thoughts on 4x21
Shuggie
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Well before I get into my review proper, let's get one thing out of the
way first:
Was Jasmine Evil?
-----------------
To which my answer is of course yes.
We already knew that she's prepared to sacrifice thousands of lives to
achieve her ends - however good they are perceived to be for the rest of
the world. We also knew that she eats people - more and more as time
goes by it seems. We knew that she is prepared to override the freewill
of those she's supposedly helping.
But we found out some new stuff in this episode.
First there's her 'trial-run' world, where she literally experimented on
her subjects there with celestial eugenics. We can see it's not exactly
a land of milk and honey, doesn't look like it's particularly
over-populated either (Jasmine's ever-increasing appetite perhaps?)
Clearly it's viewed even by Jasmine as a failure, her response to which
was to simply move on and try again, abandoning those she was supposedly
bringing a new age of peace and love to.
Secondly, she's more than a little ego-centric - wanting a massive
awe-inspiring temple.
Thirdly, once Angel ruins her plan by nullifying her mind-control power,
he offers her the chance to still try to help humanity. Her response is
that if she can't rule her way she's going to wipe us all out.
Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
So she's an egotistical wannabe global leader, who wants to bring about
a new world order, which she believes will be better for humanity,
although she's prepared to kill thousands to get there. She's prepared
to experiment with people, guiding evolution. She claims to care about
the world, and whilst she possibly does in some abstract or overall
sense, she has no great concern for individual happiness or safety,
certainly not freewill.
I'm sure she sees herself as good, but then so I'm sure did Hitler.
Looking at the characteristics above she could have almost have been
modelled on him.
The episode
-----------
So I guess that like Primeval, this is the real finale.
Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me. Once again I
appear to be in the minority in not loving it. Once again I'm reading
posts which list all the same weaknesses that I see, yet somehow, unlike
me they end up loving the ep.
I'm beginning to think that in order to enjoy Angel, one has to love
plot twists and surprises and not care too much about character
development or continuity.
Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
unoriginal to begin with. And whereas in the past we've had Skip or that
butler guy, here we have a decidingly uninteresting guardian of the
guardian, who appears to only be there to explain what Angel's feeling -
because god forbid DB have to act it.
Also what was all that guff about the keeper of the name versus the
guardian of the word? Was that supposed to be funny? It just felt
muddled.
But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
Secondly there's the characterisation confusion. I have the all too
familiar feeling that I don't understand what Connor wants, who he is.
Connor has apparently always been able to see Jasmine's real face, which
apparently means that he was never under her control? Is that what they
were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
few weeks where he's looked completely controlled. Also, he witnessed a
Jasmine feeding session. That didn't give him pause for thought but the
whereabouts of Cordy did?
Also he was prepared to kill the rest of AI. Presumably what they want
us to believe is that he so wanted this paradise Jasmine offered that
he'd sacrifice anything to get it, whilst at the same time knowing it
was a lie. That could have been very profound but it needed much better
acting, better writing and frankly, better setup.
I didn't like the way they sprung the idea that Connor could kill
Jasmine, without any setup, on us. Cordy's role as mother has been very
very different to Connor's and so it feels forced that we can
automatically transfer Wes' revelation about Cordy to Connor. Once
again, surprise is the premium, forget the flow of the story.
The other problem with that is that it tempts us with resolution to the
Cordy arc and then snatches it away, whilst at the same time setting up
the need for yet more Connor resolution. (Has there ever been a point in
the history of that character where we haven't had huge unanswered
questions about him?) I can only hope they wrap that up next week and
not leave it hanging for another season.
--
Shug
We're gonna get our dog back!
Niall Harrison
Mu.
It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have to
define 'good' and 'evil'.
Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire to
hurt, to do wrong; the villain trying to bring about the end of the world.
That wasn't Jasmine.
Jasmine didn't want to hurt anyone. She was certainly *willing* to hurt
people. Thousands of people. But only in service of a good end. And that's
important: It's not just that *she* sees it as a good end, but that for
many people in the real world it really *would be* a good end. The world's
population wouldn't just be fooled into thinking they were happy, they
really *would be* happy.
When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil. I can't see her
request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
would quite like, actually.
On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided, and
quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was portrayed
more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
[Digression: To me, the implication in 'Peace Out' is not that Jasmine is
eating more people as time goes on but that Jasmine needs to eat a lot of
people before she can enthrall an entire world. She needs to build up her
strength, in other words. Togther with the line in 'Sacrifice' about
wanting to take everyone's pain, I think it's pretty clear that the
purpose of the rain of fire/permanent night was to make it less effort for
her to take over.]
Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
> Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me.
Top ten for me. Probably top three. :)
> Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
> alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
> mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
> unoriginal to begin with.
Except that the solution to the problem is in and of itself a problem. See
all the scared, angry people? And the rioting? It's not an easy way out.
Angel has to live with the fact that he decided on behalf of the world
that utopia isn't what they wanted.
> Also what was all that guff about the keeper of the name versus the
> guardian of the word? Was that supposed to be funny? It just felt
> muddled.
Loved it, personally.
> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
> Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
> carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
> usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
> Connor has apparently always been able to see Jasmine's real face, which
> apparently means that he was never under her control?
Yep.
> Is that what they
> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
out pretty much as planned.
> Also, he witnessed a Jasmine feeding session. That didn't give him pause
> for thought but the whereabouts of Cordy did?
Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
humanity.
I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
> Also he was prepared to kill the rest of AI. Presumably what they want
> us to believe is that he so wanted this paradise Jasmine offered that
> he'd sacrifice anything to get it, whilst at the same time knowing it
> was a lie. That could have been very profound but it needed much better
> acting, better writing and frankly, better setup.
I think that's exactly what they *did* give us.
> I didn't like the way they sprung the idea that Connor could kill
> Jasmine, without any setup, on us. Cordy's role as mother has been very
> very different to Connor's and so it feels forced that we can
> automatically transfer Wes' revelation about Cordy to Connor. Once
> again, surprise is the premium, forget the flow of the story.
It sounds like you're saying that mothers are more connected to their
children than fathers. I hope that's not what you're saying.
Differently connected, maybe...
> The other problem with that is that it tempts us with resolution to the
> Cordy arc and then snatches it away, whilst at the same time setting up
> the need for yet more Connor resolution. (Has there ever been a point in
> the history of that character where we haven't had huge unanswered
> questions about him?) I can only hope they wrap that up next week and
> not leave it hanging for another season.
Exactly what huge questions are currently unanswered about Connor?
Niall
--
When memes collide.
Shuggie
wrote:
I have no idea what that means.
>It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have to
>define 'good' and 'evil'.
>
Oh please! You can apply that logic to *any* question. The meaning of
good and evil may not be universally the same but there's enough common
ground for me not to need to define the terms. In any case, since I
listed a series of specific acts which I consider evil, that should
remove any confusion.
>Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire to
>hurt, to do wrong;
The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow for
cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the lack of
care for the consequences of actions. The paedophile who has convinced
himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition not
be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>the villain trying to bring about the end of the world.
>
>That wasn't Jasmine.
>
It was in this episode. She said she had just enough strength left to
wipe out the world's population.
>Jasmine didn't want to hurt anyone. She was certainly *willing* to hurt
>people. Thousands of people. But only in service of a good end. And that's
>important: It's not just that *she* sees it as a good end, but that for
>many people in the real world it really *would be* a good end. The world's
>population wouldn't just be fooled into thinking they were happy, they
>really *would be* happy.
>
The problem is that people being happy is not Jasmine's goal. Jasmine
ruling over a perfect world is her goal. She wants a happy world but she
wants nothing less, and she won't stop killing until she gets it. She'll
do whatever she has to, to acheive her end. She doesn't care about
individual happiness, so any individual is fair game if they are between
her and her goal.
Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
>was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
>peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
She was so not upset for us. She was upset for herself - her perfect
world was in ruins. If she were upset for us, she'd have taken Angel's
offer to help make the world a better place. But she doesn't want that,
she wants everything or nothing, perfect world or wipe it out.
>I can't see her
>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
>demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
>forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
>desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
>would quite like, actually.
>
It was played as her true nature revealing itself from under the facade.
>On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided, and
>quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was portrayed
>more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
>
There was never any indication that is was physiologically necessary.
There were hints that perhaps it was necessary for the mind-control.
>[Digression: To me, the implication in 'Peace Out' is not that Jasmine is
>eating more people as time goes on but that Jasmine needs to eat a lot of
>people before she can enthrall an entire world.
That's possible.
>She needs to build up her
>strength, in other words. Togther with the line in 'Sacrifice' about
>wanting to take everyone's pain, I think it's pretty clear that the
>purpose of the rain of fire/permanent night was to make it less effort for
>her to take over.]
