Which leads into: Does evil really exist? What is evil and what makes someone evil?
And the rabbit hole is open.
Two wolves in the woods. Which one do we feed?
critical and cold under extreme stress
Critical and cold from people I love will kill me. People I don't care about, meh.
INTP: One minute, they'll imply that you're unintelligent, and the next, they'll throw a hissy fit
They're whiny and annoying with a mile of excuses I never like to hear. Or they just disappear.
There is no 'essence' of the good or evil in people. There are only circumstances and choices.
Hear, hear.
But of course when they're in the way of INFJs turned INTJs, they'll be hurt for it.
Gandhi believed in upholding the caste system.
Martin Luther King Junior cheated on his wife.
Mother Teresa's medical care was purportedly "haphazard" and she used a spiritual approach to pain management instead of using painkillers.
Nelson Mandela had a history of violence.
In all of this, I'm thinking about Malala Yousafzai and that her version of the dark side must still be forming right now given her age.
most of the people who are considered as evil don’t perceive themselves as evil. There is always some reasoning behind every individual’s actions to justify them.
Yes, it's circumstantial. I always think that everybody in this world has their own agenda and that's never wrong because at one point or another, they're doing it for some version of good that they think is justifiable. Laws and societal standards get into play because of the human need for order which we try to impose via commonality but even those are questioned time and again because while circunstances can get similar, they're never really the same. A case of history repeating itself has to be some sort of proof that human infallibility is always subject to specific conditions.
However, the circumstance of one is hardly ever contained within that person. There's a ripple and an inevitable string that somehow binds all of our circumstances together. I think that the choice that sends the biggest ripples enough to cause the greater cumulative pain and harm to all those bound by the string (and I include cats and dogs in this string) is what's evil. These strings are far too complex for us to unravel so, defeating evil is a matter of keeping fingers crossed when making choices --- that it's going to be "for the greater good". Of course, it's easy to see this as meaningless and so people make choices to put themselves first above all for survival but I do think that when people start to think this way, they will eventually harm themselves. I think that an outward manifestation of goodness is better for the self because it always comes back to the self eventually. For sure, outward manifestations of evil could also be for the greater good so really, it's always that we'll never know whether or not our existence mattered for the good or otherwise. Hence, meaningless.
But, there's also the self and conscience and innate human goodness. When we do something, some degree of consequence is visible to us and these are the things we live with. We may not know what to do with the rest of the world but it is difficult for us to neglect that which we immediately experience, hence we make the choices that instantaneously benefit us whatever our values may be. Human nature.
For example, a man may choose to steal to feed his children--- is this evil? Judas betrayed Christ. Was that evil? There's no way to tell, really. But then Judas and even the man who fed his children could easily be swept by guilt, for when they see that the consequence of their actions could negatively impact other lives.
Whenever I think about it this way, I just think we're all miserable. But if we flip it, say, we hug the man who stole and we forgive Judas, a counteraction filled with love also sends ripples of goodness.
So in this sense, I think this is when we assess our darknesses and lightnesses and that we are both. Always.
There will never really be a supervillain, just some really funky know it all dudes and dudettes who think they know the best path to existence. This is also why I think democracy sounds more good on a facetious level because it distributes the choice rather than collectively and willingly offering it to one leader. But then again, it is all so clearly very complex.
Ultimately, I don't know. I'm rambling so let's just sleep.
