Meanwhile, here in Big Bear...

[FirstMeasure]

My hometown of Big Bear is all over the news. I was doing open mic night when the whole thing started last Thursday, now it turns out Dorner was in town the whole time.

 

My Band plays in 7 Oaks, we were just there for a New years Party.

 

http://ktla.com/2013/02/12/cabin-dormer-believed-to-be-holed-up-in-on-fire/#axzz2KkXZ5cg8

here's the story.

[Riffster]

I saw that in the news.

[FirstMeasure]

It's crazy. Sleepy little resort town, now we're on CNN. The cabin that burned was at least 90 years old (that kinda sucks). There's an even older lodge about a mile down the road that has camp sites, cabins, restaurant, and live music on the weekends during the summer. It's owned by very cool people that we haven't been able to get a hold of. A little worried, but I'm pretty sure they got him. We won't know until the morning when they can enter the burnt building.

[kidblast]

wow,, I had been following this one, but the last update I noticed, they still hadn't located him.

 

Small word aint it?

[Murph]

 

My Band plays in 7 Oaks, we were just there for a New years Party.

 

 

Glad you're safe, man.

 

That was a goofy bestard.

[Aster1]

Glad you're safe Measure!!!

 

I was just wondering how things would have turned out of Charlie Sheen, Jessie Jackson, and the other "beautiful & understanding" people would have been there with him. Oh yeah, is Alec Baldwin & Brad Pip, I mean Pitt, still here?

 

All I hear is about Mental Illness. When is someone that's gone bad just labeled "evil" anymore? Were always given a reason where we've all failed them it seems these days. IMHO

 

Aster

[milod]

Aster...

 

Some time ago we even had a thread or two on such stuff - whether or not one would be considered "evil" or not.

 

The "there's no such thing as evil" side tended to suggest that the whole idea of "evil" is a matter of religion.

 

Me, I don't think so, although I think religions and cultures with religious bases have defined "evil" in generally the same way.

 

I've come into contact with some folks who have killed others and not seen them per se as "evil," but I've also come into contact with others who committed murder and aggravated rapes that I would consider "evil."

 

My definition of "evil" is the individual who would physically murder or otherwise harm another with no more consideration than most humans would swat a fly or - worse - would enjoy the infliction of pain on others for no other reason than the enjoyment.

 

Given that most cultures I've known, heard or read about, have put such behaviors on their most heinous crime listings, I've gotta figure most humans have something of a special definition for such behavior. "Evil" is about as easy a term to use as any, whether one is a confirmed atheist, a member of a religious group that doesn't technically recognize a "god," or a theistic individual of almost any sort.

 

I think this guy at least comes close. Were it just the sick "suicide by cop" thing, I'd not be so convinced, even "suicide by cop in a blaze of glory" behavior. This guy murdered innocent people just to make noise for those he felt had wronged him. That's sick.

 

Note also that his main targets were defenseless. That seems to be typical for those with psychiatric problems.

 

Mental illness cannot be an excuse for evil, or even "bad" antisocial behavior. Personally I figure that even drugging those folks and leaving them free is not fair to those who might encounter them when they're not taking those drugs - or to the person himself who is at risk of antisocial behavior without drugs.

 

There's little question in my mind that "we" are doing little to solve difficulties caused by folks who are mentally ill.

 

No, I'm not saying they are necessarily "bad" when the illness takes over, but I'd suggest that those with serious communicable diseases aren't necessarily "bad" either - yet we place them into isolation to protect others...

 

m

[FirstMeasure]

Thanks Murph!

 

Aster, yeah, it's hard to be sympathetic when you live in the town he's hiding and clean the houses he's hiding in. It really hit home when the two people he tied up and stole the car from were there to clean a vacation rental cabin. That's what I do for a living!! I clean and maintain vacation rental properties. In fact I was working in his area just a few days ago.

 

Evil exists, and many times the violence that ensues from it could have been curbed with proper psychiatric diagnoses. Whether Dorner could have been prevented or not is very questionable. He already passed psychological evaluations in the military and the police academy, so I don't think he would ever have been medicated or considered a threat until he went off.

 

It's not like the School Shooting in Taft where the kid came to school with a hit list of fellow students, got suspended for a week, came back and tried to fulfill that hit list. He should have been put in state funded therapy like my generation would have been. If a kid came to school with a hit list to my old Alma Mater, he would have been sent to Patton Hospital's Ward B and not released until psychiatrists felt he was safe. That seemed to work pretty well for us back then. But Dorner wasn't a situation like that at all.

