What makes a horrible person? Doing horrible things or believing horrible things?

Lotta jerkwads in the news lately. I thought about how we classify people and wonder where does the threshhold lie.

What does it take be a terrible human being? Actually doing horrible shit or saying horrible things? Or just believing horrible things?

actions are everything imho

Yeah, you have to give credit to people who don't act on their worst impulses.

Mostly it's doing horrible things. But believing horrible things matters too. Or, it's not just believing bad horrible things, it's propagating horrible beliefs and cultivating/investing psychically in horribleness, and then pulling a 'well, at least I didn't do anything' that also contributes to being horribleness.

IOW there are very very few 'pure' thoughts.

believing is doing

Yeah, the propagation of horrible mindsets/psychoses is part of it.

Forwarding bullshit racist emails probably covers the gamut, right?

it's not just believing bad horrible things, it's propagating horrible beliefs and cultivating/investing psychically in horribleness, and then pulling a 'well, at least I didn't do anything' that also contributes to being horribleness.

remy otm. The propagation of dehumanizing beliefs seems to be the thing that informs so many awful actions. Belief and action seem pretty inexorably intertwined.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/erik_prince.jpg

Belief and action are inseparable. Toxic beliefs, however well they may be disguised or controlled, almost certainly find some form of expression, eventually.

But i think that the question posed in this thread sidesteps a much more complex and interesting problem treating the barrier between cognition and action as one of "belief" vs behavior. Our beliefs are the thoughts in which we have invested, emotionally and intellectually. They are the ideas with which we have chosen to ally ourselves, the principles around which we willingly organize our thinking. Belief is therefore, in a sense, the "action of thought".

But our cognition is loaded with feelings, impulses and ideas that are not beliefs, passing phantoms in which we do not invest ourselves, but that nonetheless define us. Emotions and desires, for instance. Fears, and affinities, the quirks of taste. "Stray thoughts" of a thousand thousand sorts. Some of these can be "horrible", as horrible as any belief, but because we do not construct these things by choosing to invest in them, because they seem simply to "happen to us", it's hard for me to apply to them the same moral judgment that i do to beliefs.

To have horrible thoughts is no sin at all. To have horrible beliefs may be a sin of a sort. But to do horrible things is the worst sin of all.

uh, make that "...sidesteps a much more complex and interesting problem by treating the barrier between cognition and action as one of "belief" vs behavior."

Belief and action seem pretty inexorably intertwined.

Yeah, and my question is, at what point do we shunt you into the box of horrible people? We're wired to think in categories, accurate or not, and I'm wondering where on the track do you throw the switch?

Reminds me of the response to otherwise ostensibly left-leaning people repping for Ron Paul. When 90%+ of his stated views match up with Pat Buchanan's an David Duke's, as guys like Tim Wise have said, how evil of a fucker does he have to be to finally got people to not support him?

Doing horrible things is easily far worse than believing horrible things. If you include speaking horrible things as a sub-category of "doing" rather than of "believing", then it is a complete no-brainer. The only sore point is that much of doing is based on believing, so there is no simple way to keep these two apart.

Yeah, and my question is, at what point do we shunt you into the box of horrible people?

When you consistently, repeatedly behave like one and it becomes clear to others that this is how you really are/choose to behave, imo.

In terms of politics, what you're really asking is, Why don't other people see evil the candidates that I see? Which is different and harder, isn't it?

i feel pretty confident asserting that it's largely attributable to ignorance and its subset close-mindedness

so belief comes first

e.g., i firmly believe you are all horrible people

and now i am flagging yr posts w/extreme prejudice while i listen to the war on drugs and smoke non-existent grass

i feel pretty confident asserting that it's largely attributable to ignorance and its subset close-mindedness

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

don't believe everything you read

nah but seriously we are shaped by our stewardship of the container in which we process facts. so close-mindedness is a huge reinforcing part of the mechanism that presses ignorance forth. so smugness has a place in the same bed i suspect

that slutty socialistic bed. its ruffles are tainted with stalin's precepts. it outrages me to be frank

I actually think that article supports the "close-mindedness" assertion, but just suggests that being closed minded is about more than just willful refusal to accept facts. Or maybe it's not. Maybe admitting when we're wrong even in the face of evidence is just too difficult, no matter how horrible we are for our refusal to do so.

That might be what you just said, though.

WHATEVER DUDE

like i have time for your facts

I think absolute resistance to repentance is a pretty decent signpost of horrible personhood. I think almost anyone is capable of redemption in the wake of the perpetuation of awful beliefs or the commission of awful acts. A lack of interest in trying to be a better person kinda makes you a shitty person by default.

