"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Pure Evil?
Submitted by Alex R. Knight III on Mon, 2013-12-16 19:00
A most interesting article from the Scientific American, with its obvious implications for the advancement of Voluntaryism:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychological-power-satan
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Comments
Interesting, indeed! For one thing it's astounding that in this enlightened age, as many as 70% of Americans still believe the devil exists.
It's a handy way, I suppose, to shrug off responsibility. The devil made me vote.
Its definition of "evil" is not bad: "taking pleasure in the intentional inflicting of harm on innocent others." I thought that was usually called schadenfreude, but it serves. The one I prefer is simply to say that evil is taking any unprovoked action which imposes force upon another human being. But yes, presumably the aggressor takes such action because he enjoys doing it.
I concur with your definition of evil, except I would broaden the scope a little to include property as well -- such as stealing or vandalism. Granted, you might argue that a person's property could be construed as an extension of them (that which they possess a vested interest in), and so your definition still holds, but I think the clarification helps.