 

I'll leave the "What is evil" argument to the "subjective definition" crowd. Whether or not an action stems from our concept of evil is moot, if a personality does harm it must be imprisoned or killed. That's just civilization trying to stay civilized, not so much Good vs. Evil. IMO

[duluthdan]

Glad to hear on the news that the situation is less tense out there.

[Izzy]

I've worked with mentally ill people before and they are frightening because they act possesed...like they need an exorsism. I can tell they're half there and sort of not in this world.

 

All the same...breaking laws is wrong and I believe mentally ill people need to be put on trial as if they were not ill.

 

Look at it this way; I took care of a lady who took out her own eye witih a spoon. Nohing illegal about that and she got put in the asylum. I can say with certainty that she is nuts. Someonme who takes out someone else's eye...well, you may be mentally ill to the point that you dont know what's what OR you may enjoy doing bad things. Either way, I want that person jailed. I feel sorry for the lady who took out her own eye, but those nuts who hurt others...call me ignorant but, off to jail.

[rocketman]

Wow FirstMeasure that must have been pretty scary. Glad you're ok. Things will return to normal but it'll take time. I've been there with my town but not to your extent.

[stein]

I think there is a difference between 'disallusioned' and 'mentally ill' that we should recognize in this particular case.

 

I read a great deal of his manifesto, and this guy was convinced he was right. He was so focused on his own opinions and the wrongs done to him that he is unable to see his own part in it. Basically, he didn't like what had happened to him, so he invented his own version of right and wrong.

 

He had a lot of hate in him, and he wanted to cause harm. I think that qualifies to most as evil.

 

I remember one passage, telling about getting a spanking at a Christian school as a kid, for getting in a fight. He states, "I am not a Christian....but if you stay true to yourself, and true to what you believe in..." I forget the word, but that was his version of "ethics". Well, what if you are a complete bastard? Staying true to yourself or what you believe in does not make you a good person if you are wrong. You need a measure.

 

Reading along, it does sound like he was wronged, but as the situations add up, a pattern emerges. And I think what's obvious, is when things didn't go his way, he tried to MAKE it go his way. That basically got him fired.

 

I take a couple lessons from this: When things don't go your way, or a wrong is done to you, that doesn't have to mean it's your fault, but it doesn't mean you don't have a part. Getting mad and frustrated blinds you. And it can be pretty easy to fool yourself when you're pissed. I think we are all prone to that.

 

And also, if you choose to treat someone wrongly, they might just choose to treat you wrong back. Neither is right, but how we view the world and others matters. How you choose to judge others will be the way you are judged, full measure, cup flowing over.

[FirstMeasure]

Wow FirstMeasure that must have been pretty scary. Glad you're ok. Things will return to normal but it'll take time. I've been there with my town but not to your extent.

Thanks Rocketman. It was pretty scary, we were loading up our gear after our open mic gig the night they found his burned up truck. Around midnight with nobody around, and our 4x4 truck just sitting there with the doors open while we load. All I could think was, "Now there's a target for ya." lol

[Californiaman]

So I guess he never made it for "Happy Hour."

[milod]

Izzy...

 

My wife of 38 years as of today was LPN in charge of a mental hospital's pre-discharge program for the criminally insane. All males. Most of the time no big deal. On a few occasions... although she's short, I was happy she was/is a feisty farm girl with martial arts training. Never hadda really do anything but... something about the training made that true.

 

m

[FirstMeasure]

So I guess he never made it for "Happy Hour."

Believe me, I was keeping an eye out for him lol.

[Aster1]

We ALL have a lot to be grateful for when "we've been watched over" I always say. I'm seeing more & more times in my lifetime where that's been the case. That time I got held up with a train passing a crossing & was delayed (mad about that) but might have been in the car pileup, or when capsized in a canoe out about a mile in Lake Ontario as a 16 yr old kid, and a small boat just "Happens" to come by & sees us. Things like that happen a lot. I've very grateful for it too and give thanks every day.

 

Glad you (and MANY others) all right out there Measure.

