“The depths of human depravity are bottomless”
One of the hallmarks of the character Iago in Shakespeare’s “Othello” is that his evil is left somewhat unexplained. Unlike most people who do evil, he seems to have no clear motive for his actions other than to do evil (although some people have come up with a few). You might say that Iago represents a pure evil impulse:
He remains famously reticent when pressed for an explanation of his actions before he is arrested: “Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word.”…
Shakespearean critic A. C. Bradley said that “evil has nowhere else been portrayed with such mastery as in the evil character of Iago”, and also states that he “stands supreme among Shakespeare’s evil characters because the greatest intensity and subtlety of imagination have gone into his making.” The mystery surrounding Iago’s actual motives continues to intrigue readers and fuel scholarly debate.
You might say that Iago was a psychopath, but giving it a name doesn’t really explain much. Suffice to say that certain evildoers seem to be like that.
Which brings us to commenter John Tyler’s observation:
The Russians wanted the Czars gone; they got their wish and in came Lenin and Stalin. The latter being the worst mass murderer in world history (up until Mao of China came along.) Note that the body count of Stalin’s murderous policies did NOT deter USA born / raised and highly educated Americans from spying FOR Stalin.
The depths of human depravity are literally bottomless; and here I am referring to the Americans who spied for Stalin.
But was this actually depravity on their part, or just hideously poor judgment and then subsequent rationalization and denial? You may ask what difference it makes, and I agree that in the practical sense it makes no difference at all. They enabled, aided, and abetted evil. But in the philosophical/psychological sense – and that’s the sense I’m discussing here – it seems to me that “depravity” isn’t really what many of them were about. They believed they were doing good in the end.
That they were incredibly wrong, almost indescribably wrong, is also the case. But one of the strengths of evil, and one of the reasons it can take hold in an entire country like the USSR, is not only that “good men do nothing” but that some otherwise “good” mean and women convince themselves that some bad things must be done in order to finally emerge into the Utopian light.
Of course, one thing of which people should be aware is that any belief in Utopia is a danger sign that evil lurks under sheep’s clothing. But that takes more wisdom than most people have.
This is a version of an argument we’ve had on this blog many times before. I expect a lot of people will disagree with me. But if evil regimes depended solely on supporters who were evil and wished to do evil, they would never acquire the power they do. Sayings such as “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” exist for a reason.
One might argue that, at this point, any American who supports either the left or the illegitimate regime fraudulently installed at 1600 is one of three things, either insane (non compos mentis) or stupid (not necessarily of low intelligence, but easily manipulated and foolishly susceptible to brazen propaganda) or evil, i.e. aware of the nature of reality but, out of cold calculation or spite or hatred or desire for personal advancement and always with an eye for the main chance, willing to ignore massive amounts of evidence contradicting one’s favored narrative in order to attain power and position or a sense of one’s moral and intellectual superiority. How many it is, precisely, who are easily duped, how many are true believers in nonsense, how many are avaricious grifters, and how many are power-hungry tyrants none can truly say.
Well, evil for evil’s sake is so vanishingly rare, that I often think it exists purely to distract people from the evil that follows from good intentions which is 99.99% of it.
Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg went to their deaths insisting they were ‘innocent’. In Hiss’ case, it involved nearly 50 years of lying repeatedly and self-consciously and in the case of both it meant lying to their own children, quite successfully. (The latest iteration of Robert and Michael Meeropol’s understanding of the case was that their Aunt and Uncle cooked the whole espionage scheme up and stuck the bill for it with their parents). Bernie Madoff caused a great deal of heartache, but he eventually came clean.
Art Deco:
I think my post made it clear that some people on that side were more truly evil. My second point is that many were idealistic and profoundly mistaken and willing to compromise with evil, and that that was the larger group.
To which group did the people you mention belong? That would have to be discussed on a case by case basis and is beyond the purview of this post. Suffice to say that some belonged to that first group, IMHO.
I don’t think it’s worth discussing people who “wish to do evil”. There’s no reason to think that Stalin, Hitler, or Mao (for example) thought of themselves as evil, let alone any of their supporters. So who is evil?
Is everyone evil who supports an organization that openly announces that it wants to kill Jews all over the world? Of course (except for Hamas, Hezbollah, and a dozen or so others) such organizations no longer exist. You might say their supporters do not know of their genocidal advocacy, but I don’t think they tend to change their minds when it is pointed out.
Or perhaps we should say that only those who actively and happily participate in the killing are evil?
It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.
Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations…. Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.
I’m reminded of that meme where two low level Nazi soldiers are talking and one of them asks the other ‘Are we the baddies?’
j e:
Thing is, I would say “easily duped” except that quite a few of these people, whom I know well, are NOT ordinarily “easily duped,” nor are they at all evil. They are the ones who puzzle me. That’s where the edifice of political belief comes in. The strength of the duping comes from the constant repetition and the careful piling up of all the building blocks.
Perhaps some that participate in that which turns out to be evil are merely willfully ignorant or unwilling to attack that into which they’ve invested much. Others might say that the other side is worse–like liberals that repeatedly vote for Democrats that are leftists believe they are voting for the lessor of two evils. And others are easily manipulated, suffering from the echo chamber effect or life in a media bubble.
I fall into the lessor of two evils category. I’ve never voted for someone I thought was a great candidate. I always vote against a candidate.
