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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To rant about “evil” people

119 replies

Stormypaige · 20/02/2019 22:14

What’s all this shit about ‘evil’ people? Begum is ‘evil’, Bulger killers are ‘evil’, Trump is ‘evil’, etc?

Kids who still believe in magic, or religious fanatics might talk like this, but adult / balanced / rational people should know better!!

Probably got something to do with gutter-press headlines trying to dehumanise and sensationalise people like Begum.

When exactly do people become ‘evil’? At birth? At the point they commit a crime? What about when they were still planning the crime- were they evil then? Or before?

We dehumanise at our peril. Understanding is the only way to prevent such crimes in society. Understanding doesn’t mean excusing it. But no understanding can come from the term evil.

Damaged? Definitely.
Worthy of punishment? Of course.
Unforgivable? Quite possibly.

Evil? Grow up.

OP posts:
ILoveMaxiBondi · 20/02/2019 22:30

I’m with you and have always hated people being referred to as evil. There is no such thing as evil just as there is no such thing as heaven or hell. There is not some powerful demon at work in their mind forcing them to behave so appallingly. They are human. 100% human. What they have done is human behaviour.

Handay · 20/02/2019 22:32

People don't want to believe that they would do the same given a certain set of circumstances.

ashtrayheart · 20/02/2019 22:35

People like to think only other ‘evil’ people do these things; in reality some very everyday people do terrible things all the time. It’s a coping mechanism.

BejamNostalgia · 20/02/2019 22:37

Oh do fuck off. ISIS have committed war crimes, mass rapes, genocide, sexual slavery. How exactly would you describe that? It’s evil. It was evil when the Nazis and Stalinists and Khmer Rouge did it and it was evil when they did it.

I’m sorry you find it difficult to accept that, clearly you want to have it sanitised and presented to you in a more palatable packaging.

Do you think Yazidi girls felt their humanity was respected while they were gang raped for months? Do you think the Christians they crucified and burned alive felt ISIS respected their humanity? Or the gay men they threw off buildings? Or the rape victims they stoned to death?

Quite frankly to accuse other people of being nasty because they are ‘dehumanising’ ISIS is one of the most profoundly hypocritical things I’ve ever read. ISIS’s meat and veg was dehumanising and terrorising millions of people.

What they did was monstrous. It was evil. It was not within the bounds of normal or acceptable human behaviour. I couldn’t give two shits that a bunch of mealy mouthed left wingers are frantically virtue signalling because you think it makes you look right on and cool.

Look at all the millions who had to flee them, Aylan Kurdi lying on the beach, freed Yazidi sex slaves, look at the mass graves.

And people like you think a totally appropriate thing to whinge about is the language used to describe those acts? Get your priorities right.

Houseonahill · 20/02/2019 22:38

To me evil is a term that encompasses all of the things you mentioned, atrocious unforgivable acts committed again and again by the same person with no remorse. I do think the term.is over used though, for example is trump evil? No he's lots of things but not evil.

FernShitTonne · 20/02/2019 22:39

So you are arguing over an adjective and suggest others grow up? It must not be a busy time for you.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 20/02/2019 22:40

How exactly would you describe that? It’s evil. It was evil when the Nazis and Stalinists and Khmer Rouge did it and it was evil when they did it.

Power hungry men doing exactly what they like knowing there is very little to stop them if they really want to.

StopMakingAFoolOutofMe · 20/02/2019 22:42

The definition of evil is "profoundly immoral and wicked".

I think its the perfect word to use.

BejamNostalgia · 20/02/2019 22:42

People don't want to believe that they would do the same given a certain set of circumstances.

Nope, no. I really do not think I would ever leave the country to fight a war and persecute and murder thousands of people and displace millions.

It’s so interesting watching left wingers trying to somehow contort the story to make ISIS the victims.

So now apparently ISIS were just behaving in a way any other person would behave in their circumstances. They’re not responsible for what they did.

Jesus Christ.

Ribbonsonabox · 20/02/2019 22:43

YANBU believing people are evil is an easy way to forget their humanity.. which in turn allows you to treat them badly.
Pretty sure forgetting peoples humanity is a route to evil behaviour.

SweatyUnderboob · 20/02/2019 22:47

I watched the Ted Bundy tapes last night on Netflix, I think he would be a pretty good contender. But yes, it's not a term to throw around lightly

WatcherOfTheNight · 20/02/2019 22:48

Evil? Grow up Hmm

GF IMO

Lucky you op living in a world where evil doesn't exist.
I'm sure the many parents of murdered children beg to differ .

Etino · 20/02/2019 22:49

There’s a supernatural and othering element to it which is completely unhelpful.

Original poster
Stormypaige · 20/02/2019 22:49

Thank you for your view Bajam but I’m not going to fuck off.

Rape, mass murder, slavery etc- I suppose the acts themselves could be described as evil, as a synonym for horrendous, reprehensible, immoral, cruel, atrocious etc.

But I think calling people evil is different. Calling a person evil is like saying their nature is fundamentally and irredemably bad. But if we dismiss people (especially children) in this way we will never learn to stop people from becoming criminal in the first place. Because nobody is born bad.