The article goes a long way to reinforcing what guys like George Lakoff have been saying for over a decade; that the idea of just giving the people "the facts" will automatically bring them around to your position because we all have the exact same process of reasoning is disproven year after year.

Also that clinging to that idea has dramatically weakened progressive politics and communication for decades. Folks don't always oppose you out of ignorance, in other words. Persuasive language and messaging is actually required.

nah but seriously we are shaped by our stewardship of the container in which we process facts. so close-mindedness is a huge reinforcing part of the mechanism that presses ignorance forth. so smugness has a place in the same bed i suspect

yeah, this. if there's any question, suggestion or line of inquiry that you reject on the face of it, then you're probably too attached to your beliefs to be swayed by mere information.

actually i've been thinking a reasonable deal lately about how the pleasure principle is neglected in contemporary life. which is to say that when i was a hyperactive h.s. student my peers were conceivably onto something when they advised that i just needed to "get laid". like all the people who are agitating against gay marriage or women's reproductive rights i kinda suspect would change their tune in an instant if they felt some genuine bliss for a few hours. if your life is based around some shitty job and listening to angry men on talk radio and shopping at Sam's Club then i guess it follows that your worldview would be correspondingly pinched and claustrophobically fear and rage-based

so get high and listen to string cheese incident

or take research chemicals and listen to washed out

basically i recommend sex drugs and rocknroll, but not necessarily in that order

reverse order works pretty good, iirc

if there's any question, suggestion or line of inquiry that you reject on the face of it

The older you get, the more of these roads you have travelled down, and the less inclined you are to go down them one more time to see if there have been any changes since your last visit. This is part of getting crotchety, but it is very difficult to avoid.

xp

calendarically-speaking i can't relate. i might wash "my junk" on st. patty's day tho. that's kind of a tradition, right?

if your life is based around some shitty job and listening to angry men on talk radio and shopping at Sam's Club then i guess it follows that your worldview would be correspondingly pinched and claustrophobically fear and rage-based

Seriously??? Don't let these people off the fucking hook because their lives aren't totally awesome. Love and a steady income and house and a car and a senatorial seat don't make them happy or bring them "bliss"--what makes them happy is seeing other people brought down, and having a hand in it if possible.

The authoritarian character has not reached maturity; he can neither love nor make use of reason. As a result, he is extremely alone which means that he is gripped by a deeply rooted fear. He needs to feel a bond, which requires neither love nor reason — and he finds it in the symbiotic relationship, in feeling-one with others; not by reserving his own identity, but rather by fusing, by destroying his own identity. The authoritarian character needs another person to fuse with because he cannot endure his own aloneness and fear.

--Fromm, The Authoritarian Personality

That reminds me of the barely digested bits of Sartre's _Antisemite & Jew_ I can recollect. Something about the person is so empty and devoid of identity & self that they need the other to define themselves as being against.

yeah, adorno et al otm

Yeah Laurel, that's a good point. If you figure in sociopathic personality-types then I guess it's a whole 'nother ballgame. My own brand of blissful ignorance is in part based on figuring blanket-wise that "horrible" people's horribleness is mendable. But granted I am naive. People can be truly shitty in ways that are positively confounding.

They're not sociopaths, they're just people who tend to take positions that are really bad for society, ie everyone who isn't them. They're not so great for THEM, either, but you should probably be allowed to ruin your own life if you really want to.

at least people of that bent don't aspire to public office

lolsob

Tho some of them that do run for public office(or control/funds those who do) are quite sociopathic

only doing

yeah as long as we include some speech acts as "doing"

only doing

― local eire man (darraghmac), Saturday, January 31, 2015 3:09 PM (2 minutes ago)

otm. agree 100%. also saying, thinking and/or dreaming.

some speech acts yeah, tho it took a lot of persuasion on the hoos hotel/nude Abe Lincoln thread before I'd allow that

but this thread was waaaay out of balance imo

Yeah, horrible actions are necessary to be a horrible person, though horrible beliefs are enough to make you a crappy (not as bad as horrible) person.

what am i believing *right now*

dammit NV get back in here

horrible actions = horrible person
horrible words = case by case
horrible thoughts = human being

My mum spent a long time wanting to leave my dad and go to the southwest of England where she is originally from, and craved being by the sea, but somehow conflated these two things,the seaside and where she was from, and looked at a lot of places that were 5-10 miles from the coast, partly because cheaper. It took a lot of unpicking to emotionally realize that these were two different and unrelated things, that 'almost' intertwined, and that the 'going back to where she was from' part, was actually completely irrelevant, she just wanted to be by the sea. Yet she was looking at places 'near-ish the sea' in that area, instead of places actually on the seafront in a cheaper unrelated area.