I confess that I don’t understand why anyone would have voted for Hillary Clinton. By the time the election rolled around it was clear as day that HRC was the sum of all evil.
LTEC:
There is a reason I think it IS worth discussing. I find that a lot of people on the right dismiss those who support the left as uniformly being “evil,” and some on the right think they all need killing for that reason.
I also think it’s an easy way to dismiss your opponents and not even think about countering them with thoughts or arguments. They’re evil, and that’s that. It’s a lazy way out, as well as a simplistic one.
Yarwate:
It may have been “clear as day” to you. I assure you it was not “clear as day” – or even the least bit clear – to many others. And many of those people are quite intelligent. Please read this post of mine if you haven’t already.
Neo writes:
if evil regimes depended solely on supporters who were evil and wished to do evil, they would never acquire the power they do.
It strikes me there are two foundational truths in Marxism. The above quote describes one. The second is that the much-vaunted redistribution of wealth does not ultimately result in more people escaping poverty (or an expanded distribution of even slightly improved economic conditions for more people), but just the opposite: more people living in poverty with a very small elite becoming very wealthy. This was described succinctly by Maggie Thatcher’s “running out of other peoples’ money”, and while it is not limited to poor Marxist countries, it is a result you can count on when Marxism comes to a country. The only Marxist president I have ever known to have avoided this personally was Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, and it is instructive that while he lived in moderate means, members of his government and close family decidedly did not.
This last point gets my attention because Marxism’s supporters (I’m looking at you, university professors and fellow-traveling journalists) are too smart to have avoided noticing this large inconsistency. Which either means you are hoping to be among the nomenklatura, or you are very stupid. Which brings us full circle to Neo’s observation that evil regimes must depend on more than evil supporters in order to gain power.
Those judged evil do not write the history books.
Ladies and gentlemennnn: ADAM SCHIFF!….
“So, Adam Schiff Doctored Text Messages for Anti-Trump Witch Hunt Jan 6th Committee?”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/12/15/absolute-clown-show-adam-schiff-doctored-text-messages-presented-before-anti-tru-n2600628
It depends on how one defines Evil. Some may define it as refusing vaccination, going around unmasked, denying Global warming, or voting Republican. Funny, I don’t feel evil….
“but that some otherwise “good” mean and women convince themselves that some bad things must be done in order to finally emerge into the Utopian light.”
I immediately put the label of Liz Cheney on that one sentence.
@Yancey Ward:Those judged evil do not write the history books.
Not strictly true, for example Winston Churchill wrote history books and there are plenty of people who judge him evil (I hasten to note I disagree completely… he was a man, take him for all in all, we shall never look on his like again).
But I take your meaning:
Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.
Hmmm. So do all the “good, decent, ethical, clever—even brilliant—caring, loving, decent and considerate” people qualify? That is, all those fine people who decided that in their quest for power (and/or to assuage their insane hatred), their fellow citizens were—and continue to be—expendable?….
That they had to—and continue to—be sacrificed?…
That they were—and continue to be—human fodder?…
Pawns in these “fine” people’s political game?
Tools for these “fine” people’s political ambitions?
Weapons in these “fine” people’s arsenal to achieve total power…to DESTROY THEIR COUNTRY under the guise (or delusion, if one wishes to be kind) of saving it?
“Top Cardiologist Tells Joe Rogan Of “Intentional Plot” To Suppress Early COVID Treatments”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/top-cardiologist-tells-joe-rogan-intentional-plot-suppress-early-covid-treatments
To which group did the people you mention belong?
Liars.
This was described succinctly by Maggie Thatcher’s “running out of other peoples’ money”, and while it is not limited to poor Marxist countries, it is a result you can count on when Marxism comes to a country. The only Marxist president I have ever known to have avoided this personally was Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, and it is instructive that while he lived in moderate means, members of his government and close family decidedly did not.
Nyerere’s ideology and social vision were an unworkable homebrew and the country under his rule was a recidivist applicant for various international loan programs.
No, that’s not a ‘result’ you can count on consequent to ‘Marxism’. It was a pithy comment on the dysfunctions of Britain’s redistributive state. Studying public choice theory might be more enlightening in understanding the phenomenon than studying Marxists texts. Whether it’s Britain ca. 1975, or the U.S. today, or Argentina under Peron, Marxist inspiration not required.
The actual Marxist regimes were notable for wretched economic inefficiency derived from central planning and state ownership.
…not to mention flat-out thievery and corruption (which totalitarian systems engender and are known to encourage).
Rebecca West, in her “The New Meaning of Treason” speculated. At one point, she was describing those Brits who spied for Russia. They had lived a life never achieved except by the offspring of the top merchant class in ancient times when the winds of war blew the other way. They lived completely unthreatened in the lee of the Royal Navy. Lousy reproduction of her words, but went on a bit longer in the same vein.
Her conclusion was that the vast Fabian and faster socialist movements had been accomplished and the heroes were known. Where to go for more glory? Left and more left.
As I keep saying, I can’t understand or stand those who actively oppose knowing reality and thus support evil. They are normal people in other areas of life but….TRUMP MEAN TWEETS, Trump is racist. White Fragility is gospel.
The underlying motivation is unclear except that I get a hint of wanting to be superior to the rest of us who don’t similarly believe.
