Evil

[Greywind]

How do you define it?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Evil

 

Philosophers have been trying to define Evil for millennia, and haven't come to any sort of consensus. No way I'm gonna be able to do it.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

Yeah, I've already gotten the porn analogy of "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

[pinecone]

Re: Evil

 

I usually go with Selfishness to the point of Monomania. "I care more about what I want/like than about anything else"...

[Clonus]

Re: Evil

 

Qualities of personality inimical to the happiness and safety of other people.

[Cassandra]

Re: Evil

 

Evil is selfishness, greed, sadism, cruelty, barbarism, and prejudice.

 

It is personified by Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, John Wayne Gacy, Josef Fritzl, Mao Tse-Tung, James Holmes, Jack The Ripper, Hideki Tojo, and so many others.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Evil

 

Betrayal of Trust, Family, or Nation.

Theft of Life, Limb, or Property. ie Cutting Babies out of Wombs.

Corruption of Youth.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Evil

 

Causing unnecessary or undeserved harm to others for one's own purposes.

 

It's a crappy definition because "unnecessary" and "undeserved" are at least as hard to define as the word "evil" itself. But there are a great many cases where they definitely apply, so sometimes it's not so problematic.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

Rage

 

 

Fingers danced across controls, pressing buttons and flipping switches. Lights lit up and panels came to life at his command.

 

“You're angry.”

 

“Yes,” he said from the stool, staring at the painting before him. The hairs of the brush in his hand tickled his chin as he flipped it back and forth.

 

“At me.”

 

He let go a sigh. “No. I'm not angry at you,” he said quietly.

 

“Not for making you show your drawings?” Marlene came up behind him and wrapped her arms about his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder.

 

“My drawings are usually private. I chose to share them with you. I don't want there to be secrets between us. That doesn't mean I want everyone to know what you look like naked.”

 

“Jason Scott, you know damned well that I am not body shy. I like it when you look at me and you get that hungry look in your eye.” She lightly kissed his ear. “And it usually starts when we wake up in the morning. You think I don't realize that you're watching me when I get dressed? I tease you all day long, and I love it.”

 

He nodded. “I realized that back in high school when you were the one that got Sandy to agree to go skinny dipping in the pool. The only way, as I recall, was that you stripped first.”

 

“You liked what you saw,” she breathed heavily into his ear.

 

Jason reached up and held her hand. “I still do.”

 

“I always wondered how Sandy would have taken me asking to share you. With everything Adalene said, I can't help feeling cheated of all the time we could have had. To know that someone was playing games like that at our expense. I never realized what this life of yours really entailed. Just like everyone else, I saw the fantasy of it; the romance of it. I never

thought about the cost of it.”

 

“I don't know. She loved you a great deal, but there was always that part of her that never had.

In a lot of ways she was caught up in the fantasy of it too. The 'storybook romance' or those cheap novels she read.”

 

Marlene gave him a poke to the ribs. “Don't knock those cheap novels, buster. They've got some pretty interesting ideas in them. I know, though. And I think that was why I never asked her. I loved her too much to risk coming between her and happiness.”

 

He read over the parameters of the exercise. Very deliberately he entered the command to disable the safeties. He punched in some numbers for the countdown, not really caring how long it took. The last thing he did was re-route the override. A red light appeared on the far wall indicating that there was the only shutoff. He stepped back and kicked the release that opened the bottom of the observation dome. He fell through it, only releasing power near the end so that he landed easily. Above him the door closed. Jason slipped to his knees and closed his eyes. His power played about him, bringing his mask into being around his head. He waited.

 

“Do you know what evil is?” he asked her.

 

“I guess it's a lot like porn. I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it. Why?”

 

“With everything I've seen it seems to come down to a lack of compassion. A lack of compassion and selfishness. Step around here.” Marlene slipped her hands free, feeling his muscles as she did do. Jason turned on his stool so that they were facing each other. He slipped a scarf free and folded it. When he was done, he held it up to her eyes. She smiled and nodded. He tied it tightly, but not uncomfortably, blindfolding her. “Now, imagine being here with someone that doesn't care about you at all.” He caught her wrists together with his hand and lifted her off the floor. It was uncomfortable for her, but she trusted him and knew that he would never truly hurt her. “Now, imagine that whatever is about to happen to you is done with no concern whatsoever for you. Imagine being stripped bare,” with that her shirt disappeared. Her skin prickled at the cool air. “You are allowed nothing,” her shorts disappeared as well, “unless it please this other that is doing these things to you.” Marlene found herself hanging naked in his grasp.