>
>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
>quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
>trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
>but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
>
The difference between Wrong and Evil is one of scale and Jasmine, with
her body count, is way up the scale and climbing.
>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
>> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
>> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
>> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>
>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>
She did but we know they're not. Doesn't that tell you something? What
she calls indifference, they would call allowing free will. The irony is
that she's indifferent to any individual's happiness or suffering in
this world.
>> Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me.
>
>Top ten for me. Probably top three. :)
>
>> Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
>> alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
>> mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
>> unoriginal to begin with.
>
>Except that the solution to the problem is in and of itself a problem.
That doesn't make the temple scene any less of a cliche.
<snip>
>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
>> Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
>> carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
>> usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
>
>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
>
Give me some examples of him showing any kind of range or subtlety.
>> Connor has apparently always been able to see Jasmine's real face, which
>> apparently means that he was never under her control?
>
>Yep.
>
>> Is that what they
>> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
>> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
>
>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>out pretty much as planned.
>
Was he? He was certainly not 100% sure when he killed the girl before
her birth. He was torn between what Cordy and Darla were telling him and
although he chose Cordy he was still conflicted. So I think he viewed
what she told him with some suspicion.
>> Also, he witnessed a Jasmine feeding session. That didn't give him pause
>> for thought but the whereabouts of Cordy did?
>
>Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
>Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
>utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
>humanity.
>
>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
>the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
>harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
>
He was fazed when Cordy asked him to kill the girl for the birth, but
not fazed when Jasmine eats people? If he was under her control I can
buy it - but apparently he wasn't so it's pretty dumb.
<snip>
>
>> I didn't like the way they sprung the idea that Connor could kill
>> Jasmine, without any setup, on us. Cordy's role as mother has been very
>> very different to Connor's and so it feels forced that we can
>> automatically transfer Wes' revelation about Cordy to Connor. Once
>> again, surprise is the premium, forget the flow of the story.
>
>It sounds like you're saying that mothers are more connected to their
>children than fathers. I hope that's not what you're saying.
>
>Differently connected, maybe...
>
I wasn't making a general point about mothers and fathers, I was making
a specific point about Cordy, Connor and Jasmine.
Cordy had already been shown to be affected by her pregnancy on a number
of levels, Connor on the other hand was not directly affected
physically. Wes' logic about Cordy's connection to Jasmine was not
necessarily applicable to Connor.
Besides if Jasmine took all that care over Cordy - who was in a coma and
so incapable of hurting her, why did she not take any precautions over
Connor? She must have known Connor was not directly under her control.
He's a much bigger risk - he's got freewill and he's mobile. Oh and he's
got superstrength.
I think I'd have had him tranq'd up and strapped in a bed somewhere.
>> The other problem with that is that it tempts us with resolution to the
>> Cordy arc and then snatches it away, whilst at the same time setting up
>> the need for yet more Connor resolution. (Has there ever been a point in
>> the history of that character where we haven't had huge unanswered
>> questions about him?) I can only hope they wrap that up next week and
>> not leave it hanging for another season.
>
>Exactly what huge questions are currently unanswered about Connor?
>
Why he did what he did. What's he thinking? What does he want? He's been
on the show for over a season and I don't feel like I know who he is,
beyond being an annoying sullen teenager. But given his history there
must be more to him than that.
But I didn't hate it all. I laughed at Gunn getting out of the cage
(although if he could do that, surely Angelus could have escaped?) and
the Galaxy Quest quote.
Iain Clark
wrote:
>Previously, on alt.buffy.europe - Shuggie wrote:
>> Was Jasmine Evil?
>> -----------------
<snip>
>Jasmine didn't want to hurt anyone. She was certainly *willing* to hurt
>people. Thousands of people. But only in service of a good end. And that's
>important: It's not just that *she* sees it as a good end, but that for
>many people in the real world it really *would be* a good end. The world's
>population wouldn't just be fooled into thinking they were happy, they
>really *would be* happy.
>
>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
>was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
>peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
I agree. She even told the woman to get out of her car before
throwing it at Angel.
> I can't see her
>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
>demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
>forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
>desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
>would quite like, actually.
>
Mmmm. It seemed quite egotistical to me. She needs to be loved, writ
large, and in fact her whole attempt to save the world through
brainwashing people into loving her is hubris of the highest order.
But I'll agree that in her own blinkered way she has good intentions.
