Can good people choose to hold evil ideologies? (radical, death, fence)

[juju33312]

Two examples:

Were there good people who chose to follow Hitler and embrace Naziism?

Are there good people who choose to follow Islam and consider Muhammed as a perfect example?
(This assumes that the debater has read the Quran, understands abrogation and has read some or all of the hadiths. This should not be a debate on IF Islam is evil.)

I am defining 'evil ideology' to be one that incites initiation of force against others (rape, murder, mass murder, terrorism, pedophelia, theft, torture.) A good person would be one who is against initiation of force against others, to keep it simple.

Also, 'choosing an ideology' means that the person UNDERSTANDS the ideology. A German who called himself a Nazi but did not know anything about Hitler or Naziism would not be a Nazi. A person that was forced to say they accept Islam under threat of death is not a Muslim. An argument could also be made that a person with no access to any other ideology and so by default falls into that category has not chosen that ideology. This happened in China under Mao.

[Phil75230]

It depends on what you call "good", especially from an "intent" vs "consequences" standpoint. This alone would bog down your question for ages. A person can support an ideology that explicitly or implicitly enables (or especially causes) unjust actions and effects against others; yet still in principle be against mistreating those same "others" in such a manner. They are either blind to how their attitudes can effect others or wallowing in denial to escape facing the fact that they are doing their small part to support their actions, however indirectly.

For these reasons, I don't favor "going pit bull" on others holding what I consider evil ideologies unless they clearly support (or especially outright enjoy) actual hurt or degradation against those others.

[ReachTheBeach]

The US political system makes this even murkier. You have two parties with planks and platforms. You can't vote for social programs without voting pro choice, which some people (not me) consider evil. That brings up the whole perception of evil issue; you may wish to make it black and white for this thread but that isn't realistic. With your definition, the sticky point is "others" and the "when is a person a person?" debate.

[AnywhereElse]

I tend to agree with the others. I don't think most people give support 100% for an ideology. I am betting that many that followed Hitler were into the hype and didn't realize the ideology behind what was happening or the extremes that it would take on. That same thing happens today, the "jump on the bandwagon".

I think a lot of ideologies start out looking positive and that is how they recruit people.

If there were a purely evil ideology, any good person that analysed it would not choose it. Then, of course, what I consider evil and what others consider evil will vary.

[pkbab5]

Two ways to look at this:

When you are a baby, you don't know "good" from "bad". "Good" is something fills your tummy, and "bad" is your bum feels wet and uncomfortable. The first thing you learn is trust, you learn to trust your caregiver because your caregiver fills your tummy and makes your bum comfortable again.

From there you progress to: things that make your caregiver happy and be nice to you are learned to be "good", and things that make your caregiver mad and mean to you are learned to be "bad". Those values get more and more solid in your personality, and more and more nuanced, the older you get. Once you get to be an adult, it is very difficult (although possible) to change your core values that were taught to you as a small child.

If a small child is taught from the very beginning that the initiation of force against others is good, then that's what they are going to believe. And when they are older, they will try to be a "good person" by being the very best that they can be in initiating force against others. So yes, you can be a "good person" and still be evil.

Another way to look at it:

Let's take the Hitler example. Imagine for a moment that Hitler believed, with all his heart, that his countrymen were his children. He was responsible for their safety, for their success in the world. He loved them with all his heart, and every day he worried about their safety and their future. Like any good parent, he tried to identify threats to his children's well being, and tried to get rid of them, for the good of his children. He saw certain other groups of people as a threat, maybe because he perceived them to be smarter and harder working, and therefore would succeed over his own children and push them down. So he protected his children by trying to remove the threat. He was trying to be a good and responsible parent, a protector of his people. He was trying to be a good man. But he was very, very evil.

Good people who followed Hitler did not think to themselves "this man is a mass murderer and so I will follow him". They thought to themselves "this man is our protector, he fights for us, he wants the best for us, he loves us, we will follow him so we can be a better people". They felt honor, pride, and integrity following him. That's WHY they followed him. They were good, AND very, very evil. But if they had perceived Hitler to be evil, they wouldn't have followed him. It wasn't until afterwards that many of his people realized what actually happened, and how horrible it really was.

[TheDusty]

Originally Posted by juju33312

Two examples:

Were there good people who chose to follow Hitler and embrace Naziism?

