...to think that the police force has absolutely NO business whatsoever deciding that someone is 'pure evil'...

[almostblue]

... much less issuing an official statement to the effect?

"dreadful acts which others, in the same situation, do not.."

Forgot to add that I am a Firm Atheist

Not sure I understand the diff between wicked and evil.

It's funny that 'evil', applied to a person, seems to mean the quintessence, perfection of badness -- in a way that rules out both the presence of other traits/influences and the existences of causes of behaviour.

Whereas 'good' just seems to be ordinary, not uncaused, and existing alongside other character traits.

Sorry, rapid post not v claer.

In thsat sense there isn't a perfect antonym of evil.

Here's what I said - and nothing about KM needing society's help.

"Karen Matthews has lived her life in a complete moral vacuum with zero sense of community, even towards her own flesh and blood. Her values are greed, laziness and self-indulgent sex without any thought of consequences."

It is politically incorrect to talk about morals on Mumsnet, but that is what KM needed. She needed a completely new set of values which centre on being a contributing member of the community (the community of her family, neighbourhood, country).

KM indulged in sex, alcohol, computer games, and not in bettering the lives of her own family. If she had values outside of her own body, she would have behaved differently. She would have cared for her children, and in the absence of paid work, at least kept her house clean! If she valued her community and nation, she would not have been content to take over £400 a week in benefits (to squander on cigarettes and alcohol), without any intention of reversing the situation and to eventually become a contributing member of society.

Her live is a train wreck and she doesn't really care who gets hurt a long the way.

Part of the prob with the word is that it is perhaps more appropriately applied to actions rather than people./ An action can sometimes be unequivocally bad, perfectly bad in that sense -- whereas people are not. So when the word slips from a description of acts to a descrition of people it implies an untempered, pure, badness that does not exist.

I mean that you acknowledged that society needs to intervene in some way.

I agree with your bleak assessment of KM's situation and aspirations at the point that she did what she did - but we diverge after that.

How would she have acquired this completely new set of moral values that we both agree she needed? They don't just come from nowhere.

(I don't, btw, have a particular problem with the idea of moral values, though I suspect that some things which you consider to be moral absolutes I would be more likely to consider to be norms)

Threadie, you're quite right that good is no longer an Active good. It's certainly not always been that way cf the Victorian lit heroine

yes again, threadie (SG) re actions v individuals.

However, I think the crux of this thread is that some people do believe in the existence of "an untempered, pure, badness."

I've argued from a sociological position - it would be v interesting to hear the various theological/philosophical positions on the existence of Absolute Evil argued.

I don't think I did - you must be thinking of someone else's post.

I don't disagree that society is lacking and I have a few ideas in what needs to be done - but I don't think these ideas are fit for mumsnet.

How can a woman be blamed if her employer goes bust and her partner gets run over and killed? How is that a case of her having made 'poor choices'?
Yes, sometimes people do make poor choices, but not everything in our lives is under our control. My point (to all the smuggoes out there who think the poor are wholly to blame for their misery) is that there are many different ways in which one can end up as a single parent on benefits, including bereavement, having to assume a full-time carer role for a family member, and wider economic conditions.

Life Assurance, stick. My DH is worth more dead than alive.

Well you said 'And if so, what should society do about it.'

I tend to think that if ideas are fit to be discussed in public at all, they are fit to be discussed on MN.

You can either believe that KM is representative of all those who live their lives on benefits, or that she is somewhat different.

I think being different (eg wicked) is very much more palatable.

Take your pick.

No. You are setting up a dangerously false dichotomy.

The alternative to thinking that she is 'somewhat different' is NOT to think that she is representative of those on benefits.

There are many alternative analyses.

No she is not a representative of all those who live their life on benefits. Do people actually believe that?

Squeaky, people who are already poor may not have life insurance as it's an extra expense.

No, they certainly don't knickers. Squeaky is being 'mischievous' I think.

She isn't saying, btw, that she thinks that SM is representative, she is saying (very wrongly imo) that one can EITHER see KM as purely evil OR as a representative of an underclass which lives their lives on benefits.