>On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided, and
>quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was portrayed
>more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
>
I'm not sure that this excuses it, but no, she didn't have a choice.
Of course, she only didn't have a choice *if* she became 'mortal' and
tried to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. It was the
decision to do those things in the first place which was the dubious
moral decision, because it led to her inevitably having to eat people.
She knew those would be the consequences, but saw the death of a few
people as justifiable means to achieve a greater good.
>[Digression: To me, the implication in 'Peace Out' is not that Jasmine is
>eating more people as time goes on but that Jasmine needs to eat a lot of
>people before she can enthrall an entire world. She needs to build up her
>strength, in other words. Togther with the line in 'Sacrifice' about
>wanting to take everyone's pain, I think it's pretty clear that the
>purpose of the rain of fire/permanent night was to make it less effort for
>her to take over.]
>
I'm still a bit vague about the lead up Rain of Fire type stuff and
how it fits with Jasmine's modus operandi. It seems as if the writers
hadn't quite thought things through back then. But I suppose that's a
good a rationale as any.
>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
>quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
>trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
>but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
>
It's funny, I instinctively agree with you that Jasmine isn't "evil",
but I'm hard pressed to say what distinguishes her from other
self-justifying, well-intentioned, ends-justify-the-means types.
>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
>> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
>> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
>> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>
>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>
Yep - from her point of view they don't care "enough". Of course, if
caring "enough" makes you do what Jasmine does, maybe she's wrong and
the other PTB simply know where to draw the line.
>> Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me.
>
>Top ten for me. Probably top three. :)
>
I liked this episode, but it didn't blow me away. It didn't quite
have the feeling of a huge "season ender". Okay Angel doesn't really
have a tradition of big season enders, and this was far better than
S3's finale, but it didn't seem portentous enough. It felt like the
end of a mini-Jasmine arc, not the end of the season.
(Maybe this is because the Jasmine arc is so different in tone and
pacing from what went before that it feels like a different story,
even though it clearly isn't.)
On the plus side, there's still one more episode to go. Let's hope
it's the Restless to this episode's Primeval.
>> Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
>> alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
>> mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
>> unoriginal to begin with.
>
>Except that the solution to the problem is in and of itself a problem. See
>all the scared, angry people? And the rioting? It's not an easy way out.
>Angel has to live with the fact that he decided on behalf of the world
>that utopia isn't what they wanted.
>
Even so, I agree with Shuggie that it's a tired and unoriginal piece
of plotting. Last minute info about a single weak point that will let
our hero kill the Big Bad? Half an episode spent dashing to the
dimension next door, beating someone up? Pop back and the Big Bad's
defeated.
Yes, there are other things that redeem it (and I quite liked Angel
opening the beast's mouth to utter its last breath) but I suspect that
if this were Buffy you'd be giving this plot element short shrift!
>> Also what was all that guff about the keeper of the name versus the
>> guardian of the word? Was that supposed to be funny? It just felt
>> muddled.
>
>Loved it, personally.
>
Didn't love it, didn't hate it. The priest was a likeable little
cameo.
>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
>> Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
>> carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
>> usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
>
That's very unfair - he carried this scene better than I'd have
suspected.
>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
>
That's much *too* fair! <g> No way would I rank him on AD's level.
Even if he were capable of it (which I'm not sure) he certainly hasn't
been given the opportunity to demonstrate it. Not even here, in
probably his best scenes to date.
>> Connor has apparently always been able to see Jasmine's real face, which
>> apparently means that he was never under her control?
>
>Yep.
>
>> Is that what they
>> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
>> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
>
>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>out pretty much as planned.
>
Again, although I love the explanation we're given this week, it does
seem to sit slightly awkwardly with Connor's earlier behaviour to me.
Nothing specific, and it's a nice reveal, but this just feels a little
bit like a retcon. It's less of a jump than the end of this week's
Buffy, but the same kind of thing.
>> Also, he witnessed a Jasmine feeding session. That didn't give him pause
>> for thought but the whereabouts of Cordy did?
>
I thought he was barely conscious when Jasmine fed? I don't think he
saw much.
Of course, he then learns that she does eat people, and he's able to
take that on board. Troubled lad, our Connor :-)
>Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
>Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
>utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
>humanity.
>
>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
>the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
>harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
>
That was very clearly depicted this week, and I liked it.