Are there good people who choose to follow Islam and consider Muhammed as a perfect example?
(This assumes that the debater has read the Quran, understands abrogation and has read some or all of the hadiths. This should not be a debate on IF Islam is evil.)

I am defining 'evil ideology' to be one that incites initiation of force against others (rape, murder, mass murder, terrorism, pedophelia, theft, torture.) A good person would be one who is against initiation of force against others, to keep it simple.

Also, 'choosing an ideology' means that the person UNDERSTANDS the ideology. A German who called himself a Nazi but did not know anything about Hitler or Naziism would not be a Nazi. A person that was forced to say they accept Islam under threat of death is not a Muslim. An argument could also be made that a person with no access to any other ideology and so by default falls into that category has not chosen that ideology. This happened in China under Mao.

I don't think it's constructive to look at people as being good or evil. I think that all people are equally capable of acting in evil ways and acting in good ways. So I don't think good people exist, just as evil people don't exist.

Good and evil actions do exist. Taking someone's life is wrong; it's an evil action. Period. I'm not making exceptions. Killing someone in self defense is still wrong because a person has died. It can be a necessarily evil in that situation, but it's not a good action.

The problem I see with labeling people as good and evil is that generally, you're good until you commit an evil that someone personally finds offensive. A single 'evil' action makes a person evil, yet a single good action does not make a person good. We see this in our 'justice' system: a person who commits a crime often get's little sympathy or support when they try and make amends for their past. Because we pass moral judgments. But let's say someone does something bad, doesn't matter what for the sake of argument, once in their teen years. They're punished and from that point on make sure they always do good. And they do; they never hurt anyone ever again. Is that person still evil?

Ultimately, it becomes a sense of 'I'm better than you so I get to make judgments.' It's arrogance in my mind to say that a person is good or bad; action can be good or bad, but I've yet to see a fair and thought out reason to think that people can be just on or the other.

So, in short, yes. People can be good in many aspects of life but still subscribe to a bad ideology.

Yes, there were good Nazis. Yes there are good Muslims. Or should I say, Nazis who did good and Muslims who do good.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by TheDusty

I don't think it's constructive to look at people as being good or evil. I think that all people are equally capable of acting in evil ways and acting in good ways. So I don't think good people exist, just as evil people don't exist.

Good and evil actions do exist. Taking someone's life is wrong; it's an evil action. Period. I'm not making exceptions. Killing someone in self defense is still wrong because a person has died. It can be a necessarily evil in that situation, but it's not a good action.

The problem I see with labeling people as good and evil is that generally, you're good until you commit an evil that someone personally finds offensive. A single 'evil' action makes a person evil, yet a single good action does not make a person good. We see this in our 'justice' system: a person who commits a crime often get's little sympathy or support when they try and make amends for their past. Because we pass moral judgments. But let's say someone does something bad, doesn't matter what for the sake of argument, once in their teen years. They're punished and from that point on make sure they always do good. And they do; they never hurt anyone ever again. Is that person still evil?

Ultimately, it becomes a sense of 'I'm better than you so I get to make judgments.' It's arrogance in my mind to say that a person is good or bad; action can be good or bad, but I've yet to see a fair and thought out reason to think that people can be just on or the other.

So, in short, yes. People can be good in many aspects of life but still subscribe to a bad ideology.

Yes, there were good Nazis. Yes there are good Muslims. Or should I say, Nazis who did good and Muslims who do good.

I understand the sentiment and largely agree to an extent. If a person initiates a series of acts with intent of malice toward others, then they are evil, no matter how much good they may do for others. Pablo Escobar spent millions to build housing for the poor. Yet very few to no C-Ders would tell kids to look to him as a role model for what is right conduct and right thoughts.

As for the last line in your third paragraph, I think a person can stop being evil in that sense if they are truly repentant in their mind. That doesn't absolve them from paying off the remainder of their debt to society, though. The punishment must be kept in order to 1) give the victims and their close ones a sense of justice and closure and 2) as an object lesson to the rest of society, make others think twice before committing the same type of act in the future.