To be clear, I do not believe that KM is representative of the benefits class. I think she is set apart from the majority of the rest of the community. I would like to hope that most people thought this too.

Why are people so unwilling to think the unthinkable? It has been played out on our TV screens in February/March and the last couple of weeks, especially Thursday. it is there before our eyes.

I think KM can be thrown in with other child abusers who come from across the SEC spectrum. Greed, stupidity and selfishness is not unique to any class.

Because KM was on huge benefits does not mean that we should make her some icon of benefits recipients. She is no more related to the genuinely needy (and hopeful) benefit recipients, as she is to those who are net contributers to the public purse.

No one here needs to take this debate personally - we are not talking about any of you.

She drugged her own child so she could get money. She is scum. End of. I dont give a toss whether anyone thinks I'm out of order either.

Countingthegreyhairs, fro, a bit further down: "I have a close family friend who is a policeman who also happens (as I can personally testify) to be a really decent human being, devoted family man, fairly liberal politically-speaking, opposed to the the death penalty, has managed to keep his humanity despite working in the vice squad (among other areas) and encountering some pretty horrific situatiosn.

He says that when you have worked as long as he has in this sort of field, you develop a strong instinct about people and their motivations and that in 20 years of policing he has only come across 2 men he would describe as "pure evil". I was surprised to hear him say this as he doesn't use language flamboyantly. He says when it occurs it transcends class, education, levels of intelligence but that he does personally think "it" (whatever "it" is) exists.

I've also heard three criminal barristers, two lawyers and one director of a homeless shelter say the same thing. All of them are highly educated and none would qualify as a "Daily Mail" reader.

Don't agree or disagree - just found it interesting that they (with their work background and experience) should say that."

I find that really interesting. To encounter pure evil in that way. I am particularly curious about the issue of whether a person can be born evil. I have no doubt that a lot of criminal and antisocial behaviour results from an abusive and deprived upbringing. But why is it 2 persons can be subject to the same background but one turns bad and the other does not? Isn't there some element of choice in the matter and begs the question, are some people born inherently evil and go to the dark side?

Not much difference between KM and the Baby P lot. The kids were beaten, neglected, malnourished, drugged, forced to live with a violent paedophile (and god knows what happened there) and used in a criminal enterprise. None of the kids died, but I think that was more by luck than judgement.

Exactly, blueshoes, about the different outcomes for people with similar opportunities.

Children of the underclass go to school, on the whole - especially primary. And schools are mostly well-meaning. Children are exposed to good standards. They all have the opportunity to learn basic skills (it helps if parents are supportive, but it's not the end of the world).

Two of my children are at a primary school where there are quite a few iffy families. The school is a bright light in their lives. They protect the children from the world their parent(s) inhabit. Unfortunately, when they move to secondary it is sink or swim. The secondary school simply does not have the pastoral systems to continue to support them. However, the children who do cling onto the moral values they pick up in the primary school can go on to either break away from their dysfunctional families, or to even instruct their parents into a better life (one without cussing every two words).

squeakypop, This isn't always true of Secondary school. I have been involved in something this week. Can't of course tell everyone the story but I'm very involved with the school. I know that for one teenager at the school I work with, school has been a haven that have worked very hard to keep him away from crime. It hasn't worked outside school but he done very well in school. The school have supported him and he was talking about university until this latest incident happened. As we work in a multi-agency way he may have the opportunity to realise his mistake and take the gifts he is offered. It would be a sad and foolish lad who doesn't take it up. He may not have the moral fibre to take it up. I don't think anything more could be done. Society can only do so much and then it's free will that takes over.

I'm not really comfortable with the term "Children of the underclass". We do live in a society where there are opportunities for most people.

Onebat, robust debate is fine, personal abuse is not. I see that two of your posts on this thread have been deleted. Here's hoping that we can put this behind us now.

police are free to express their opinion of her, they are human like the rest of us. the trial is over now.

I would call her dysfunctional, thick and cruel. Pure evil i would reserve for the likes of the Hindleys and Bradys of the world.

And after the trial i think the police are entitled to an opinion, like everyone else.