What we think we think, it gets obscured, muddled, it wasnt easy for her to separate out these two things because they'd sort of become one thing

no such thing as inciting violence obvs, short maybe of a highly structured and undeniable formalised and provable chain of yr word to another's action, say general to underling, maybe particularly overbearing parent to offspring, otherwise nah your actions are not the actions of another

so let's say satanic child-sacrificer dude was chatting w/ you at the bar and talking about how like sacrificing children is a virtuous ideal and he thinks ppl who do it are heroes and if he wasn't too cowardly himself he'd surely get in on the action, etc. would you be wrong to think "oh wow this is a horrible person"? ie: would it be wrong to use his language as a judgement on his horribleness? or would you say that the language is just a heuristic for real horrible actions and that's why you judge him negatively, but it's not the language itself that makes him horrible?

I'm fairly convinced that most people think tons of horrible things all the time. The fact that this horribleness doesn't (fully) manifest all of the time gives me a ton of faith in the basic tenets of civilization and in most people's willingness to suppress (most of) their horribleness for the common good, tbrr.

In practice we judge much more on instinct and feelings i think? Do we separate out actions and words so categorically? I dont think Im so able to do that. I probably judge more on words than I should because I often feel like people talk at me, and involve me in conversations that I don't want to be in, I get very drained by conversations. I never get taxis and this is one of the reasons why, I am judging yes I know, but it has a negative effect on my wellbeing, I'm not good with conversations that feel like broadcasts.

I'd be terrible in a debate..

just saw this quote from Jodi Dean and it seems fitting

In disciplinary society, normative expectations coalesced around determinate social roles. Presuming the gaze of the school, church, family, or state, one could imagine oneself in different positions, positions that would either comply with or transgress institutional norms. I can be a conscientious student, faithful believer, dutiful daughter, good citizen. And, I can also be a delinquent, back-sliding, worthless, traitor. Even as the images differ, the symbolic identity of the gaze remains the same. In the wake of the decline of symbolic efficiency, the dissolution of disciplinary society, this gaze loses its prior force. We aren’t sure if it’s operative, if others believe it: is the good student a cog, uncreative, thinking inside the box, a goody-two-shoes? Does the Other actually admire and applaud transgression, and if so is it then more transgressive not to be transgressive since that’s what the Other wants? Encountering the endless possibilities of contemporary reflexivity, post-disciplinary subjects are propelled to move through a variety of imaginary identities. We imagine ourselves one way, then another, never sure of how we appear because we don’t know before whom we appear.

irrespective of whether i believe "incitement" in darragh's sense is a real, culpable thing - i do, as it happens - to deny its existence erodes one of the foundational ideas of modern democracies - which is that people can sway one another's opinions and actions thru speech. not saying it's impossible to deny incitement but uphold democracy as an ideal, just saying that most democracies are compelled to acknowledge speech as an agent of influencing action

Speech is very powerful in my view, but tracing its role in behaviour isnt straightforward or provable, it isnt that somebody says something one day and another person acts on it tomorrow, thats the wrong way of looking at it for me, its about the long game. Peoples behaviour and thinking is always changed by speech, even if incrementally and inconsistently. You dont own newspapers or pay for advertizing if you dont believe this to be the case. the changes are gradual and cumulative. If its hard to trace them, do they exist...its not provable, but its worth the time and money for those that do

Speech being powerful has long been recognized. See for example Proverbs 18:21

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

if someone doesn't believe that believing terrible things makes you a terrible person, is that someone also a terrible person?

I think it's obvious that some speech is hateful/harmful but the question of where we "draw the line" between acceptable positions we merely disagree with and those that seem in some sense "illegitimate" for decent ppl to hold is a trickier issue

XP I tip my cap in that case

― local eire man (darraghmac),

Ah, but if only the realizations weren't always belated:/

xp to treeship

for good or ill, this is what the current 'culture wars' are about -- achieving a sense of the community about what is within or beyond the pale.

the question of where we "draw the line" between acceptable positions we merely disagree with and those that seem in some sense "illegitimate" for decent ppl to hold is a trickier issue

also i think probably much more likely to draw passionate debate than deem's free belief radicalism

conty here answer the q the q is not what things the q is at what stage and if yr answer is anywhere during belief or thought then u notm obv

― local eire man (darraghmac), Monday, February 2, 2015 9:40 AM (3 hours ago)

qqq_ppp

I've spent quite a bit of time over my years on ILX wrestling with this question. Before the break in this thread, there's a characteristically long and earnest contenderizer post about the difference between judging the beliefs in which we choose to invest and the transient thoughts that cross our minds unbidden. In either case, it's true that we have no access to such things as they might exist in others except as they are expressed in action (including speech acts). If they never find any form of expression, then I suppose they can do no harm. That rather abstract argument, of course, invites a hair-splitting and fundamentally irresolvable debate about the extent to which our thoughts, beliefs, words and actions are inextricably interconnected. Rather than wallow in that mire, I'll say that it seems appropriate to evaluate - to judge - the thoughts and beliefs of others as they are expressed.

