'Evil' vs. 'Angry'

its useful if you attempting to delegitimize your opponent (or if you consider them to have no legitimacy at all)

Demonisation.

Paint your enemy as 'non human' i.e. 'gooks' etc, you can then get simple souls to go over and kill them w/out remorse.

Paint them as 'angry', and your enemy is something to be feared/avoided.

Only because it's an emotive term, much more so than angry, and, as you mentioned, conveys a sense of religious undertow; it almost posits the 'evil' person as being somehow less than or subhuman, as if they are a devil. This is very useful for getting daft people onside in terms of political manouvres (sic - where has my spelling head gone?). I certainly don't think it's a useful thing to use 'evil' ahead of 'angry' from a moral or humanist/realist point of view; whether Blair consciously uses it as a manipulative term I don't know, it's possible his religious conviction is such that he actually does believe some people are evil.

Triple x-post.

if everyone who commits an act of terrorism is evil, then by extension, there is never a place for negotiation EVER. but no, it would appear that

Arab terrorist = evil, but
Irish terrorist = angry

or

terrorist in some country miles away = evil, but
terrorist living in yr own territory = angry

or possibly

terrorist who is a newbie on the killing spree scene = evil
terrorist whose being killing ppl for years = angry

I'm trying to imagine a world, a very different world, where every time an act of terror was committed, there was an immediate response of something along the lines of "you must be very angry to have done something this drastic....what are your aims? what has made you so angry?"

Now obv., this would never ever happen, not only coz its so far from the political systems of our day or any day, with their self-interest of various kinds including economic. And obviously ppl find demonisation a cathartic thing and there would be the whole issue of lack of respect for the deceased and sympathy for their families and friends. But the question is - would it be a safer or a more dangerous world?

Well, the demonising or red rag to a bull approach sure ain't working. Trying to understand anger and the history behind it is much more likely to guarantee favourable results. If you take it out of a global context and bring it into a more personal realm - if you are reactive, aggressive and inflammatory in your response to provocation, it usually ensures that the conflict continues or will escalate. Trying to understand, diffuse and compromise can lay the groundwork for a more peaceful, quicker route to resolution.

I know it sounds terribly idealistic and naive but being aggressive and retaliating in pretty much the same way you've been attacked, is often seen by those with the grievance as giving legitimacy and validity to their causes (which, of course, may be legitimate and valid to begin with) and their subsequent aggressive campaigns.

So, no, demonising or calling someone evil serves no constructive purpose really.

I think to call people who commit terrible deeds 'angry' seems inadequate. Whereas 'evil' is an unhelpful term for the reasons that have been said, 'angry' is also unhelpful, because:

i) it detracts from the moral culpability of the perpetrator.

ii) it assumes that people are driven to commit terrible acts of violence through anger at an unjust situation. That's sometimes the case, not always. Someone can have a total disregard for human life without being 'angry'. Atrocities like genocide/mass murder have also been organised by megalomaniacs and unthinking bureacrats, who couldn't be adequately described as 'angry'.

I definitely agree that it's constructive to try to understand why people commit terrorist acts/terrrible deeds, but as well as condemning them, not instead.

Cathy OTM: one can be angry without being sociopathic, and the converse is also true.

They are the same word in German: böse.

how do Germans express the idea of "righteous anger" then? I suppose there must be a German equivalent to the English "outrage" to cover this.

Sort of -- in that sort of a situation, you'd probably say "entsetzt", which is a bit closer to "shocked" or "outraged".