This article reminds me of a recent discussion...
I was not comfortable with using the word 'evil' in association with terrorism from day one.. Walk out your front door and there is evil all around you.. Might even be a little or a lot within your gates.. Words are important.. thats the wrong word I believe.. actually it diverts attention from what terrorism really is.. "mass murder".. even "selective and random murder".. mayhem and anarchy..
Democracy which is Mob Rule is rule by mobsters.. Killing terrorists to produce democracy is fraught with error.. and is cognitive dissonance.. Words are important.. Most words used to explain the current terrorism, I've heard, don't get close to what evil is.. I think more evil than terrorism is democracy.. which produces socialism, which is slavery of the people by government.. Terrorism is performed by gangs as is democracy.. Democracy vs. Terrorism is gang warfare for territory.. Little wonder the socialists of this world and terrorists are loosely united..(i.e. american democrats)..
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Democracy is the road to socialism. Karl Marx
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. V.I. Lenin
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.- Karl Marx
It is astonishingly naive to suppose that the anti-American hate-machine will close down if we are nicer to jihadists. This would be like telling Jews in Nazi Germany that it was their own fault they were on their way to the gas chambers because they were not nice enough to the Nazis. The Nazis took the Jews who were nice to them and put them in charge of torturing the other Jews--so that pure German hands were not soiled with the filth of Jewish untouchables….
Evil exists, boys and girls, and it is not reasonable. It cannot be bargained away, placated, appeased, or persuaded. It will keep on coming until someone has the moral courage to stand against it….
The fastest way to breed a monster is to tell a child that evil does not exist, and then to tell the child that he is an angel. The self-esteem movement of the 1970's and 1980's did more to inculcate the denial of evil than any other movement of the recent past. It bred a culture of narcissism and denial that is the breeding ground of evil….
Most men of great evil have both an inflated sense of pride and an impenetrable denial of evil….
How are narcissism and denial interrelated? Well, inordinate self-love, self-absorption, and pride are delusional. One cannot sustain a delusion without denial. As the delusions of pride are inflated, higher and higher walls of defense and denial must be constructed. Of course, the more absurd one's illusions, the easier they are to puncture with reality. Vulnerable illusions must be sheltered behind thick walls.
Wonderful essay, TXnMA! I especially appreciate the discussion of C.S. Lewis’ “men with chests,” and his insistence that education above all is about training in virtue. These “ancient ideas” are little appreciated in our own culture today, seemingly for the reason that we no longer take the problem of evil seriously. Increasingly we live in a “headless world” in which reason itself has become “unreasonable.” It should little surprise us that our culture is increasingly narcissistic and given over to sensuality -- not to mention the construction of quite monstrous second realities to which society's children are actively being recruited as we speak. (e.g., the "gay lifestyle" [an oxymoron if ever I heard one], the doctrine of Jihad, etc., etc.)
Thanks so much for the ping, TXnMA. The article deserves further reflection.