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Naut
Just in case you did not notice, in the confusion here, I won my bet about TAPS and you, that I placed over in my blog, LOL..... she did not agree with you 
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 10, 2017 at 7:23 AM
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It does seem like political correctness is running amok around the entire political spectrum.
posted by
FormerStudentIntern
on June 9, 2017 at 11:40 AM
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Naut
OK, I will let you squeeze out of that one, because as you say, you are overcoming the temptation to go with 'existential nihilism' and also 'determinism', so we are roughly in agreement. But the devil is in the details, and that is why we must have these important debates, which are ideally an exchange of ideas and values, that can move all of us to a greater synthesis, in the Hegelian sense. Although, I don't think the Absolutes of Good and Evil will ever reach any synthesis, but will always remain mortal enemies.
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 9, 2017 at 5:11 AM
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Nautikos
Hi, Naut! I never considered you to be an existential nihilist. :) And I was taken back to my childhood when I read your explanation about the border with nothing in it; reminded me of my dad explaining double negatives to me as an 8 year-old...
All these horrors exist (or existed), that much I know. What to call them, I'll stick with 'so not good' for now. 
posted by
Sea_Gypsy
on June 8, 2017 at 8:20 PM
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Re: Re: Re: GoldenMean
I got confused where I was because I had been back and forth from his to yours and you were both making lots of comments in both of them. I just got lost. LOL
posted by
TAPS.
on June 8, 2017 at 7:36 PM
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Re: Re: GoldenMean
You were writing in my post,TAPS, and I referred to it in my answer to him...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 8, 2017 at 7:00 PM
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Re: GoldenMean
So sorry. I got confused and thought I was writing in Naut's post. I do things like that now and then.
posted by
TAPS.
on June 8, 2017 at 5:55 PM
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Re: GoldenMean
So sorry. I got confused and thought I was writing in Naut's post. I do things like that now and then.
posted by
TAPS.
on June 8, 2017 at 5:53 PM
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Re: My dear Naut.....
Okay, I know what you're saying - and believe me - my reaction to the horrific things you mention is identical to yours! For all practical purposes the distinction I make between act and actor is for important analytical purposes, and might not enter into the picture because it's self-evident the actor is evil...But I do insist that in principle we need to make that distinction, for otherwise we cannot invoke it in cases were act X was morally justified (a possiblility you mention yourself), even if it looks at first as if it wasn't...And you also mention irrational acts - is an irrational actor, e.g a cazy one, evil and hence irredeemable? In any case, these differences in our points of view have no practical consequences for the way we address the issue of the Islamic disease...
Oh, one other point: I'm sure our TAPS was addressing me rather than you in her comment, LOL - I think she senses a certain 'existential nihilism ' in my reasoning. But if it's there at some level, it is also something one can overcome by choice; and I hace certainly chosen to do that, otherwise I would not keep writing about Islam and our largely self-inflicted decline ...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 8, 2017 at 5:22 PM
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Re: Nautikos
I agree about the Trump pard.
posted by
WileyJohn
on June 8, 2017 at 4:48 PM
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I think you're giving Trump far too much credit, as though he considered his words before he tweeted them? Have you read his other tweets? I believe he tweets in stream of consciousness. Would you like some covfefe?
posted by
-blackcat
on June 8, 2017 at 4:11 PM
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TAPS
Pardon me, my dear lady, but I am now confused by your comment. I have been spending a great deal of time defining evil, and explaining my definition in different ways, and even agreeing with Naut's contribution of "irredeemable". And I definitely do believe in what I have been writing, and I believe in the religious / metaphysical Absolutes of Good and Evil, and the powers of the spiritual entities behind them, which are echoed and shadowed here in our world.
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 8, 2017 at 2:20 PM
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You have done a lot of thinking on that subject. But what good does that do if you do not believe in either. It's as if you were trying to proselytize everyone to believe in nothing, which even you cannot define. Isn't being an advocate of nothing a bit of a waste of one's time?
posted by
TAPS.
on June 8, 2017 at 2:08 PM
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My dear Naut.....