OP posts:
ILoveMaxiBondi · 20/02/2019 22:50

So now apparently ISIS were just behaving in a way any other person would behave in their circumstances. They’re not responsible for what they did.

They absolutely are responsible. That’s the point. Calling them evil removes the responsibility for their actions from them and places it on some “other” force. Some “extra” thing that “normal” people don’t have. When you call someone evil you are absolving them of all responsibility for their actions.

LagunaBubbles · 20/02/2019 22:55

Calling a person evil is like saying their nature is fundamentally and irredemably bad

Yes. I will never understand why some people can't accept this.

Original poster
Stormypaige · 20/02/2019 22:56

Also, look up Milgram’s experiment of what normal people are capable of. And that’s just obedience to authority, no brainwashing involved.

OP posts:
adaline · 20/02/2019 22:57

If people are evil surely something has made them this way?

People are products of their environment to some extent - and surely nobody is arguing that people are born evil? So while some people may commit evil acts, isn't it more important to figure out what made them do those things?

Or are people arguing that a newborn baby can be evil?

StoneofDestiny · 20/02/2019 23:01

It’s so interesting watching left wingers trying to somehow contort the story to make ISIS the victims

No way are ISIS victims and I'm probably what you'd call a 'left winger'. ISIS are one of the most right wing groups going - fundamentalist, extremist and anything but left wing.

But back to the OP posting - Evil is often a collective term to describe behaviour beyond most people's understanding. The reality is that many of the Khmer Rouge for example, so responsible for horrendous genoside are now shopping at markets/sitting in coffee bars/working alongside their victims' families in Cambodia. Have they suddenly become 'not evil' or is evil the wrong word to describe things?

Angrybird123 · 20/02/2019 23:02

When Eichmann was tried in Israel for his part in the Holocaust people commented on how ordinary and dull he looked. Not like an evil monster.. He was an accountant and looked like one. A scholar, Hannah Arendt, wrote a thesis based on it called The Banality of Evil' and it was exactly that.. That actually many many of us, far more than it is palatable to think of ARE capable of evil acts given the right circumstances. Evil is not a characteristic you are born with that means most of us are 'safe', it is a combination of circumstances that result in choices and actions. Its deeply uncomfortable to know that many 'monsters' were actually normal people until X happened to them so we do dehumanise them to distance ourselves. Exactly the same point was proved decades ago with the experiment where a psychologist had actors pretend to experience electric shocks administered by a test group. The test group were given permission to ramp up the severity of the shock.. In fact they were ordered to do so and the vast majority obeyed, even to the level where it would have been terminal if it were real. They had no way of knowing it wasn't real but the imperative to obey, to fit in, to wield power overcame any 'natural' instincts of compassion and they very easily became torturers. Its way too simplistic to write off individuals as 'evil' and the more we can learn about the psychological path to acts and events we label 'evil' the more likely we are to prevent them.

BetzOnMark3 · 20/02/2019 23:06

Lots of seemingly 'normal people' walking around are actually quite evil/do evil deeds.
No one is born evil, of course, except maybe serial killers and rapists. IS.

adaline · 20/02/2019 23:12

People don't like admitting other people aren't evil - that they're just humans who were raised in shit situations or had shit things happen to them.

If they insist others are born evil then they're safe and don't have to worry about it ever happening to them or to someone they love.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 20/02/2019 23:12

I used to believe there were evil deeds and evil people. That the two were demarcated and that a clear line existed between them.

The longer I live, the lesser the certainty, and the less I subscribe to that view. I've seen people do horrible, horrible things to other people; most frequently, and sadly, within their own families. Things that have ruined them for life.

It's not about 'otherising' 'evil' as a nameless, faceless entity. Evil is an inherent part of the human condition. The PP who quoted Arendt on the banality of evil has it spot on. Ditto Daniel Goldhagen's assessment of 'Hitler's Willing Executioners'. Who were these killers by proxy? His uncomfortable answer: ordinary Germans.

Nor I am buying the view that horrible, abusive environments and the wrongs committed against us as children conspire against individuals to make them become evil. If that were the case, I would personally have grown up to be abusive, because I suffered for most of my early life at the hands of an abusive father.

As we grow into autonomous adults, we make our own choices; choices for which no one is responsible but ourselves. It's the very principle on which the Nuremberg Defence is (rightly) rejected.

adaline · 20/02/2019 23:12

@BetzOnMark3 do you really believe newborn babies are pre-destined to become murderers and rapists then?

GloryforGloves · 20/02/2019 23:13

And people like you think a totally appropriate thing to whinge about is the language used to describe those acts? Get your priorities right.

Language is hugely important and not a trivial matter. Emotive words like ‘evil’ are used to influence people to follow some of the ideologies you’ve mentioned in your post - of course it matters!

The OP is right - calling someone ‘evil’ dehumanises them and partially absolves them of their responsibility. We need to humanise criminals to understand the factors at play that have caused them to commit the atrocities they are responsible for - how else can we stop others from doing the same?