Talked to a relation who is enjoying Covid way too much. Mentioned Diamond Princess and before i could get another word out…”all lies”.
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
To which must be added: “Perversity is normalcy.” (Or if one has “issues” with “normalcy”, then “Perversity is virtue”…—
“L.A. Schools Host LGBT Club For 4-Year-Olds, Promote ‘Two Spirit’ Sexuality And Child Mutilation”
https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/15/l-a-schools-host-lgbt-club-for-4-year-olds-promote-two-spirit-sexuality-and-child-mutilation/
To make it all complete, we must also add “Lies are truth” so as to rationalize not only the need to teach CRT to more quickly fracture the nation but to better understand everything that emanates from “Biden” and those who support “him”.
Art Deco:
But people lie for different reasons. Are they lying because they believe it will further the cause of something good, or just because they’re self-serving evil liars?
Barry Meislin:
I don’t think Schiff believes he’s doing good. I see him as more the Iago type.
Barry Meislin:
I don’t know what you mean in your comment at 5:22. It doesn’t apply to the people I know.
You wrote:
“So do all the ‘good, decent, ethical, clever—even brilliant—caring, loving, decent and considerate’ people qualify? That is, all those fine people who decided that in their quest for power (and/or to assuage their insane hatred), their fellow citizens were—and continue to be—expendable?…”
They don’t think anything of the sort. No doubt there are some people who do think that, but they’re not those of whom I speak. For them, it’s neither a quest for power nor something fueled by “insane hatred.” They believe they are fighting evil and they believe a greater good will ultimately come for the vast vast majority of Americans. Some will do better and some worse, but that’s true of any system, and they believe the system they are advocating will be better in that sense than what it replaces.
It may be obvious to you that that’s not the case, but I assure you it’s not obvious to them. They think you and I are the ones in league with evil, albeit perhaps unknowingly.
I suggest that if you haven’t read this post of mine, you should do so.
Are they lying because they believe it will further the cause of something good, or just because they’re self-serving evil liars?
An improvisation and then a prop for their self-understanding. Pride, vanity. See also, Spiro Agnew, who wasn’t invested in any malevolent social movements.
I agree that the vast majority who participate in evil are followers. The leaders may be possessed by a crazy theory, like Hitler was or Lenin was. Stalin was evil and there is debate that he was syphilitic. Mao was personally corrupt and a pervert but he may have thought he was doing good. Deng is the author of modern successful China.
Our present ruling class is mostly self absorbed. They think they are intelligent but they follow a script that goes back to 18th century England, where the aristocracy thought that only they knew how to run things. The politicians, with rare exceptions, are corrupt. Why do people like Joe Biden end their careers rich ?
The people who are running Joe Biden might just be evil but are probably full of theories of Utopia that have never seen the real world. Unless stopped, they might accomplish real evil. I’m mostly thinking of their war on energy production. The Climate scam is an example of how corrupt people can get when money is tossed around. Eisenhower actually warned of this in a part of his farewell address that is usually ignored.
The racial thing is really strange as it seems to confirm the inferiority of blacks. Why would they adopt such conclusions ?
Our present ruling class is mostly self absorbed. They think they are intelligent but they follow a script that goes back to 18th century England, where the aristocracy thought that only they knew how to run things. The politicians, with rare exceptions, are corrupt. Why do people like Joe Biden end their careers rich ?
Yep. Bourbons.
Mike K..”Our present ruling class is mostly self absorbed. They think they are intelligent but they follow a script that goes back to 18th century England, where the aristocracy thought that only they knew how to run things.”
There is an old saying, ‘No man without a master, no land without a lord’, dating I believe from the Middle Ages.
The Dems and their academic and media associates certainly seem to believe the ‘no man without a master’ part of this.
ArtDeco:
In Agnew’s case it was a personal quest for money. Remember the contractors dropping off envelops of cash? Hillary was similarly motivated. At Least Biden is smart enough to launder it through family.
I’d argue the capacity for evil resides in every human heart…that troubling “Old Adam.” Many of us restrain it or recoil in horror at the mere possibility…but the capacity is there.
I’ve heard Holocaust survivors talk about the first time they saw their tormentors on trial wearing suits not uniforms and how they were struck that those who beat them & led their friends & family into the gas chambers or to the roadside for mass slaughter were in fact men not animals…and perversely wondered if they could one day do the same in return.
Evil will always find an excuse…from “I was just following orders,” to “I thought I was doing the right thing,” to “Because I could.” Or that old Boomtown Rats thing, “I don’t like Mondays.”
There is an interesting and rather unpleasant book, ‘Account Rendered’, by a woman who rose to become a fairly high-level administration in the Nazi government. As she tells it, she first became interested in the Party because she cared very much about the poor, and the Nazis claimed to care a lot about lower-class Germans, as opposed to her mother’s snobbish attitude. Then, at the age of 17, she went through a bad breakup with a boyfriend, and threw herself into her Party work. She eventually reached a position in which she was in charge of dispossessing Polish farmers and helping Germans to resettle into those lands.
After the war, when she was arrested by the Americans as a possible war criminal, they showed her pictures of the concentration camps. She refused to believe the photos were real, and it took two years before she could admit to herself that the pictures were real and not American fakes.