 

Jason wrapped his arm about her waist and released her arms. He pulled her into his lap, catching both her wrists again and crossing them behind her back. “Now imagine having that someone do this,” he kissed lightly at the hollow of her throat, eliciting a low moan from her. “They don't care if you like it. They don't care if you want it or not. They do it simply because they want to.” He stood up and carried her towards the bed. “And when they are finished, they simply dispose of you.” He dropped her, startling her, on the bed.

 

“You're talking about what happened to Leah, aren't you?” her hand went to the scarf, but she left it in place.

 

“Yes, and no. What happened to Leah was evil and one way or another that bastard will pay for it, but I wasn't meaning her specifically. I don't see a lot of difference between what happened with Leah and what happened with Sandy. One did it for his own sick self-gratification. The other did it believing he was doing it for a greater good.”

 

Movement, sensed rather than seen, caught his attention. The program cycled through the Guardian's rogues gallery and between mechanical and holographic means, it duplicated those enemies. At the lower settings it produced common street thugs. As the program advanced the challenges grew harder and harder.

 

Marlene sensed him moving away from her. “Jason?”

 

“I'm here.” His voice was distant. Not being able to see him made it seem he was even more distant from her.

 

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

 

Pulsar's eyes snapped open. One teenager with a baseball bat faced him. Power cut through the air between the two of them. More brutal than he would be outside these walls, but he wasn't really in the mood. Let the computer keep score.

 

Marlene lay with her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. She ran her hands over his pectorals and abs. One hand of his was tangled in her hair, massaging her neck. The other was behind the knee of the leg she had tossed over him. At some point he had wanted to see her eyes and scarf was cast aside. It had been different, but she liked being able to see him.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

“You can ask me anything. You know that.”

 

Marlene shifted until she sat astride him. “All those women you dated, when all I got was business functions and dinner, how many of them got to know you?”

 

His fingers caressed her thigh, threatening to distract her. “Does it matter?” he asked her.

 

She caught his hand, keeping it from moving any higher on her leg. Not that she could really stop him if he hadn't let her. “Not now, but I'm curious. How many of them managed to get you into bed?”

 

Jason's fingers cupped the side of her face. “I'm sorry I hurt you. If it makes you feel any better I didn't sleep with any of them. The only person that made it there was Angelique.”

 

She shifted on him, making him groan with the sensation. “At least the others would have been faceless to me.” Marlene laid down on his chest, interlacing her fingers and resting her chin on her hands. “Why not?”

 

“They weren't what I was looking for.”

 

Debris was piling up around the room. Bits and pieces, mechanical appendages, a car tire, bricks and framework of a building. The computer generated landscape as well as opponents. Blast after blast he lashed out at whatever the computer threw at him. He lost all sense of time. Occasionally he felt pain when the something managed to hit him.

“Angelique was?”

 

“No. Angel was an outlet and I think it was mutual.” Marlene shifted again. “You, Miss Palmer, are a terrible tease.”

 

She let out a mock sigh. “And here I thought I was doing a terrific job of being a tease. I wouldn't go selling the Witch cheaply, Jason. You played a pretty hefty part in her life that made her walk away from her father. As for the rest,” Marlene shifted again, making him growl with pleasure, “you could have used me for that outlet. I wouldn't have minded.”

 

Facsimiles of Quantum and Raven dove out of the projected sky. A burst at Quantum and his force field flared, before the lance tore through the field and his body. The burst at Raven caught her head on. Only her wings and one arm were recognizable when they hit the ground.

* * * * *

 

Lights dimmed, flickering, along with the TV screen. There was a chorus of complaints about the apparent brownout.

 

“Mentor, what's going on?” Ash called out.

 

“Apolog... sudden spike. I... tempt... stabil... reactor.”

 

“Say that again, Mentor.”

 

“Ah, better,” the AI said. “My apologies. There was a sudden spike in power demand. I was trying to stabilize the reactor and the power output.”

 

Kris stood up. “Spikes from where, Mentor?”

 

“The 'Danger Room', as the boys refer to it, doctor.”

 

The lights flickered again. “Is the power stable?”

 

“I believe so, for the time being.”

 

Everyone took off at a run. “Mentor, if you're going to tell me who I think is in there, I want to you power up all scanners. Isolate their circuits so that they won't be interrupted. Make sure all data is available to me when this is over.”

 

“Yes, doctor. And it is Jason.”

 

Warren was already in the observation dome when everyone caught up. “He's got it locked out. As usual. Only off switch is in there with him. Remind me again why I'm not at home with my wife.”

 

“Reaffirmation Day. Dinner. And the Witch cast the spell that gave us all the heebie-jeebies if we tried to leave,” Ash said.

 

“Thanks, but it was Addie that cast the spell. I'm useless here. Trese? Dani? Think you could bypass?”

 

The two of them started watching the data feed on a monitor. Trese started shaking her head. “No way, Warren. Right now, and until he hits that button down there, this is only a dumb terminal.”