 

On the Bad & Evil part, I know their are people that are ill. What troubles me so much is the "progressive" thinking that's being spread so thick that you're either a "good" person or just "mentally ill." (That's what wads my undies into a bunch.) To me that's hoowie as I have run into many, many "bad" people & evil people that are NOT mentally ill. They are just Bad or Evil. Fortunately for me & others is that I have run into a thousand fold more people that are really "Nice or Good" people. I dwell on that thought mostly until the ugly head rears itself again & is brought into the forefront of my thoughts. I do conduct myself a lot differently when I'm out and about (being very aware of what & who's going on around me than 20-30 yrs ago. Right down to the crappy drivers texting & yapping on their phones or playing video games while I'm in my car or on the bike. Like I was taught so many years ago as a Boy Scout (and then paid that forward for 10 yrs teaching as a Scoutmaster) "BE PREPARED" is a great way of life for about any endeavor.

 

Aster

[zigzag]

Good and evil, THE yin and yang, the ultimate dichotomy. Are these man made concepts or universal truths?... these two spiritual forces that man must personify- in the west, God (the Holy Ghost) and Satan. The stuff of philosophy.

[milod]

Ziggie...

 

I know a lotta today's anti-religion folks don't care for the term "evil," but IMHO it's pretty much a universal human concept.

 

Different religious perspectives in various cultures carry additional qualifiers, but the basics have been generally considered true in both theist and non-theist cultures such as Buddhism and Confucianism.

 

Call them, "sociopaths" if you will, but it's not "insanity" by any legal definition. They know what they're doing and they know it's not only illegal, but also "wrong" by almost any definition of a given culture's measure.

 

These are folks who, regardless of culture, have no empathy whatsoever for other humans. They go beyond their own culture's boundaries in terms of hurting others - and given that some cultures have pretty nasty formulae for what's proper in warfare, personal/family feuds and personal defense, that's saying something.

 

Most of the criminals I've encountered have obviously done bad things, especially the murderers and most involved in assaults of various sorts. But I don't consider them "evil" in the sense that I've seen among a very few. Only three really come to mind, who obviously felt no more for their victims than most of us would feel from stepping on a cockroach.

 

I'll add that drugs appear to have had major involvement in one of the two murders and the really bad kidnap/rape case. That issue wasn't addressed specifically that I recall in the third, a child rape and murder.

 

Whether drugs "caused" the criminal activities or were incidental to folks already nasty beyond what any culture might accept is perhaps up to disagreement. That the actions were so horrid and any feelings of "guilt" only that they were found out, is why I think most cultures would find those individuals to be "evil" by their own definitions.

 

In terms of yin and yang... Consider the concepts as referred to rather well in most translations of Tao Te Ching I've read. Bottom line is going against the Way is going to bring a bad result; good and evil define each other to a large extent if especially "good" is defined as in synch with the Way and evil as an effort against it. Again, that's a very non-theist perspective, but one I think is shared by most cultures.

 

m

[zigzag]

Yes. Yin and yang is such a cool concept, and definitely not Western, however the idea does loosely translate into Western thought. In the Christian religion, the Path (Way) might translate to the following of Christ and the life of the Christian, and deviation from that life would result in, not only an unholy (sinful) existence, but negative consequences in life and in death. The Path- good / deviation from the Path- bad (evil); deviation from the path, a result of the evil influences of Satan. Good cannot exist without evil, both being relative to each other.

 

I find it really interesting that in Western thought going all the way back to the early Greeks (or even much earlier), that concepts and ideals can exist in personifications and deifications- that a murderer might be considered evil personified or possessed by the devil.

[milod]

Technically - without getting into a theological argument - Christianity in general has not had a dualistic "God = good, Anti-God Devil = equal balance as bad."

 

Then again my own background tends to result in argument most folks aren't into - and just plain don't get.

 

But let's put it this way, the generalized "Buddhist" concept of bad karma tends to be pretty much a cross-cultural thing as far as I can tell.

 

Some folks simply can't be tolerated by society long term, sometimes get away with "it" and sometimes don't, depending on what "it" is.

 

I'd say that for most cultures "evil" goes beyond a given act itself and into the rationale of the actor compared to that of cultural norms. E.g., "murder" is "bad" in almost all cultures regardless of the fine points of warfare, feud and personal/tribal/familial defense.

 

But in most of those cultures, one who exceeds cultural norms in performance of murder tends to be seen as "evil." In our own culture, for example, cannibalism or skinning a murder victim, even a wartime enemy, or for the perpetrator to wear the skin, would be pretty "overboard." I'll add that such also would have been the case among the Siouxan or Cheyenne tribes I'm familiar. And the Sioux tended to kill injured, then maim deceased enemies on "religious" grounds which brought criticism from current "mainstream" culture.

