Defending Evil
December 13, 2008 / 5:49 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierIn a post-modern world where no one is right and no one is wrong, it doesn’t surprise me that the Smarty Pants Set defend evil doers (via Dr. Helen) over those the evil doers harm. To condemn evil action would be to discriminate against something, and for a leftist it’s the discriminating that’s the crime. Crime happens theoretically, externally and as a result of another injustice that is no fault of the evil doer. S/he the victim too. We’re all victims!
Tigerhawk says this:
While this is no doubt true to a certain extent, it is far from the entire story. There has been an intellectual class for thousands of years. Sympathy with criminals has been one of its touchstone issues only for a couple of generations (which is why the song “Gee, Officer Krupke” was so funny). Why the change? I think it is because it has recently (as in the last 60 years) become popular among intellectuals to identify social rather than individual causes for pathology. If poor people, unwed mothers, and drug abusers are the victims of social conditions rather than of their own poor individual choices, then it must also be true that muggers, rapists, and stick-up men are victims, too. Either way, this thinking goes, it is society that causes the problem. Well, if that is true then calling for more individual “responsibility” will not do a damned thing. Social problems call for social — meaning statist — solutions. It is all very convenient for people who want government even more involved in the lives of Americans.
It’s a win-win. Evil is good. Societal solutions are key. Government grows. It’s a socialists paradise and excuse for the intellectuals to control you, the average victim.
2 Responses to “Defending Evil”
December 14 2008 / 10:25 am
Reply
People should be held accountable for their actions. We should try to understand why people commit crime and work toward a more equitable society that produces less crime.
Are these ideas mutually exclusive? I don’t think so, and I think most on the left would agree. Seems to be a straw man argument.
December 16 2008 / 9:42 am
Reply
I agree with the first poster. While it’s true that there is certain post-modern thread on the left that takes its social constructivist and relativist theories too far, but to say that everyone on the left condones evil, is simply silly.
The attempt to ‘understand’ why people commit crimes shouldn’t be confused with approving of those crimes. It’s just that some feel that understanding (both at the social and individual level) evil behavior might help us to curb that behavior in the future.
You folks on the right have no compunction in blaming Islamic society for the evils committed by individual Muslims, so why the reluctance to take the same position vis-a-vis your own society?