What I have learned in my own life this year is that people who believe utterly evil things are more often than not completely normal. It is interesting that this evil; that surrounds and permeates us, seems to be rarely explored in popular fiction. We just have Evil: The Guy. - ThreadSky

alexriesart.bsky.social • 3 days ago

What I have learned in my own life this year is that people who believe utterly evil things are more often than not completely normal.

It is interesting that this evil; that surrounds and permeates us, seems to be rarely explored in popular fiction.

We just have Evil: The Guy.

Comments

wizardbiscuits.bsky.social•3 days ago

I’d say Pratchett explores it a lot in his later Discworld books, particularly anything set in Ankh-Morpork. He’s not shy about highlighting how perfectly normal people can hold the most reprehensible views as a result of the society they’re in.

lunch-meat.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think the best versions of this in fiction are the ones that make you forget the person is evil or even confuse people and get them to argue on their behalf.

Think Walter White, dfens from "falling down," or even most of the characters from "the Godfather."

cortharis.bsky.social•3 days ago

In reality, the Milgram experiments still seem to be holding true after decades, and the film Brazil has an interesting society happening.

tsevelev.bsky.social•3 days ago

Not really, no. Those experiments were debunked.
Which doesn't change the fact that people are really horrible right now.

preda.bsky.social•3 days ago

human stupidity is such that most people do not contemplate the conclusions of their beliefs with any depths. So it's very easy to have random assholes in your life believe absolutely ghoulish things

This genus should never have accumulated so much brain matter

nyer.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think you're largely on the mark here. The only exception I could come up with is "the purge" stories, where normal people commit atrocities under the right circumstances. That it's justified as a "necessary evil" in-world seems to insulate us from seeing Purge behavior in real life tho

nyer.bsky.social•3 days ago

Instead of Evil: The Guy, it's Evil: The Society, which obviously bears no resemblance to our readers' own moral and compassionate culture.

terribletowelie.bsky.social•3 days ago

it's too real to make into fiction

john-schroeder.bsky.social•3 days ago

Really brings home the banality of evil.

raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social•3 days ago

If I remember right, Tolkien believed that evil is less potent when it actually condenses into a physical form (even when that physical form is mighty like Morgoth or Sauron). And I quite agree with this idea.

raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social•3 days ago

From a historical point of view, the fact that invading, sometime anti-human regimes are supported to some extent by common people also leads to a lot of the 'blurred boundaries' in films/literary works describing wars.

raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social•3 days ago

I've also seen this rhetoric being used to lessen the justifiability of the invaded(who inevitably kill invaders when defending their own home), something that I deeply abhor.

saedraverse.bsky.social•3 days ago

"Sigh" my fucking family with Ukraine, Zelensky doesn't want to end the war. HE WANTS THE RUSSIANS TO GET THE FUCK OUT!, not surrender territory to them!

tsevelev.bsky.social•3 days ago

If he didn't want to surrender territory, he fucking shouldn't have ordered Ukrainian troops to retreat from fortified positions in 2019, shouldn't have defunded the army in 2021. He only thinks about himself.
But Ukraine elected him, so we only have ourselves to blame, I guess.

alexriesart.bsky.social•3 days ago

Russia could just leave.

teawhilewriting.bsky.social•3 days ago

Stephen King’s novels tend to have this theme, like when he wrote about a harmless elderly couple who are secretly cannibals. But totally agree this is under-explored

rainbowjam.bsky.social•3 days ago

Hannah Arendt (Jewish German-USAian philosopher) called that the "banality of evil" after observing the banal normality of men who committed the most horrific atrocities in concentration camps in their trials after ww2.

porecomesis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Writing advice for the last several decades has admonished purely evil characters and insisted that the best types of villains are the ones who have sympathetic qualities or good reasons for their evil. I have now since come to believe that this is hogwash meant to disarm us against real evils.

alexriesart.bsky.social•3 days ago

So you observed the exact opposite of what I did?

islan-kleinknecht.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think "sympathetic reasons for their evil" is not the same as "just lowkey normal evil"

alexriesart.bsky.social•3 days ago

Exactly.

porecomesis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Sorry, I think I might have been a bit tired.

alexriesart.bsky.social•3 days ago

You are allowed to disagree with me ;)

drjt4real.bsky.social•3 days ago

He’s on the far end of the psychopathy spectrum. Not the good end. #psychsky

juliaringma.bsky.social•3 days ago

Some thoughtful replies here. Maybe we should ask what we mean by evil. In human societies, good can mean just caring about other people, so evil may mean just not caring about other people.

krellomat.bsky.social•3 days ago

The problem with evilness is that it’s a matter of perspective.

egosiccogito.bsky.social•3 days ago

Objectively humans are a social species. If evil is defined as anti-social behaviour then it is objective.

krellomat.bsky.social•3 days ago

Well Mr. Latin-name-to-make-you-sound-smart. That’s not a good definition of evil. And even if it were … social (or not) behavior isn’t easily defined either.

egosiccogito.bsky.social•3 days ago

Whatever may be a good definition, evil is not just a matter of perspective. But I’m sure there are people who have thought deeply about what is outside of the margins of social.

krellomat.bsky.social•3 days ago

We could ask ChatGPT…

But I insist. It IS a matter of perspective. I’m pretty sure Eva Braun did not consider Hitler evil, though most of us would disagree. QED.

0self.bsky.social•3 days ago

Some people are sadistic and enjoy causing harm, and some folks who aren’t built that way can be manipulated to think they aren’t causing harm or that it’s justified.

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