Melita Maschmann, ‘Account Rendered’
Picture:
https://spartacus-educational.com/Melita_Maschmann.htm
Almost Bourbons.
Our depraved Western elites have learned nothing and forgotten everything.
Same-same, but Different, as the deeply philosophical inhabitants of Siam are wont to say.
btw, there is a good movie, “O”, which transports the plot of Othello to a modern high school:
Odin James–“O”–is a high-school basketball star, he is the only black student in a white prep school. His friend Hugo also plays for the team, though not on O’s level. When O singles out another player–Michael–for special recognition, Hugo’s already-high jealously level reaches a fever pitch.
Roger, a wealthy but awkward and widely-disliked student, is hopelessly in love with O’s girlfriend, Desi. Hugo enlists him in a plot which he sells to Roger as a way of luring Desi away from O…but his real intent is to destroy both O and Michael, with Desi as collateral damage.
O is Othello (Mekhi Phifer)
Desi is Desdemona (Julia Stiles)
Hugo is Iago (Josh Hartnett)
Roger is Rodrigo (Elden Henson)
Michael is Michael Casio (Andrew Keegan)
Emily is Emilia (Rain Phoenix)
The basketball coach, nicknamed “Duke,” is the Duke (Martin Sheen)
I thought it was very good.
Denis Prager pointed out in a recent column that neither Judaism nor Christianity teaches that all people are naturally good. We’re not. However, that doesn’t mean all people are naturally evil. There are Iagos among us, who do evil because they can and because they enjoy it. Many other people end up following evil, or cooperating with it, as Neo says, because they are followers or because they think the group they support is “doing good things” for some oppressed group. Having convinced themselves that they support the “good guys,” it can be very hard to get them to see that the “good guys” aren’t good after all.
@David Foster:
Re this movie “O”
On what planet is popular entertainment propaganda produced by the degenerate Weinsteins (quelle surprise) which traduces Whites and promotes social discord, ‘Good’?
It’s not just ‘Art’. Unless you’re willing to stick an Arno Breker sculpture in your front yard.
Turnabout is fair? OK… then we’re back to Who Whom? Anything increasing odds of one’s descendants being Whom rather than Who is probably not something to get enthusiastic about.
There is no Fair.
The Mask of Sanity by Cleckley is a good starting point. These types are always with us. One can argue whether it’s 1% or 5%.. One cannot argue that the sheep who will follow them number well over 50% of the population.
z…you are aware, I hope, that the Othello character in the original play is also black…not sure why there is any more ‘traducing’ going on in the movie than there was in Shakespeare’s tory.
You may have seen the news about the CNN producer recently arrested for procuring very young underage girls to train them to be “sexually submissive” and below is a link to an article about this .*
But what I want to point out is the bad writing in this article, a descriptive phrase which makes little sense i.e. “…Upon learning the news of her estranged husband’s activities, Allyson Griffin appeared disheveled at the audacity of the matter.”
* See the full story at https://thepostmillennial.com/nevada-mother-arrested-last-year-for-pimping-out-her-underaged-daughter-to-cnn-producer?utm_campaign=64471
Snow on Pine – yes, that’s some ugly writing! “Allyson Griffin appeared disheveled…”: perhaps she attempted to tear her hair out?
John Guilfoyle:
I don’t know what it means to say that the CAPACITY for evil resides in every human heart. It seems somewhat meaningless to me, because obviously we all have choices and we can choose evil or not.
The real question is why some choose evil, and whether they are able to recognize it as evil, and how many of them will do this.
For example, I don’t think that most people would shoot a baby. Yes, the German police, etc., did so in Eastern Europe, but they had to be trained to be what was called “hard” – by telling them those babies would inevitably grow up to be the bitter enemies of humanity. Also, they were given copious rations of liquor and kept rather drunk.
@David+Foster:
Of course. Being deliberately ironic — my dominant mode in these parts, I rather think. Which of these brave creative geniuses would slap a Black Iago on the screen in every cineplex across the land?
This open-minded enlightened ‘Tolerance’ is precisely why we are here where we are today and headed rapidly South.
Can you not see the difference between high culture which has limited *emotional* (deliberate choice of words) effect on vulgar Mass Man and popular entertainment which can drive him to do just about anything and none of it good?
Do you seriously believe that in the currently charged climate in the USA and much of the Rest of the West that Truth, Beauty, and all that will just win out somehow?
High Culture ought not be popularized. It’s insanely dangerous. Are you familiar with the Taiping Rebellion and what caused it? Syncretism is the Devil’s work. Any efforts made ought to be toward uplifting what small percentage of those who have been unlucky accidents of birth in wrong places to access the real thing. Not using $50 rhetorical tricks on the peasants to make them dance.
Shakespeare had Lord Chamberlains and Star Chambers and the Stocks to keep him focused. The Weinstein Company did not. However, possibly you and certainly me could very easily end up in the stocks or something worse. And therein lies one of the great problems of our age.
@Neo:
It took a bit of doing. Himmler’s Poznan speech of which a transcript and IIRC the wire recording still exists mentions the deleterious psychological effects it had on the SS Men involved.
Mind you, plenty of the killing at the sharp end in the Baltics and the East was done by non-Jewish local auxiliaries who went at it with gusto. Good fences make good neighbours.