I say this not necessarily because I believe that some ideas are categorically abhorrent (though I do), but simply because I recognize that the expressed ideas of one can be at odds with those of of another. A concentration camp survivor and a Holocaust denier will likely find little common ground when comparing their thoughts on the Holocaust, and I'd hardly expect the former to refrain from unambiguously condemning the beliefs of the latter. I personally revile the belief that men are intrinsically superior to and should therefore hold complete dominion over women. This is a profoundly dangerous and deeply toxic notion, IMO, one that we must collectively abandon as soon as possible. In opposing it, I'm not sure what might be gained by carefully avoiding condemnation of the underlying belief to concentrate exclusively on its specific expression. Nor do I feel it's necessary to lard every my objection with reassuring caveats about the right of others to hold differing views.

I'm perfectly comfortable calling certain beliefs "unacceptable". Such beliefs might be held by otherwise perfectly decent people, but no amount of compensatory civic virtue can make a committed racist's racism seem an acceptable thing in itself. That said, there's a big difference between what I find personally acceptable and what I think should be legally tolerated in a free society. We must defend the right to express even the most hideous beliefs. Generally agreeable speech, after all, needs no protection. In response to the original thread question, I'm with Christians and proponents of correctional rehabilitation in believing that even our worst transgressions do not necessarily consign us to the pits of eternal horribleness, so long as we're willing to change our ways and make amends. I'm with them, too, in thinking that we should judge sins and not sinners. When we call a racist's beliefs "unacceptable", we're not (I hope) passing comprehensive and final judgement on their fundamental human worth. We're simply taking sides in a struggle between conflicting ideas.

Mordy says your beliefs map "onto radical free speech ethics", darragh, and you went him one further in denying that incitement to violence even exists, absent something like a formal chain of command. I assume you're speaking of legal incitement and, on that level, I agree that responsibility for criminal action must lie primarily in the hands of the criminal actor - much less so in the mouths of those who may have suggested or even encouraged a criminal course of action. Nevertheless, I'm conflicted about the sorts of speech we often call "bullying". The power of groups to intimidate and oppress individuals by means of concentrated, sustained and virulently hostile speech acts is something we're only beginning to address in Western societies. Simple free speech absolutism doesn't seem a satisfactory response to me, especially not where such bullying involves exhortations to violence coupled with the public dissemination of private information.

d made me do it

ty thats a good post

I assume you're speaking of legal incitement

nope! no such thing as society neither

That rather abstract argument, of course, invites a hair-splitting and fundamentally irresolvable debate about the extent to which our thoughts, beliefs, words and actions are inextricably interconnected

this is a hinge, not the only one, but certainly a big one for the purposes. I'd contend, contendz, that the melange of mechanics momentum mentality and muddle taking place inside most heads is a lot more interesting and nonlinear than the assembly-line kit supposed itt, for starters

I can think, believe, state and act on at least four different principles at any one time and depending on mood I'd be no wiser even myself as to the combination or opposition of same inputs that would be held as the truth of it as I saw it, the simplest fool in any small town is a hive of contradiction defying prediction or the style of classification favoured by boxtick that the notion of forbidden thought doctrine would seem to encroach upon imo

i literally just read the "ass on that one" thread again

also anvil come back also:

You dont own newspapers or pay for advertizing if you dont believe this to be the case.

it is correct to say I do neither of these things

XP thats one cf I missed do u recommend it?

