re: #204 Obdicut

Ludwig, in response to that I would say that there are many positions held by people that are evil positions— like most peoples’ attitudes towards the rights of women, children, and minorities prior to the turn of the century— without it actually making the people who hold them evil. I don’t think that Patton was evil even though he was an enormous racist, incredibly uninghedly conservative, and belligerent to a fault. I don’t think calling him ‘evil’ would make any sense or do much work to help us understand him or work with him.

This poll has shocked and saddened me. But it doesn’t make me dismiss everyone who responded this way as evil. It makes me mainly see a sad, crushing cultural weight in relation to race and science that we need to fight against.

Yes, I think the attacks on science are appalling— you know how often I argue over that issue here. But many people attack science because the best logic they know is to do so; they have come to trust unreliable sources and have never learned how to really do critical thinking. If anything, that’s a failure of our school system and our society.

Now that is an interesting point on abstract good and evil. Everyone is a sum of many deeds and thoughts. When it comes to judging individuals as good and evil, in a real sense, we (as in all people) are generally not qualified to do so.

Jefferson was a great man. He owned slaves too. He really can’t be forgiven for that. All of those statements are true.

However, positions and actions are clearly definable as evil.

Hating gay people is evil.

Lying to start wars is evil.

Lying to make a profit (in the case of AGW) even though it will kill billions is evil.

Racism is evil.

Being against treating women with basic decency and givng them their basic rights is evil.

Wanting to destroy the union is evil.

These are evil views.

Also very smart people can have mental moments and believe stupid things. However, those things are still stupid.

Being opposed to both abortion and birth control is stupid. Just stupid.

Anti-science biblical literalism is stupid.

All the cool-aid conspiracy nonsense is stupid.

This isn’t about trying to be popular with those who are easily offended. This is about the truth. It is high time that rather than playing nice we just spoke the truth.