Purging Evil

[Muffin Top Merkley]

Plato believed in archetypal evil; that evil was a measurable component of a person, just like water. A man or woman might evolve in other ways as they grew older, but the evil stayed inside, like something indigestible. Today philosophers, psychiatrists & criminologists argue whether a person can have real evil within him, right to the core of his being. Is evil something that is built into a person’s genetic make-up, potentially controllable, but always there? Or are people like serial killers suffering from a form of disease that can be treated, a handicap that can be overcome by purging the person of the psychological or organic flaw that drove them to commit hideous crimes.

In the past some psychiatrist believed psychopaths might be curable. Peal back the layers of their personality, cure their corrupt thinking patters and beliefs & they could be re-assembled as honest people. Psychiatry, especially its drugs, are evolving so fast that doctors are now able to treat mental disorders that, less than a decade earlier, would have sent a person to an institution for life. And more new treatments are constantly on the horizon. The researchers just didn’t realize how deep the sickness of a psychopath goes. Like a black hole or a bottomless pit, no one would ever be able to reach a solid core of the human psyche & able to say “we know what’s here”.


I don’t believe there is an actual measurable element of evil that can be found deep within a person. I think that a person develops evil tendencies throughout his life beginning at birth. The person’s physical surroundings as well as the people in and around his life all play a part in the influence and development of evil tendencies.

Everyone is capable of committing evil acts to another. It’s the ability to control your thoughts and actions that separate me from a rapist, murderer etc.

Despite the rapid advances in both medicine and treatments that will be developed in the future, I don’t think that there will be a way to purge the evil from a person, only decrease the strength of the evil thoughts, ideas, tendencies from an individual considered to be evil.


What are your feelings about what makes a person evil? Or is evil a tangible part in a person’s core?

Will evil ever be discovered and cured with medicine or medical treatments?

What separates us from Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and the Son of Sam?

 

[enterkey]

Evil, unfortunately, is at the core of all of us, no matter how much good we do or people we help there will always be that sliver of evil deep down inside that is waiting for its chance to take over you. Think of it as a Randy Orton kind of thing: it can be there unnoticed or underutilized for years, it waits for the best moments to strike, it can be easy to crush at first but we often miss our chance, and once it starts gaining power it is next to impossible to stop. If someone is good their entire life and, for the most part, pure and all that nonsense it only takes a single event for someone to start going over to the dark side. Hell even trying to do good things can turn a man evil, the nature of evil is a tricky little bitch that way. This being said I believe that inside us there is constant battle between good and evil and in some cases, such as the wise and powerful Homer J Simpson, evil wins.

I don't believe that evil could ever be "cured" by medicine as its not something that can be measured or quantified by science or even the human brain. If anything it would be similar to trying to cure the patients at a mental hospital in that only the symptoms could be treatable. Anything short of a trans orbital lobotomy would be unable to drain the evil out of a man and since that would make him nothing but a shell of his former self without any discernible personality it is a moot point whether or not that would destroy the evil in him entirely. Some will say that religion is the cure to this evil but when a man is trying to preach to a man with evil in his heart the results are less than desirable. However if it were someone such as a god from any religion, christian/jewish/islamic angels, or Jesus himself then the ability to kill the evil inside of a person would skyrocket to highly to probably likely although this is not a very likely outcome at all seeing as how religious figures tend to act indirectly.

 

[LigerBomb]

What separates us from Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and the Son of Sam?

In my case I have much better hair than all those guys.

Evil is as evil does. The more mystical origins and aspects of which are slowly falling by the wayside. I'm a relatively firm believer in genetics playing a tremendous role in the development of a person's natural inclinations, tendencies and behaviours. Eventually gene therapy will possibly eliminate the genetic root causes of our more disturbing behaviours e.g. sociopathy, psychosis, etc.
Subsequently once these physiological/psychological roots are tended to there should theoretically be a lower chance of improper nurturing "leading people down the wrong path". Gene doping is already just around the corner with regards to athletics. Mental disease/defect will just be the next target to take aim at (though I fear much like oil companies despise "green" technologies, Big Pharma will try, via legislative bullying, fear mongering and moralzing, to slow down and derail gene therapy until they can devise a way to still get their piece of the pie).
That being said, by no mean will it be an all-inclusive "cure" for evil but it should go a long way in removing the more disturbing aspects of what we currently believe to be "human nature". With apologies to Dawkins, imagine if we could actual counteract—if not remove outright—the literal version of the so-called "selfish gene"?