There have been studies done by various nations’ militaries on just how hard it is to overcome the taboo against killing in general combat. Lots of statistics on just how much small arms fire is unaimed and lots of training has gone into how to overcome this. Anyway seem to be a distinct discontinuity. Once the taboo is broken, all bets are off.
Killing babies seems so beyond the pale to us because we’re all the coddled by-products of a brief historical hiatus. And even then it’s constantly happening not very far from our averted eyes. Moloch is pretty much a constant in our history.
neo wrote: “The depths of human depravity are literally bottomless …”
Doubtless.
And yet, God — the literal, everything, forever GOD — ASKED to be born among us.
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38, ESV)
Apple Betty:
That was a quote from commenter John Tyler. I didn’t write that.
I’ve never taken a shot at “Othello.” Any good screen versions recommended?
Of course, there is Orson Welles’ 1951 version, which I’ve considered but not watched.
I expect a lot of people will disagree with me. But if evil regimes depended solely on supporters who were evil and wished to do evil, they would never acquire the power they do. Sayings such as “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” exist for a reason.
–neo
That’s where I land.
Frankly I get the shivers from the enthusiasm some have to label others evil.
Which is not to say that evil doesn’t exist nor deny that it must be resisted, but it’s a tricky, risky business. Just about all textbook historical evil starts with labeling others evil.
Humans are flawed, period. We may think we view the world correctly, but can be easily swayed due to our need to belong, to be liked and admired, and to be valued as good, by ourselves and others. Those who want to be evil must be very few.
Yes, those running this administration must know they’re lying at least half the time, but it’s in service of their concept of greater good. Necessary propaganda.
We are also swayed by the limitations of the segment of society we live in, our own particular bubble. We interpret events through the only filter we know, and so some can be stunned by, say, the Rittenhouse verdict. The steady negative characterization of Trump supporters by Biden and other Democrats and the media lets those on the left believe we all are white supremacists, full of hate for those different from ourselves, and fully deserving of the contempt and hate they feel for us. This is righteous hate, because, let’s face it, they’re hating evil—us.
Our bubble is a little less efficient since most of us are easily aware of the variety of beliefs from the other side. I live in a blue state, and it’s hard to avoid hearing what the left thinks and cares about on a daily basis. It’s hard to take, not only because If they achieve what they want it will wreck the country, but also because they’re so earnest about it. It looks like their need to belong and to be seen as “good” overwhelms all reason.
I don’t know how we’ll bridge the divide. I’m encouraged by a lot of conversations online, here and elsewhere, among conservatives and people I’d call center-left, searching for a way forward. I think it will take a while to find our way out of this mess but a lot of intelligent people are thinking and talking about it.
david foster,
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests.
In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee (10 August 1824)
“people lie for different reasons. Are they lying because they believe it will further the cause of something good, or just because they’re self-serving evil liars?” neo
Justifying lying “because they believe it will further the cause of something good” is a contradiction in terms. A ‘good’ cause has no need of lies to support its validity.
At base, people lie out of lust to possess and/or fear. Fear, that either something will or will not happen. Lust at base is an obsessive desire to possess, one that discards morality as a mere obstacle. Lust objectifies that which it seeks to possess.
The lust for power, money or sex are just a few of the objects of lust.
JanMN,
It is not possible to listen and reflect upon the arguments of the right and sincerely believe that those who express those views are evil. Mistaken? Sure but not by any stretch evil.
Demonizing those who simply disagree as evil is a way to dismiss a counter argument without having to offer reasoned rebuttal. It is a fundamentally dishonest response.
The motivation is either power and control or simply being on the winning side.
Geoffrey Britain:
Of course good causes sometimes require lying.
Just to take two examples, people in the Resistance during WWII. The people in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
My 60-something lib/prog cousin once posted an “inspirational” meme with a flowery background and text that (approximately) read “Whatever happens, I know that my intentions were good.”
So I commented, “Sincerely, Adolf Hitler.”
She “liked” my comment with the LOL icon, but I don’t think she got the point.
I just read Othello last week, as it happens. Re-read, I should say, having laid it aside for several years. I must say I find Iago as a character somewhat unconvincing, though of all of Shakespeare’s more distilled villains – Macbeth, Richard Duke of Gloucester, and the fellow from Titus Andronicus whose name I forget – I guess Iago seems to me the most believable. (Characters like Gonoril, Edmund, Claudius, or Tybalt I can’t bring myself to classify in such a way; they have more to them, more flesh on the bones, than that.)
It is true that Iago mentions his motives for destroying Othello specifically a couple of times in the play, namely that he suspects Othello of having cuckolded him – but then again, Iago shows very little evidence throughout the work of caring about his wife at all; maybe the reference was to a former wife of Iago who passed away before he got together with Emilia, but that’s just me speculating, and anyway Iago might have simply been extraordinarily suspicious and jealous. Which is an interesting point in that his jealousy in a way may mirror the induced jealousy that Othello develops later on.
In any case, even given Iago’s explanations to Roderigo and to the audience in the play, you’re right that some element seems unexplained. Is it that Iago did not understand even his own sociopathy? Was it just weak writing by Shakespeare? Is the missing piece really that essential to the ultimate point of the work?
Philip Sells:
I think that Iago was lying about his motive. He was inventing a “conventional” motive to explain himself, but it wasn’t really his motive. I think Shakespeare wrote Iago just the way he wanted to write him – as a sociopath who wanted to destroy the good.