I read ilx heaven:Luna:twittergate trilogy lately and there's no doubt whatsoever that peter Jackson could make another billion easily miscasting it

i highly recommend reading that and abandoning this one

pfft as if there were different grades of ilx boredom, hark

the simplest fool in any small town is a hive of contradiction defying prediction or the style of classification favoured by boxtick that the notion of forbidden thought doctrine would seem to encroach upon imo

― local eire man (darraghmac), Monday, February 2, 2015 3:42 PM (16 minutes ago)

yeah, but the "forbidden thought" doctrine is fundamentally political, right? thus necessarily reductive, by which i mean reductive as dictated by pragmatic and perhaps cynical ends. we isolate, summarize and boldface the forbidden thought in order to oppose it, to reduce its sway in the world and disempower those associated with it. this seems appropriate, if also dangerous. there's inevitable tension in political discourse between such combat-ready (over)simplifications and more nuanced analyses.

ass thread is good though yeah. it's where i complain most bitterly about ye thought police. plus lols.

re: incitement

i'm imagining a group of boys wasting time on a summer afternoon, unsupervised. i'm with them, and we're all around 10-12 years old. we find a wounded animal, say a kitten or bird or squirrel. one of us says, "let's kill it." hypothetically, some of us do, squish it with a rock or something. in my self-flattering imaginary construction, i refrain, am horrified, but nor do i say or do anything to prevent this. after the fact, i feel guilty, wretched in my complicity. most of all, i blame those who did the killing, but whether or not he participated in that, i feel that the boy who suggested the idea bears some special responsibility. i'm not sure why i'd want to isolate incitement from moral (not necessarily legal) culpability for results.

it is correct to say I do neither of these things

― local eire man (darraghmac),

I do neither of these things either!, but are you saying here that you don't believe advertizing influences people?

feel like darragh is arguing for a total absence of culpability in the case of actions as well as thoughts, since he's arguing for a humanity disconnected from its own thoughts and as seemingly unreflective as the beasts of the field, not that this is an untenable position tbh

again tho, most legal systems dealing with what are considered the most serious crimes are quite picky about the idea of some kind of intent

now now

spanish inquisition = one of those awesome moments of catholic antiracism

― Mordy, Monday, February 2, 2015 9:18 AM (Yesterday)

this was nice btw

I do neither of these things either!, but are you saying here that you don't believe advertizing influences people?

ya

o c'mon, no you don't. that's a position you're taking out of fealty to some larger principle, right?

Well, kind of hard to talk about the Catholic Church that way if you didn't attend twelve years of Catholic school etc. BTW, what other Christian churches were around at the time of the Inquisition?

I learned from my pastor and at Catholic school that racism was a sin, there is NO one authority on this save what the pope says. But do go on with the anti-Catholic illogical hate.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20010829_comunicato-razzismo_en.html

Anyway, to get back to the topic - "horrible" = immoral (or sinful) if anything. Which has nothing to do with free speech laws.

both sides of my family are (very) catholic. my dad's parents were pretty racist but my mom's parent's were fiercely anti-racist, and definitely saw anti-racism as a pillar of their faith.

not to defend the Church as an international organization because the list of ways they are objectionable is too long to even get into but i've never thought of racism as something to associate with catholics more so than any other faith group

RMDE at another 70 posts or so giving credence to this idiotic false binary.

Okay, well this is a huge conflict among my friends. We all went to Catholic high school together. My conflict with them is : how can you come to a party and say prejudiced things then turn around and imply that Democrats are sinful and immoral, that you should vote Republican to oppose abortion. Meanwhile he's hurting his own children with his attitude toward black people. He was really overbearing on abortion and some Catholics are like this, but it's hypocritical. What about the racism on your conscience? I wasn't raised this way - to threaten people with damnation over abortion. As if that is the only issue that saves or damns a person. So we're policing people's souls now. I suppose I'm horrible for disregarding the Church's teaching but frankly the hypocrisy and bullying of the stance seemed to me to be immoral. And a poison of the heart.

anti-Catholic illogical hate.

fwiw i don't think any minority persecuted by the Catholic church for over a thousand years (including some iffy nazi-colloberation stuff) can be called illogical for not harboring only good will towards catholicism

plus yr post was laudable not so much as a slam against catholicism, but as a sly comeback to darragh's dismissal of DJP

It's like a game of Chess, innit?

ya twas good

"Illogical" because there was only one Christian church at the time of the Inquisition. Also illogical because I was referencing actual church teaching.

Thanks for reading. Or not.

it's perfectly reasonable (logical, w/e) to talk about the bigotry of a given institution relative only to bigotry in general

i don't get how it matters that the church was the only Christian church at the time unless you think you're arguing w/ someone attacking catholicism vis-a-vis protestantism, otherwise it's a total non-sequitar

It isn't logical in terms of the context, where I said that it was church teaching that racism was a sin.

Then again, not making an effort to understand people is also probably a sin.

argument: church teaching that racism is a sin
counter argument: the church has done incredibly racist things throughout its history
counter counter argument: the church was the only christian church at the time???