 

[Cmac3311]

All of us have evil inside of us, elements such as hate, greed, envy, lust, pride, can all be considered somewhat evil in most biblical circles. However I'm going to say that the person who acts on such thoughts is what really creates an evil person. The guy who rapes a woman, the boyfriend who beats his girlfriend, the kid who runs into his school and shoots it up, and the wife that has an affair on her husband and cleans him out financially. I consider good and evil to be a thin line that separates as dictated by our actions.

Every morning when we wake up it's all about choices and he/she who chooses to commit crimes or spiteful behavior could very well be evil.

 

[Tequila Dave]

While i don't believe that somebody's 'evilness' is tangible, i do believe that the horrid acts somebody classed as evil commit, cannot be avoided.

When somebody is faced with a decision, no matter the magnitude of it, there are certain elements and factors that go into the decision making process. These are: genetics, a certain element of randomness, and envorinment (by this i don't just mean surroundings, but every event and situation that leads to one's current situation) Niether of these three factors are controllable. Therefore, surely, you don't have control over your actual decision.

It is a hard and dark concept to grasp, and it pretty much says that there is no such thing as free will. However, it is not saying that there is such a thing of fate, that everything is pre-determined. Instead it says, your future is determined directly by your past, which you don't have control over.

A future serial killer can not avoid becoming a serial killer. They have no control, a murder that one comits is just the output of their genetics and enviornment.

 

[Arkham Noir]

This is a hard one. Some people will live the worst lives imaginable and emerge better people and some will live the perfect life only to become a serial rapist.

I think that we as humans have become to obsessed with the concept of being able to solve any problem. We think that no mountain is to high and that if we work hard enough we can conquer anything. That spirit is great, but one must remember that we can't do everything. Good and evil are something of our nature. It's not man made and they will come out as they are in each person. Of course, in some people how their lives are lived will change the outcome, but for some its just their destiny . That's not a word I like using often, but some things are just destined.

To sum up my answer to the initial question, I think they day we can control the evil within a person is the day we can control someones every move. Remember that everything is subjective. I see evil in religion where some wouldn't dream it anything but good.

 

[Coco]

What are your feelings about what makes a person evil? Or is evil a tangible part in a person’s core?

Evil is the social stigma we place on certain actions. A person is evil only by way of the definition we attach to what it is they've done wrong.

To speak more to what you're asking, evil is a combination of natural predisposition to what we consider vile behaviour and the situation influences that lead people to act on this.

Will evil ever be discovered and cured with medicine or medical treatments?

I don't think so. Operationalizing the supposedly evil thing we're supposed to be treating would be extremely controversial. There's no way to truly measure evil as it's one of those things that Plato would have argued is unknowable to man. It's out there in the ether, unreachable by the means available to us. Only a God could truly measure this property. As such, the ways we would measure it are too crude to lend themself to a real, credible argument to subdue what may be a natural part of someone's being through what would most likely be coercion in many cases.

What separates us from Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and the Son of Sam?

The need to act on fantasy, if you believe such things.

 

[Dagger Dias]

What makes a person evil cannot be defined in a way that everyone can agree on, unless it's something as vague as "a person who does bad things and feels good about doing those bad things". Different religions have different definitions for what "evil" people are. There is the potential to be good within everyone, but the potential for evil is there as well. You cannot cure that with medicinal treatment, it is part of being human. What separates normal people from Ted Bundy or Charles Manson is that they get pleasure out of the pain of others. This does not make them "more evil" than other people though. We all have that same potential for good and evil within us. The difference is that they have no remorse for what they did and enjoyed doing bad things to people. Most people regret it when they do something bad to someone else. It's not the same as calling someone "more evil" though due to the fact that we are all human and have that same potential for good and evil acts within our genetics.