Judeo- the Christian form of martial arts,
has brought into the language these concepts. Psychology, a wannabe-science - but at least one based on observation - has another kind of model. And most any shrink or other observer of our-type animals will say: No One.. ever believes self to be evil!
'Evil' is a religio-word as are demons, incubii, succubi etc. [Nasty Words whose superstitious overtones led to lots of tortured children and older, in Salem and elsewhere] Just as Old Nick, Satan, Beelzebub.. stories of fallen angels yada yada have mesmerized folks. Just as 'things which go bump in the night' generated those images from the state of our fear of the unknown. We come equipped with a vivid imagination.
You imagine there's anything New today re the above processes? Transistors can make the internal fearfulness of the I Don't Know's just.. go away silently?
A Hitler will tell you that the 'steps' he took were for the (cosmically) Correct placement of \ufffdbermensch into ruling positions over lower; lesser beings. These Supermen, aided by eugenics (phrenology and other imaginined 'science' too) - would be an Improved Species\ufffd. As you are doubtless aware, ensconced in Castle W___ (too lazy to look it up) were *His* versions of the baggage of a couple millennia of Demonologies, only his choice was to enshrine Erda and other Teutonic fantasies instead of Christian ones. Difference? Only in the attributes and names: in every case inventions of human minds. QED
Evil? depends upon the scale of "doing Good" one looks at.. in this "world of dualisms" and the umm collateral damage on that Great Undertaking. Evil.. to seek progress? Which entity shall judge?
(We see that "collateral damage" is alive and well as YAN throwaway-line in 2002. Hmmm.)
Mad then? That returns us to the pseudo-science of determining basic functional error in the mind/brain - a machinelike synergy only occasionally visited by that (too readily attributed): Original Thought. (We have to try for some model like this - but we need not imagine that the model is more than a crude approximation of our physical and metaphysical 'being'.)
Sorry but.. my view is that our sordid history of fright-derived 'entities' and concepts like 'Evil' - which we associate with the behaviour of some of these phantasms: has done and always shall lead to endless succession of warring 'herders of different-named fantasies'.
No change in sight, until we are done with the toys of childhood and recognize that WE must construct societies whose laws and mores tend to promote "good behaviour" towards sentient animals and respect.. for the others. Ditto laws and mores which provide deterrence and finally punishment or incarceration for "bad behaviour". (Killing off the defectives - merely devalues the above societal intent to foster respect. It's hypocritical and it doesn't deter 'badness', we have noticed. States killing people is .. rilly a stupid way of teaching 'goodness')
We don't need a Demonology to accomplish this - we merely need to grow up. And along the way: lose the freight (and the fright) of our primitive period.
Ashton
not holding breath
PS - Manson? I don't care what you want to call him or attribute his behaviour to: keep a wall between him and the rest of the zoo. It's the best we can do, ignorant as we are. He's where he belongs. We got that one right. It happens.