Geoffrey Britain,
My guess is that those on the left who demonize the right are fully insulated from the arguments of the right. Most conservatives (polls show) don’t publicize their views, and I doubt that many of the left seek out conservative news sources, podcasts or websites. I doubt they’re even curious, or feel any need to inform themselves. Why should they? They already “know” the correct view.
My point is not that they’re reasonable and rejecting our views because they’re incorrect. They’re already convinced (by everything they hear in their own bubble) that we are bigoted, stupid and uncaring, and therefore not worthy of engaging in a serious discussion of issues. When a mind is changed, it’s not likely to happen in a discussion over a beer or dinner, but from the experience of being slapped in the face by an observed, inescapable fact that disrupts one’s comfortable world view.
I’m a changer, and no one could have sat me down and argued me into seeing things differently. It had to happen from seeing things happening that didn’t line up with my assumptions. And it took time, because I wasn’t comfortable with what was becoming my new identity. For some, maybe it happens in a flash of insight. That would be nice, because I worry that the country is running out of time to get things right.
Kate on December 15, 2021 at 8:02 pm said:
Dennis Prager pointed out in a recent column that neither Judaism nor Christianity teaches that all people are naturally good. We’re not. However, that doesn’t mean all people are naturally evil.
Judaism teaches that people have both good and bad desires, yetzer hatov and yetzer hara, that there are few saints and few completely wicked people and that the vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle. The essential thing, is that when you are confronted with the choice of doing evil, don’t do it. Perhaps that’s why the Hillel’s version of the Golden Rule is in the negative, “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.”
“It doesn’t apply to the people I know.”
Of course it doesn’t.
It doesn’t apply to the people I know, either.
What it does, though, is render MEANINGLESS the following well-known epigram:
“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
In this case, it’s not just a matter of “good people” doing nothing; it’s a case of “good people” supporting the evil regime.
Why are they doing this?—well, that’s the key, isn’t it? The essence. The crux.
YMMV, and their are manifold reasons, but I would say because they already believe, or they’ve been propagandized to believe—or both (the propaganda reinforcing in many if not most cases what they believe in any event)—that they are supporting either the better choice or, as has been already emphasized by others, the LEAST BAD choice; the lesser of two evils.
In both cases, they’ve been saturated with propaganda so that they believe that their position is not only morally correct but morally unassailable.
And this has been made possible ONLY by demonizing the opposition to an extent previously unseen in American history, as the Democrats, their friends and their media goons have succeeded at this demonization beyond their wildest dreams.
IOW (and of course) propaganda plays a huge and central role here.
Once again, “1984” is the playbook.
I’ll go further: Goebbels is, in fact, the model. As is Stalin, with his Kulaks. Or the Hutus, with their Tutsis.
Since those whom you must destroy must first be demonized. Utterly, so that they are beyond the pale. So that their eradication becomes a moral act.
We reached the demonization stage early on in the Trump administration—one could say at its very outset (or even before, during the 2016 Presidential campaign).
And this demonization—perhaps “Biden”‘s most successful (or only successful?) policy achievement to date—is now in overdrive with the January 6 “insurrection” coming to the fore.
It’s the most magnificently-/maliciously-planned government entrapment in American history, though the vaccination-mandate madness is also a huge and necessary part of the campaign.
And it remains to be seen (though it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination) how “Biden” will exploit this latest round of demonizing “his” enemies (i.e., more than half the American people) to even greater heights and intensity.
In Agnew’s case it was a personal quest for money. Remember the contractors dropping off envelops of cash? Hillary was similarly motivated. At Least Biden is smart enough to launder it through family.
My recollection is that Agnew did contrive a clever way of concealing the bribes, but I’ve forgotten what it entailed. I’ve never believed the US Attorney’s contention that he continued to demand payment after he left the governor’s office.
It’s unfortunate about Agnew, because he was a man who had something to say worth hearing on a number of topics. Most politicians say almost nothing worth pondering.
One of his lawyers in the proceedings he faced in 1973 was permitted to breach client confidentiality and grass him up at the time the State of Maryland was filing civil suits against him ca. 1983. It was either that man or one of the contractors he was extorting who reported that he offered as an excuse that he was a ‘poor man’, by which I assume he meant he did not have accumulated assets. (Agnew and his family had a period running from about 1944 to about 1956 when they were quite impecunious; they had a more than satisfactory income later on). A question no one asked in any public forum at the time is how much his wife knew; I do not recall she was named as a defendant in any of the civil suits, even though she must have signed their tax returns.
Barry: “Why are they doing this?”
Vanity. Self-interest. And that all-important thing: caste-signaling.
Have you ever visited or lived in New England, especially Massachusetts? The ubiquity of self-congratulatory bumper stickers and other proggy car livery is astounding. I don’t know about other parts of the country, but you don’t see this nonsense in the South. Mostly SEC football team stickers, the occasional Jesus sticker, and firearm and reloading equipment manufacturer decals. My kind of place.
Speaking of cinema adaptations: I liked the Fishburne/Branagh version very much. The Welles work less so (but definitely worth watching).
Coleridge a top commenter re Iago.
Hubert, no doubt…but it seems so facile, so superficial….so unserious.