 

m

[zigzag]

Yes, m, I catch a glimmer of what you are saying. Values can be different in less "civilized," or "primitive," non-Western cultures. Flashes of The Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now jumped into my head as I read your last post. I'm interested to know if I have totally misunderstood your meaning.

 

St. Thomas Aquinas said that there was no evil per se; that there was only the "privation of good" similar to the concept that good is light and lack of goodness in the darkness. This may actually translate better into the yin-yang concept.

[stein]

I tend to think these definitions of theistic evils being too over-simplified in a sense to be accurate.

 

In the 'biblical' terms, there isn't really a universal "evil" that applies with the same definitions. There is 'good' (God), 'evil'(Satin), and 'evil' (Man) that are refered to as three separate things, and I'm not sure the word 'evil' as translated would be the same as what we use it for, or what the exact word would be in the origonal language.

 

That is to say, and to point out, that an idea that mankind and poeple are basically "good" from many's perspective, and tend to lean toward the good in most cases. And then there is the perspective that only God is good. It's really a perspective, that pure good is God and everything else by default evil, but even as written, that actual perspective is also a different one than 'evil' meaning Satin and 'evil' meaning man vs God. In a technical sense, "neutral" might be a concept that some theist and religions may or may not use, and that might better translate to non-thiest definitions. But, this really would relate to the PERSPECTIVE or the starting point, which in turn, means that the definition or starting point for the actual word might be different. And, depending on how the word is used and the context.

 

Perhaps a description might be "pure evil", which as one might say it, applies to that which is evil at the core, or where there is no good found. And then, I might suggest an essentailly good person, or a 'neutral" person, neither pure good or pure bad, in which an element of "evil" could enter, either in whole or part.

 

One could look at it as no one able to be perfect or not be bad some of the time. But, I have seen some pretty normal poeple, or basically good poeple, do some pretty bad stuff. On the one hand, a matter of opinion, but on the other hand a matter of blindness or nievety regarding where the heart is, and what they THINK they may be doing to another.

 

I think it might be a thing to say, that while we might be able to draw a line that is based on opinion on what is evil, and what we consider ourselves based on where the line is and whether we cross it, it might be arrogent to not think that any man is capable of evil or having evil enter into him in at times.

[milod]

Okay, I'm trying to keep my commentary away from theology and/or "moral theology," and angle instead more along the lines of sociology.

 

I'd say that most cultures's concepts of "good" and "bad" behavior are in general fairly common regardless that another culture might not agree on specifics within those concepts.

 

For example, our generalized culture on this forum would consider killing others in warfare acceptable behavior, but mutilating the body of an enemy as "bad." Among the Lakota in the "olden days," mutilating the body of a dead enemy was acceptable behavior to protect one and one's family/tribe from the enemy in the next life.

 

But "evil" is something I'd put into a class of its own regardless of culture. It tends to be a matter of exceeding "bad" behavior, while the individual exhibiting that behavior doesn't care whether it's perceived as bad or not, simply because it's what he or she feels like doing at the time.

 

An example that likely crosses most cultures might be killing and eating one's neighbors' infant children while knowing and understanding that it is "wrong," and with no mental "excuse" other than that it might be an interesting thing to do.

 

Such behavior tends to go far beyond a given culture's normal perspective of punishment for "bad" behavior - or even its normal definition of "bad" behavior.

 

Yet technically it is not "insane" because the person knows that what he/she is doing is "wrong" and simply doesn't care as long as it doesn't bring punishment.

 

m

[zigzag]

m, I'm definitely seeing a Heart of Darkness mentality in your examples. While there is a certain amount of innocence in the behavioral examples that you site, mutilating the bodies of the slain in war might be a neutral or beneficial behavior in a certain culture, it would surely be seen as horrific in another culture. So there would be a perception of evil in one culture from another.

 

stein, I sort of see where you are coming from, and it does make sense to me. I think that there is a duality in Biblical interpretation between Heaven and Earth on one hand, and God and Man on the other- the devine v. the secular, the spirit v. the flesh. Man was created good, but in exercising free will, we often choose evil. Those who consciously do evil without regret are evil. Those who eat the apple are under the influence of Satan.

 

I don't necessarily buy this stuff, but it does seem to be an integral part of our Western, Christian culture. Read what Thomas Aquinas said:

 

Aquinas, Good and Evil