultur” is sometimes "culture and sometimes “civilisation”, whereas the proper translation of “Zivilisation” is always “civilisation”.

And this means that I have to conclude or even to guess whether you meant “Kultur” or “Zivilisation” when you used the word “civilisation”. Most historians say that barbarians have no “civilisation” (“Zivilisation”). So I conclude that you meant “Kultur” and not “Zivilisation”. Most historians say that civilisations (Kulturen) can be both barbaric and not barbaric, and that civilisations (Zivilisationen) can never be barbaric. But my interpretation differs a bit from that mainstream interpretation. I am saying that civilisations (Zivilisationen) are also barbaric, and they can be and often are even much more barbaric than the so-called “barbaric civilisations” (“Kulturen”).

To facilitate survival, it is a very natural instinct of humans to focus on the negative [bad to evil] News. So what the mass media are merely expressing these days are what is instinctual and I believe that is very necessary.

Discounting the ideological and propaganda elements [an onus on the people to filter this] the mass media are reporting what is going on in reality around the world at present in comparison to what we merely read in the Newspapers and hearsay in the past.
Thus at present humanity has greater access to the truths [discounting propaganda] of negative [range of bad to evil] which should be welcomed.

With the knowledge of these truths of the existence of these negative acts around the world, humanity has the responsibility to prevent, reduce, eliminate [if possible] these negative acts. To achieve this there is a need for effective strategies.

For an effective strategy one approach is to use the effective concepts and terms to capture the significance of the full range of these negative acts that are a threat to the well-being of humanity.

This is why I proposed and I believed to use the term “evil” together with a proper definition and explanation to cover all acts and scenarios that are negative to the well-being of humanity. Using such a broad, loose and varied term such as ‘evil’ will definitely have problems involving communications and likely misinterpretation, that is why the term must be clearly spelled out covering all scenario on how it is to be used.

That is why I stated the definition of the term [evil] must be very clear and explanation given to cover all possible scenarios.

That is a lot of things that can be done to prevent any possible misinterpretations.
For example preparing a taxonomy of ‘what is evil’ with explanations for every level will definitely present a clearer picture towards the defined purpose of why the term is defined in the intended manner.

The point is when we put a philosophical, scientific, other faculty of knowledge approaches to our project, then it has a potential of eliminating weaknesses and promoting continuous improvements. This is in contrast to the theological blind faith approach.

Now I wonder what is the intent of your resistance and dissension to my proposals. You wanna keep to the status quo and not look for possible effective strategies to deal with the truths of those range of evil acts?

The more it is merely instinct, the more it is merely animal.

Arminius : I used civilisation to mean society in general which would mean all cultures. And I disagree with historians who say that civilisations cannot be
barbaric because in many cases that is how they came into being. These civilisations would specifically be the great empires of antiquity. And they could
not be maintained exclusively by non barbaric means either. But while civilisations might be barbaric the opposite is not so true for barbarians cannot be
civilised. Because barbarian translates as thug. And a thug is not some one who is either civilised or cultured. And it is also what philistine means as well

Comes from the mind along with negative aspects of life, influences.