(And maybe it really is so…but I imagine that they—or most of them—ARE serious people and that they have succeeded in persuading themselves that it is a matter of “deeper” personal identity, as they see it; that they have persuaded themselves that “This is who they are”…and since they are moral people, good people, then it can only follow that their political positions are moral. And good. And right….with all the circularity that implies.)
That they are intoxicated with this self-image and its meaning—for them and for the bubble they inhabit—of moral infallibility is made even more toxic because of the instantaneity and echo-chamber aspect of social media, if also the corrupted, partisan MSM.
All of this renders them impervious to argument. (Or rather, they can automatically and effortlessly dismiss any fact that does not align with their worldview.)
So it’s a closed system they inhabit, which may well be exactly what you described actually; but I wanted to try to get beyond the seeming superficiality of it all…perhaps it’s not possible.
In any event, the result is essentially that of propagating delusions in a sophisticatedly-appointed petri-dish….
…of which here’s just another example:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/jay-rosens-dishonest-double-game.php
Perhaps that’s why the Hillel’s version of the Golden Rule is in the negative, “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.”
Johann Amadeus Metesky:
Some years ago I ran across this gem from the “Gospel of Thomas,” a very peculiar book — part of the Apocrypha, so lacking official Seal of Approval.
__________________________
Do not lie, and do not do what you hate.
–Jesus, “The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 6”
__________________________
Whoever said it, wow. You could transform your life with those two principles.
We are all flawed, sinful, ignorant, stupid, selfish people. Wisdom requires that we acknowledge this. And humility is the result. Our entire constitutional system recognizes and incorporates this humility and wisdom. It’s why all the actors in this system have to stay in their lanes.
The path to evil starts with the failure of humility. This is precisely where liberals start off the path. They REALLY believe that they are better people than those who disagree with their policies. Not just that they are correct in their political beliefs. Better, more deserving human beings.
Where it gets worse and moves closer to evil is their belief that those who disagree are actually evil. And we see this in their willingness to embrace “fascist, racist, Nazi, white supremacist” to describe republicans. These aren’t just lies. These aren’t just slanders. These are the worst, nastiest, most vicious lies imaginable.
And where they get even closer to crossing the line into evil is that they have a mountain of evidence available every day to know that these vicious slanders are not true. They believe the worst because they want to. They live with and work with family, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, and others who vote for the other party. They know that this imputation of evil is false.
And finally, the last step across the line — they believe that their beliefs in the evil of their opponents is part of what makes them good people! One of the things that makes them more moral is precisely that they believe that others are evil. This crosses the line. This is evil.
Barry: self-love is dead serious. So is a keen eye for material self-aggrandizement. Both qualities are frequently encountered among progs, who manage to combine smug self-righteousness and cutthroat covetousness with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever. My lefty acquaintances are obsessed with money, especially other people’s money. And power, of course.
Stan: spot-on about the absence of humility–pride–as a precondition for evil. Our old ruling class used to be schooled in humility, however imperfectly they may have honored it in practice. The current lot? Jumped-up, beady-eyed little success machines with a massive sense of entitlement. I went to grad school with some of them ~35 years ago. They’re running things now, unfortunately.
“Being deliberately ironic”
Haha auntie z gets caught and backpedals.
The ubiquity of self-congratulatory bumper stickers and other proggy car livery is astounding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqqKEgrPhHo
HERE’S Dave Rubin with Jordan Peterson speaking directly to your point, Neo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x5OH_v9GU0
Since no one else has mentioned it yet, “useful idiots”.
———————————-
“…Allyson Griffin appeared disheveled at the audacity of the matter.”
Sounds like it was written by AI.
———————————————
“So I commented, “Sincerely, Adolf Hitler.” Touche and LOL!
neo responded, “Of course good causes sometimes require lying. Just to take two examples, people in the Resistance during WWII. The people in the plot to assassinate Hitler.”
My point is that a truly good cause, in and of itself stands on its own merits and has no need of lies. In the face of deceit, it still has no need of lying, which if exposed would become counter productive in that trust is lost. Only in the face of evil can the case be made that lying acceptable.
“My guess is that those on the left who demonize the right are fully insulated from the arguments of the right.” JanMN
Of a certainty that is so. Yet in dismissing from even the briefest of consideration, they reveal that stan has their number; “they have a mountain of evidence available every day to know that these vicious slanders are not true. They believe the worst because they want to. They live with and work with family, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, and others who vote for the other party. They know that this imputation of evil is false.” [my emphasis]
The KNOW in their “heart of hearts” but refuse to listen and in doing so they lessen their own humanity, which is the necessary precondition to the embrace of evil.
Geoffrey Britain:
I repeat: the WWII resistance was a good cause. It had need of lying. I fail to understand the relevance of your reasoning.
Geoffrey Britain:
See what I wrote in response to stan, here. I’ll repeat it.
stan:
I was with you until this point – when you wrote:
“And where they get even closer to crossing the line into evil is that they have a mountain of evidence available every day to know that these vicious slanders are not true. They believe the worst because they want to. They live with and work with family, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, and others who vote for the other party. They know that this imputation of evil is false.”
They know nothing of the sort.