You say "The short answer is that human actions can never be evil in themselves..."
OH?? What about raping a baby? What about locking kidnapped girls (or boys) away in a shed, to abuse, dominate, terrorize and rape at leisure? What about slavery in general (you posted about Muslim slavery, and I haven't got to comment on it yet). What about intentionally driving a truck into a crowd of people? What about putting people in cages and burning them alive (ala ISIS). What about beheading children? What about torture by dismemberment, or feeding people alive into wood shredders, feet first (ala Saddam Hussein). What about Nazis herding Jews naked into showers and telling them to clean themselves, and then gassing them to death (ala Hitler)? What about starving Jews slowly to death in concentration camps? What about all the nightmarishly inventive ways that the Japanese soldiers killed Chinese civilians in Nanking, in about 1937?
I would say that these human actions, and many more similar, are indeed evil actions in themselves, and those who do them are irredeemable, whether they enjoy it or not (and they probably do). The actions themselves are immoral and inexcusable, regardless of the reasons.
Your thoughts....... ?
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 8, 2017 at 1:56 PM
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C C T
I can understand 'shock' at atrocities, but we should not be 'bewildered' because we have been negligent in thinking deeply enough and properly enough about evil. That is one big reason that evil / irredeemable predators get the upper hand...... because we, the good, do not see them fully for the irredeemable, predatory monsters they are, even after they have committed the atrocities. We look for 'reasons', 'motives', excuses for what they did. Why can't we just see that they WANT to dominate / destroy / kill, because they damn well ENJOY IT ??!!
Like I have said, predatory evil is a very valid and successful way for the few to survive, and survive quite well, at the expense of the many. And they are "irredeemable" because they ENJOY it. Am I making any sense here?
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 8, 2017 at 12:44 PM
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I think that the President of the USA is...well I am pretty sure that you can guess what I think.
posted by
Kabu
on June 8, 2017 at 12:40 PM
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I think basically people hardly ever think about evil. They of course are shocked and bewildered when an atrocity happens. Perhaps the mind blurs things it does not like to comtemplate. 
posted by
C_C_T
on June 8, 2017 at 11:51 AM
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Re: Re:
Come to think of it, we aren't even far apart on theoretical grounds, LOL...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 8, 2017 at 11:40 AM
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Re:
GM - I don't think we're far apart, certainly not for practical purposes, merely on theoretical grounds. For all practical purposes I will keep on calling Islam the disease it is, and point to the horrors it produces...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 8, 2017 at 11:38 AM
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Unlike Naut, I think good and evil are moral absolutes, but we have great difficulty discerning them, just like any other Absolute. Also, I must strongly disagree with the notion that "evil is in the eyes of the beholder". The vast majority of the human race considers murder, mutilation, torture, physical assault, rape, slavery and theft to be evil (or irredeemable, to use Naut's new word)..... with or without religion.
Now, when evil people (or irredeemable people) are able to take over a society, which happens quite often, OF COURSE they are not going to call themselves evil. They call themselves good and righteous, while they are killing, torturing or jailing all of the actual good people who object to them. A few examples that spring to mind are Nazi Germany, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, the current North Korea and Iran, and most of the Muslim-majority countries controlled by Islamic governments.
Many of my posts have been an expose' of such horror, from the Muslim onslaughts to the 800-year French nightmare of Crusade and Inquistion, when evil / irredeemable people take over and call there own evil selves "good" and their opponents "evil", as they exterminate their opponents. So I know of what I write here.
But here, I think is the main question, the elephant in the room that no one wants to address: So are WE, the redeemable majority, going to let THEM, the irredeemable minority, get away with reversing morality and casting doubt upon their own pure predatory evil?? I say HELL NO, but apparently most people are quite comfortable in letting the evil / irredeemable folks (a vast minority) dominate this conversation from afar.
I think it is quite a shame.....
posted by
GoldenMean
on June 8, 2017 at 10:56 AM
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