Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sbcs!murray From: murray@sbcs.UUCP (Murray Gordon) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: re: What evil is Message-ID: <400@sbcs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Jun-83 04:46:18 EDT Article-I.D.: sbcs.400 Posted: Wed Jun 22 04:46:18 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Jun-83 04:11:28 EDT References: security.332 Lines: 50 Well, according to Plato, and, I would think, the great Spinoxaza (who lived life impeccably, giving up most of his material wealth bequeathed to him to a greedy relative after he had shown his legal right to this inheritance, and once risking his life to defenfd religious dissenters) - evil arisdes out of ignorance. I have been intersested, perplexed and angered for many years by people (first observed in South Africa) who claim they are n"not interested in politics", that is, it suits them to remain ignorant of much that goes on so they can continue to fool themselves that they are not directly or indirectly responsible for the human suffering created by the system inthese (white) people benifit from (materially). Subsequently, I found that it wasn't only this particular group of people who did this -. it occurs in various forms in all the countries I have lived in, thiugh inough in different forms. (Do you know what's happening in El Salvador, for example? Do you know what goes down in South Africa? Many people I have met here don't.) Perheps, if we consider Freud's central concept for psychic defence mechanisms - repression - we can learn someting of this poblem, or, perhaps be further mystified: Repression, simply put, is the act of forgetting, anfd forgetting that one has forgotten - which takes a lot of effort - try ignoring someone, then ignoring the fact that you are doing this. So, given that we generally don't hold people responsible for acts done out of ignorance (like children, animals and fools), the question remains of how to ascertain a person's intentions, and to what extent can we hold him/her responsible for acts done on the basis of some 'unconscious' drive. What seems to me clear concerning this, is that persons who hold themselves up as adspiritual and/or moral advisors to others (doctors, priests, psychotherapists, politicians....) have a greater responsibility to follow the Socratic path of doubt in the seeking greater knowledge and self-awareness - which Socrates tells us we can travel through taking doubting as our ally rather thanout our foe. So, we are left with a further question: In what way can we discern whether someone is genuinely concerned with seeking Truth, and with the ways of ascertaining the appropriate ways of going about this quest. It seems to me that this was a central concern for Plato, especially in The Republic. Spinoza seems to pre-figure Freud in being the foirst western philosopher to advocate getting to know oneself (how one is passively driven by the passions, which he defines in detail) hthrough becoming more aware of ones (passiveon-ate) drives. LI would like to know whetehr anyone knows the etymology of the word 'evil'? Murray - USSUNY at Stony Brook.