The only sustainable way to defeat Naziism and Radical forms of Islam is to further spread the word on why those strands of thought don't deserve to be taken seriously. Yeah, in the short run more people would be hurt due to a slower discreditation timeline, but in the long run it will send a message that people without intent of malice should not be degraded simply because they hold even grossly erroneous views. Going pit bull on them simply will close their minds to what you have to say, thereby delaying the day in the long run in which those ideas will be completely vanquished. A no-pit-bull approach will also deprive motivation for fence-sitters or other semi-sympathizers from going over to 'the dark side'.

[kevxu]

Originally Posted by juju33312

Two examples:

Were there good people who chose to follow Hitler and embrace Naziism?

Are there good people who choose to follow Islam and consider Muhammed as a perfect example?.....

A major problem is deciding whether someone raised in a political or religious ideology from birth is choosing to follow it. This would have been the situation with some Germans vis a vis Nazism and with the majority of Muslims.

[TheDusty]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

I understand the sentiment and largely agree to an extent. If a person initiates a series of acts with intent of malice toward others, then they are evil, no matter how much good they may do for others. Pablo Escobar spent millions to build housing for the poor. Yet very few to no C-Ders would tell kids to look to him as a role model for what is right conduct and right thoughts.

But few would say that helping the poor is something other than good. This is my point. No one is truly pure evil or pure good. The best person you know has done something to hurt someone in some way. Not necessarily irreparable damage, but they've said something about someone and broke someone's heart or trust. And the worst people you can think of had at least one quality about them that was good.

Originally Posted by Phil75230

As for the last line in your third paragraph, I think a person can stop being evil in that sense if they are truly repentant in their mind. That doesn't absolve them from paying off the remainder of their debt to society, though. The punishment must be kept in order to 1) give the victims and their close ones a sense of justice and closure and 2) as an object lesson to the rest of society, make others think twice before committing the same type of act in the future.

Well, sorry to say, punishment is not about the victims. It can't be. Some victims are far more forgiving than others. Some would call for the slightest of offenses to result in life time incarceration. The term victim tends to be synonymous with the weak and helpless or the good guy, but not always. Some really nasty people have been victims too.

Hitler was the victim of multiple assassination attempts. He was the victim. Should the attempted assassin's have faced punishment the met Hitler's standards? Of course not. Punishment should be prescribed by the law and not be longer than it needs to be, nor shorter than is reasonable. It should work to remove what bad things the person has done from them and focus on their redeeming qualities. This is the rehabilitative part of criminal justice, and it's necessary because without it, we have high recidivism, which is very bad indeed.

Originally Posted by Phil75230

The only sustainable way to defeat Naziism and Radical forms of Islam is to further spread the word on why those strands of thought don't deserve to be taken seriously. Yeah, in the short run more people would be hurt due to a slower discreditation timeline, but in the long run it will send a message that people without intent of malice should not be degraded simply because they hold even grossly erroneous views. Going pit bull on them simply will close their minds to what you have to say, thereby delaying the day in the long run in which those ideas will be completely vanquished. A no-pit-bull approach will also deprive motivation for fence-sitters or other semi-sympathizers from going over to 'the dark side'.

I don't disagree necessarily, but that won't work 100% of the time. ISIS didn't exist five years ago. It was born of aggressive US foreign policy that was supposed to target radical Islam. Our aggression and zero tolerance of radical Islam created a group that I think many would agree is the most radical group we've ever actually seen.

There's a fine line between aggravating them to expand and subduing them. We must be careful in how we treat these things. I tend to think leading by example is better.

Originally Posted by kevxu

A major problem is deciding whether someone raised in a political or religious ideology from birth is choosing to follow it. This would have been the situation with some Germans vis a vis Nazism and with the majority of Muslims.

Indeed, this is especially true with radical Islam, or any religious idea actually. Often, people will talk as if they chose their religion, and while some have, most didn't. Many have done a great job of convincing themselves that they chose it, but if you really start asking them hard questions, the truth is, they don't understand what they believe at all. I'd like to think this is true of more radical ideologies as well, but I think it might not be that simple in those cases.

[danida]

"Can good people choose to hold evil ideologies?"

You can't be good and hold an evil ideology, in my opinion. You're at least somewhat of a bad person, at least a teeny bit.

I consider myself a "good" person but if someone killed my friends or family I'd have no qualms about torturing and killing them. That is evil. Other than that I am a good person, but I am a bit evil due to what I just said I could do. Some people would be fine with mourning and moving on. I would actively hunt down that person who injured my family and make their life a misery.