First of all, most Democrats I know don’t believe everyone who votes for Republicans is evil. They believe they support and enable evil without being aware of it, and that some Republicans are evil. Secondly, for most of them their source for information about what people on the right say and feel and think is the MSM, which they do not realize is full of lies. Most of them still think they are getting unbiased news, and they are surrounded by people who think the same so why challenge that viewpoint? They “know” that a source such as Fox is full of lies, and everyone they know “knows” it too. Lastly, especially in deep blue cities, they do NOT “live with and work with family, friends, neighbors, fellow workers, and others who vote for the other party.” For most of the people I know, I am probably the only person on the right that they know. They know I’m not evil, but they certainly don’t “know’ that I’m typical in that regard.
Although, as I already said, they don’t think everyone on the right is evil, just that they are enabling evil without realizing it.
Neo…I’m not sure this is as difficult as it seems…Every human possess the capacity for evil. At any moment, given the essential incentive…even the best of us might just end up on the side of the “baddies.”
Two observations:
1. Original sin twists our hearts inward such that whatever reason I need to protect or expand myself & my interests is reason enough. I can’t remember the original speaker here…”The world is not a battlefield but an auction yard. Every day a bid is made for our allegiance & given the right price; we’ll sell.” We’ve noted 1984 enough here for Winston’s many confessions to be in our memories. He ratted out his lover & confessed to anything they asked to save himself. One of my ethics professors used to say “Never say ‘never'” whenever we’d be studying some atrocity & someone would say, “I could never do that.” Yes you could. If the stakes were high enough.
Now…you can reject the Christian understanding of original sin, & ok…but you can’t argue it’s completely corrupting influence (I won’t go so far as the Reformed theologians & use ‘total depravity’ but the witness of Genesis 3-9 ought to be instructive) Or Matthew 15:18-20 for a partial New Testament witness. We could trade Biblical references & other historical ones all day.
“most people won’t shoot a baby”…Boss we live in the world of free & plentiful abortion on demand. Happens every damn day. And many of those who “won’t/don’t” facilitate & support. Sorry…that dog won’t hunt.
2. “The real question is why some choose evil, and whether they are able to recognize it as evil, and how many of them will do this.” The notion of “choice” is what seems folly to me. We live move & have our being in a Western world shaped by 2000+ years of Christianity. Folks may reject Jesus & his claims but it’s nonsensical to reject the civilizing influence He & his followers have had on the Western world. We have been more inculcated toward good than evil. We have been trained to see our neighbors as ourselves. We have, in past generations anyway, embraced the “golden rule.” Some of us grew up praying in schools & especially at football games. 😉
Those many who “choose” the good do so because we have been taught to see some intrinsic value to doing so…and when doing good is costly we are reflecting at some level a sacrificial gift of love that we may not even acknowledge or comprehend…but it still shapes us.
The real question, for me anyway, is “Are those of us who can arguably see ourselves on the side of good, prepared to defend that good to the extent that we must AND stop short of perpetuating evil in doing so?” You often quote “A Man for All Seasons”…that! To “cut a great road through the law to get after the devil” is a mighty temptation.
huxley at 10:39 a.m.: That’s a wise saying. However, the Gospel of Thomas is not part of the Apocrypha, which are a collection of writings not found in the Hebrew canon of the scriptures, but sometimes found in Christian translations, for a variety of reasons including their presence in the Septuagint, a pre-Christian Greek translation from Alexandria. “Thomas” is a later work, never included in any mainstream Christian listing, and considered heretical by the early church.
John Guilfoyle on December 16, 2021 at 6:47 pm said: “Folks may reject [a historical and/or a literally divine] Jesus & his claims but it’s nonsensical to reject the civilizing influence He & his followers have had on the Western world.”
I finally came to a better understanding and appreciation of this after reading Larry Siedentop’s Inventing the Individual; followed by Tom Holland’s Dominion.
However, the Gospel of Thomas is not part of the Apocrypha…
Kate:
Quite so. I had forgotten that distinction. I would have been correct had I said “Thomas” was small-a apocryphal.
In any case, my intent was to prevent readers from assuming that “Thomas” was an authorized book of the Bible.
I first encountered “The Gospel of Thomas” in R.D. Laing’s anti-psychiatry classic, “The Politics of Experience.” Laing was trying to convey his idea of schizophrenia as a healing journey by starting with this quote:
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Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].”
–The Gospel of Thomas
____________________
That’s pretty wild stuff. More like a set of Zen koans. I wondered where such words came from and what relationship they might have had to Jesus.
Later I learned that “Thomas” was was part of the Nag Hammadi archeological find in 1945 which revealed a number of scriptural writings never before seen. Since then scholars have been working over the texts and trying to fit them with other Judeo-Christian works. They still haven’t settled on answers for “Thomas.”
What does emerge, though, is that current Christianity, in all its forms, descended from a particular line of orthodox Christianity which, for better or worse, won out and suppressed other forms, particularly the Gnostics. That’s a long, complicated story with plenty of unknowns and I’m no authority.
R2L…
Yep. Siedentop & Holland certainly understand.
John Ortberg similarly and is accessible at a basic level.
huxley, many scholars (non-Islamic, naturally) think that a good bit of the Koran comes from a non-orthodox Syriac devotional. I have a book of a collection of stories about Jesus which float around in the Muslim world; these also sound, often, like gnostic snippets, along with just plain magician stories.
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