Interesting quote on Evil.

Posted by Tim Habersack on January 30th, 2008 filed in editorial

“The simple fact is that non-violent means do not work against Evil. Gandhi’s non-violent resistance against the British occupiers had some effect because Britain was wrong, but not Evil. The same is true of the success of non-violent civil rights resistance against de jure racism. Most people, including those in power, knew that what was being done was wrong. But Evil is an entirely different beast. Gandhi would have gone to the ovens had he attempted non-violent resistance against the Nazis. When one encounters Evil, the only solution is violence, actual or threatened. That’s all Evil understands.”

– Robert Bruce Thompson
(HT: Overcoming Bias)

I thought this was interesting. At first glance, I agreed with it. However, the big danger I see to viewing violence as the only solution to Evil, is it simplifies complex situations into a simple formula. If a thing or person is Evil, actual or threatened violence is the solution, and that is that. The thinking stops once you put it in that context. Also, this makes it an Us vs. Them mentality, and the ‘Them’ in question will only respond to violence. I could see ‘Us’ forgiving some heinous actions towards ‘Them’, since they ARE Evil, and we ALL know they only respond to violence.

I could see that operating off of this philosophy might eventually just reduce to a “Are they/it evil? If so, violence.” thought process, and once we catalogue something/someone as Evil, there is no other option but violence.

It seems too simple a thesis to operate from for such a big concept as Evil.

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Interesting quote on Evil.

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