 

Kris looked down at her friend in the training room. “Mentor, reading.”

 

“He is currently putting out power at one hundred and thirty-seven,” Pulsar's blast struck the wall and the lights dimmed again, “one hundred and forty-eight percent of his previous maximum.”

 

Ash took up a spot beside Kris. “Trese, what program is he running?”

 

“Grinder,” the redhead said.

 

“What was his best in that?” the blonde asked.

 

“Twenty-eight minutes, forty-seven seconds,” Warren said. Ash's gaze turned to the mission clock that read thirty-nine minutes and kept adding.

 

“Warren,” Leah said quietly, “get Marlene. I think she should see this.” And with that, Warren was gone.

 

“What has gotten into him?” Kris wondered out loud.

 

“He's angry,” Lisa said. She turned to Ash. “I told you he was going to do something.”

 

* * * * *

 

Warren barged into Jason's room. “Marlene! C'mon! Wake up,” he said shaking the bed, not trusting himself to touch her at the moment.

 

“Wha? Wha? 'm up, Jason!” She sat up abruptly and wiped sleep from her eyes. When they were clear, she saw Warren standing in front of her holding a Federation hockey jersey several sizes too large for her. Warren had his eyes closed and his head turned away.

 

“Please, putthisonanddon'ttellmywifeIsawyoutopless!”

 

She ripped the jersey out of his hands. “I'm not topless, Warren.”

 

“Great!” he said turning to look, just in time to see her bare ass being covered as the jersey settled on her shoulders.

 

“I was naked. What's this about? Where's Jason?”

 

Warren scooped her up in his arms and ran.

 

* * * * *

[Vulcan]

Re: Evil

 

Evil is what happens when one person pursues their goals without regard to who gets hurt by it.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

You've just described both political parties.

[fbdaury]

Re: Evil

 

I'm taking a Philosophy class this semester devoted to the topic of Evil- maybe by the end of the class I'll know what to say here but it's such a loaded word that even defining it seems somehow to diminish it, so at this time I'll abstain from saying how I would classify it.

[fbdaury]

Re: Evil

 

You've just described both political parties.

 

That's pretty telling, isn't it?

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

I'm taking a Philosophy class this semester devoted to the topic of Evil- maybe by the end of the class I'll know what to say here but it's such a loaded word that even defining it seems somehow to diminish it' date=' so at this time I'll abstain from saying how I would classify it.[/quote']

 

We've done the same to words like "death", too.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

That's pretty telling' date=' isn't it?[/quote']

Wouldn't be so bad if they'd realize that there are people involved.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Evil

 

Selfishness, greed, sadism, cruelty, barbarism, betrayal... I wouldn't necessarily categorize these as "evil." They're often motivated by petty, pathetic drives such as anger, fear, hatred, ignorance, self-loathing, or lust for one thing or another. Often the people driven this way have no insight into their true motivation, finding some rationalization or excuse for it. At the extreme the person is mentally ill and incapable of acting other than how they do.

 

For me, to call something "evil" it would have to be an action by someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, and deliberately chooses wrong. Someone who actively causes suffering, death, or destruction because it gives him some type of satisfaction, and realizes that's why he does it. Who recognizes the consequences of his actions, knows these consequences are against all the standards of civilized behavior, and doesn't care.

[assault]

Re: Evil

 

Context matters. What is this definition going to be used for?

 

The definition would differ from between the Real World, a 4-colour comic world, or a dystopian cr*psack world.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

Post #9 covers most of the intent of it, Assault.

[Laundry Knight]

Re: Evil

 

I go with the Augustinian argument and call it the absence of good.

[assault]

Re: Evil

 

Yes, I worked out that it had something to do with fanfic, but I wasn't sure exactly how "evil" was involved.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

"Fanfic"?

 

[assault]

Re: Evil

 

Wrong term, of course.

 

I should have said "amateur writing" or something along those lines.

[Greywind]

Re: Evil

 

I was trying to work out how the explanation would go, so I asked. Brainstorming after a fashion.

[Badger]

Re: Evil

 

It'd be interesting to see a WWYCD thing on this. Well, change do to think, of course.

[Clonus]

Re: Evil

 

Selfishness' date=' greed, sadism, cruelty, barbarism, betrayal... I wouldn't necessarily categorize these as "evil." They're often motivated by petty, pathetic drives such as anger, fear, hatred, ignorance, self-loathing, or lust for one thing or another. Often the people driven this way have no insight into their true motivation, finding some rationalization or excuse for it. At the extreme the person is mentally ill and incapable of acting other than how they do..[/quote']

 

I see no reason why an evil person must understand their motivations or have the capability of acting differently. It's open to question whether anyone has the capability of acting differently and perfect knowledge of one's own motive is denied to us all.