>> Also he was prepared to kill the rest of AI. Presumably what they want
>> us to believe is that he so wanted this paradise Jasmine offered that
>> he'd sacrifice anything to get it, whilst at the same time knowing it
>> was a lie. That could have been very profound but it needed much better
>> acting, better writing and frankly, better setup.
>
>I think that's exactly what they *did* give us.
>
Me too. Although I agree that trying to kill AI was that little bit
*too* far for him to go.
>> I didn't like the way they sprung the idea that Connor could kill
>> Jasmine, without any setup, on us. Cordy's role as mother has been very
>> very different to Connor's and so it feels forced that we can
>> automatically transfer Wes' revelation about Cordy to Connor. Once
>> again, surprise is the premium, forget the flow of the story.
>
>It sounds like you're saying that mothers are more connected to their
>children than fathers. I hope that's not what you're saying.
>
>Differently connected, maybe...
>
Yes, both Mother and Father have already been shown to have the same
ability to 'see through' Jasmine's illusion via their blood connection
to her. It seems logical enough that both can kill her. We only
learn that Cordy can kill her this week, don't we? Not much of a jump
to say that Connor can too.
>> The other problem with that is that it tempts us with resolution to the
>> Cordy arc and then snatches it away, whilst at the same time setting up
>> the need for yet more Connor resolution. (Has there ever been a point in
>> the history of that character where we haven't had huge unanswered
>> questions about him?) I can only hope they wrap that up next week and
>> not leave it hanging for another season.
>
>Exactly what huge questions are currently unanswered about Connor?
>
I think we've learned everything we need to about how and why he was
conceived, what his connection to the Beast was, how he views the
world, his family and friends. He makes perfect sense IMO.
He's an annoying little so and so, at times, though ;-)
Iain
--
"She dreams in colour, she dreams in red"
Niall Harrison
>> I can't see her
>>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
>>demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
>>forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
>>desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
>>would quite like, actually.
>
> Mmmm. It seemed quite egotistical to me.
Well, ok. Maybe a little. <g>
My point was that it's not overwhelming egomania; that given the level of
control she had, it was in fact a fairly modest request. And to be honest,
if I was going to be setting myself up as benevolent despot, I think I
might ask for a palace as well. :)
>>On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided, and
>>quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was portrayed
>>more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
>
> I'm not sure that this excuses it, but no, she didn't have a choice.
>
> Of course, she only didn't have a choice *if* she became 'mortal' and
> tried to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. It was the
> decision to do those things in the first place which was the dubious
> moral decision, because it led to her inevitably having to eat people.
Excellent point. It's Wesley's ends justifies the means approach taken to
a logical conclusion. Did I mention that I really liked that parallel? :)
>>[Digression: To me, the implication in 'Peace Out' is not that Jasmine is
>>eating more people as time goes on but that Jasmine needs to eat a lot of
>>people before she can enthrall an entire world. She needs to build up her
>>strength, in other words. Togther with the line in 'Sacrifice' about
>>wanting to take everyone's pain, I think it's pretty clear that the
>>purpose of the rain of fire/permanent night was to make it less effort for
>>her to take over.]
>
> I'm still a bit vague about the lead up Rain of Fire type stuff and
> how it fits with Jasmine's modus operandi. It seems as if the writers
> hadn't quite thought things through back then. But I suppose that's a
> good a rationale as any.
Well, I'm pretty sure that what with the executive producer changes and
CC's pregnancy that there was some scramble to re-plot a chunk of the
season. With absolutely nothing to back this up, my guess for the original
plan would be that Cordy actually *becomes* Jasmine - none of this
pregnancy malarky. And when she does, she arrives at just the right time
to 'fix' everything - re-ensoul Angelus, restore the sun, yadda yadda. So
she looks like a saviour.
(Actually, that may just have been *Jasmine's* original plan, and not the
writers...)
I saw somewhere an explanation I really like for the plan in general: It's
a multi-pronged approach. Jasmine puts a lot of pieces into play -
DisCordelia, Connor, the Beast, the rain of fire, the destruction of
Wolfram and Hart, permanent night, the return of Angelus - each of which
can help towards her goal, but none of which is essential. So there's a
lot of redundancy. It's a smart approach.
I think a big point of the rain of fire and night was to bring back
Angelus. And that a big point of bringing back Angelus was to get Angel
out of the way - Angel being the one, of course, who'd figure out that
something was up with Cordy the quickest.
