There has been controversy in America recently over a condition called Aspergers which i think is a slight form of Autism causing lack of empathy in teenage kids. I think i'm going to start another thread because there is a controversial spin on the story that would take away from this thread.

Guevarista wrote:
Well it's not a thread about me, but its obviously easier to state how people 'should' react when basing arguments on fluffy ideals and stuff read in text books, than real-life experience. I don't mean that in a critical way - I'm not attacking you. But we can all be idealistic when we've not really ever been placed in a painful situation as a result of other people's vicious actions.

And why shouldn't I bother countering your arguments? Where does it say I should only partake in a thread if I agree with you?

.......... wrote:
Ooh, are you in America?

I've already had my second wind mikey I think I'm onto my third now...I'm in the mild insomnia danger zone. I didn't get to sleep until about 2:00am, then I woke up at 5:30am to go on my little jog, been awake since.

To get bak on topic in a crummy and lazy way...I'm sure a few of you can empathise with me

I currently seem to have what you call a relaxed brain

irrepressible wrote:
Relaxed can be lucid.

And yes, as a poster, I believe you have received a lot of empathy.

This is a beautiful thing, as I am sure you will agree.

oioioi wrote:
The "real" America?

Gilly wrote:
He's very young and immature and hasn't yet realised that what happens in real life is more important and relevant than what he reads in books....Plus, he's under the false illusion that he is always right.

Gilly wrote: Where did I say how people should react?
What are these argument's of mine you are countering exactly, that good and evil don't exist?

from reading the last few pages it seems that my understanding of empathy is somewhat different. Empathy imho is the ability to 'put yourself in an others shoes' - to relate on some sort of level - not to excuse or justify but to understand. I can relate for example to several horrible people - but that doesnt mean I excuse their behaviour or that I would behave as they have.

I just understand more - which can only be a good thing.

pheony wrote: I had to look in a text book on how best to respond to your post, it suggested this:

Guevarista wrote:
A beautiful song.

thoreau wrote:
Well yes, empathy is understanding where others are coming from - and identifying with their situation so as to be compassionate - as per the dictionary definition. It's the identifying with, and lavishing of compassion towards everyone indiscriminately that I don't agree with. Hence my understanding of some peoples' motivation being to hurt others for fun (where there's no explanation of their having been damaged by being subjected to abuse) and being personally unable to relate to / identify with them, or believe them worthy of compassion.

So where some will claim those people are reacting to external influences (such as thinking sex = power as said earlier) it's portraying them as a victim, and removing at least some of their personal responsibility for their actions (it's society's fault). That's what I don't agree with.

But I agree it's good to 'understand more', because you do need to recognise dangerous enemy, if possible, so that you can hopefully avoid falling prey to them.

i just dont get this thread.

There is a Materialist/Metaphysical split in the forum that has manifested in at least three different threads in the last few days imo, the Gaza one in todays news, this one, and there are hints to it in the Stalin thread, there is a metaphysical interpretation of evil that precludes universal application of empathy, this morality seems to make any acts in retalliation to said evil justifiable as being extreme manifestations of good (Hamas launching missiles into Israel, I was lambasted for stating my view that Hamas are worse than Israel and terrible military strategists), apparently belief in an objective right and wrong, good and bad precludes objectively investigating the subject at hand, the only thing your left with is instinctively reacting to the effects becoming a victim of chance.

It's my view based on a materialist grounding that Good and Evil are human classifications of behaviour completely relative to culture, the individual, specific time and place, and even more irrelevant from an evolutionary basis, considering I think it would be pretty hard to prove there has ever existed a human being that was utterly "good" and not able to commit an act even they themselves considered evil with the right catalyst or internal/external motivations.

I think if you believe in something like evil, a mysterious phenomena that just pops up unannounced out of nowhere, you are always going to potentially be a victim of circumstance, so I investigate causes of circumstance and phenomena, I think empathy is a tool which enables the human being to exist in a methodical and scientific capacity almost as a mental/spiritual distillation chamber, obviously there are some substances that are too toxic to study, i think humans range from Plutonium to Candy Floss and appropriate measures should be taken for each.

Guevarista wrote:
Good post... (The older I get the more i'm starting to think along these same lines...)

I think you're full of it, Gue.

For a kick off, your calling evil, 'a mysterious metaphysical thing that pops up unannounced out of nowhere' is an attempt at ridiculing the concept because you don't believe in it. I say it's the opposite - a part and parcel of some people's physiological make-up to be turned on by certain things (like inflicting pain for no other motivation than they derive pleasure from it ) and is the product of their actions.

I also think you deliberately 'misunderstand' what's being said a lot of the time, to try and push your own views.

As such, I almost set about picking your last post apart sentence by sentence, till I caught myself at it, and realised life's a bit short for focusing on someone who bores you.

You can make grand, verbose speeches about wonderful things like empathy, while there are a great many examples around the forum of you using your extremely un-empathetic jibes to try to belittle people you disagree with. I could link a thread here now (if I could be bothered) where the person you trollishly attacked was a new poster, who's never posted since. So, if you genuinely think it's a good thing, maybe you should start putting it into practise.

Evil, much like darkness, is not the manifestation of anything but rather what we use to describe an absence of something.

Just as the absence of light is described as darkness, evil is the word we use when there is an absence of goodnes.

In this case we are looking at the element of goodness "empathy", but goodness is not limited to that. OTOH i would consider empathy the seed of goodness and the lack of it a cause (but not the only cause) of evil.

The argument that good and evil are purely cultural, and objectively non-existant, does not mean that one cannot consider something or somebody either good or evil, even if one is speaking about something as being temporarily good or evil.

Arguments that wish to dismiss such notions as arbritrary and ephemeral are, in essence, merely attempting to dismiss one of these notion (i.e. goodness) because the other (i.e. evil) is just the lack of it.

I suspect such attempts as a ruse to obfuscate the intersubjective reality of goodness in order to deny the reality of its absence.

In other words cunts always say "there is no good and evil only power/money/law of the jungle etc" are in essence trying to make us overlook their shortcomings.

As for these notion of materialism and "reality", well there are two ways to put that in the bin:

1) Modern physics no longer goes along with such notions.
2) Treat that person unfairly and watch how quickly they appeal to these notions in order to protest. Their ammorailty evaporites before you can say "that's not fair" or "you wouldn't like it"

batou wrote: I would say i wish i hadnt started this thread bit there have been some interesting thoughts put forward. So, despite the twists, turns and clashes of opinion, i'm still glad i started it

Mikey, QM hasn't disproved material reality it has broadened and deepened our study of material reality, forced us to re-assess our assumptions, (a practice seemingly never undertaken by the religious) but I haven't seen anything to suggest quarks or subatomic particles are somehow independent of matter, the fact their study appears to be influenced by our investigation, observer effecting observed, would signify to me their material basis

Good argument, so people who don't believe in good and evil are evil/manipulative/deceitful, i must be trying to hide or cover something up?

Gilly, If you think my "jibes" are some form of personal attack against people i'd encourage you to become emotionally disconnected from your beliefs, I can't help it if people don't want to hear opposing views or can't deal with contradiction and run away, I'll give you and them the truth as i see it.

It's interesting you think my attitude towards people can be harsh, despite being based on empathy, if somebody believes smoking is good for them do you just say yes it is, or do you tell them the truth?
The same is true imo of superstitious, new age, metaphysical beliefs, or gnostic theories about Archons, they are ultimately no use to you or anyone who is against the status quo.

Guevarista wrote:
And please, never change that.

Sometimes though, it's not what you say but how you say it that matters.