>>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
>>quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
>>trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
>>but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
>
> It's funny, I instinctively agree with you that Jasmine isn't "evil",
> but I'm hard pressed to say what distinguishes her from other
> self-justifying, well-intentioned, ends-justify-the-means types.
OK. Well, as long as you agree, that's the main part. ;-)
>>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
>>> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
>>> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
>>> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>>
>>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>
> Yep - from her point of view they don't care "enough". Of course, if
> caring "enough" makes you do what Jasmine does, maybe she's wrong and
> the other PTB simply know where to draw the line.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Apparently in the script there was a line
where Jasmine said 'exactly whose champion did you think you were,
anyway?', but it got cut.
>>> Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me.
>>
>>Top ten for me. Probably top three. :)
>
> I liked this episode, but it didn't blow me away. It didn't quite
> have the feeling of a huge "season ender". Okay Angel doesn't really
> have a tradition of big season enders, and this was far better than
> S3's finale, but it didn't seem portentous enough. It felt like the
> end of a mini-Jasmine arc, not the end of the season.
Whereas I saw it as the culmination of the last three years, as per
'Inside Out'. I was really sold on the whole Jasmine concept, I have to
say - and act, three, in particular (from Connor's soliloquy to Jasmine
knocking Angel off the brige) just blew me away.
> On the plus side, there's still one more episode to go. Let's hope
> it's the Restless to this episode's Primeval.
Well, it's by Minear. So woo! :)
(And this was way better than 'Primeval'. :-p )
>>> Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
>>> alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
>>> mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
>>> unoriginal to begin with.
>>
>>Except that the solution to the problem is in and of itself a problem. See
>>all the scared, angry people? And the rioting? It's not an easy way out.
>>Angel has to live with the fact that he decided on behalf of the world
>>that utopia isn't what they wanted.
>
> Even so, I agree with Shuggie that it's a tired and unoriginal piece
> of plotting. Last minute info about a single weak point that will let
> our hero kill the Big Bad? Half an episode spent dashing to the
> dimension next door, beating someone up? Pop back and the Big Bad's
> defeated.
>
> Yes, there are other things that redeem it (and I quite liked Angel
> opening the beast's mouth to utter its last breath) but I suspect that
> if this were Buffy you'd be giving this plot element short shrift!
Maybe. I'm trying to work out what makes it feel not-tired to me. Perhaps
it was Wesley's line in 'Sacrifice' about the universe finally giving them
a break; it's true, *nothing* has gone right for AI this season, so it
doesn't feel too unfair when something does. Maybe it's just because it
clearly isn't the end of the story, it's just a development in the story.
>>> Is that what they
>>> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
>>> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
>>
>>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>>out pretty much as planned.
>
> Again, although I love the explanation we're given this week, it does
> seem to sit slightly awkwardly with Connor's earlier behaviour to me.
> Nothing specific, and it's a nice reveal, but this just feels a little
> bit like a retcon. It's less of a jump than the end of this week's
> Buffy, but the same kind of thing.
Alternate definitions of retcon rear their head again. I mean, this
clearly *is* retroactive continuity; it's something we didn't know about
something we've already seen. But it seems to work, particularly given the
scene in 'Sacrifice' about his not giving his pain to Jasmine.
Niall Harrison
Literally 'there is no valid answer to this statement'. Your question is
like 'when did you stop beating your wife?' - there is no satisfactory
answer from my point of view.
>>It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have to
>>define 'good' and 'evil'.
>
> Oh please! You can apply that logic to *any* question.
Yes, but given that one of the most important things about the Jasmine arc
is this very question - good and evil - it doesn't seem unreasonable to do
so here.
>>Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire to
>>hurt, to do wrong;
>
> The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow for
> cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the lack of
> care for the consequences of actions. The paedophile who has convinced
> himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition not
> be evil because there's no intent to harm.
Uh, he's not evil. He's a very sick individual.
Evil would be a paedophile who's quite aware that the child isn't going to
enjoy it, and does it *for that reason*.
(If he just doesn't care, he's amoral)
>>the villain trying to bring about the end of the world.
>>
>>That wasn't Jasmine.
>
> It was in this episode. She said she had just enough strength left to
> wipe out the world's population.
She was bitter, and hurting, and arrogant, and misguided, and lashing out.
And being a Power, her lashing out is going to *hurt*.
But it's not Evil. She wasn't destroying the world because she wanted to
cause pain and suffering and destruction.
>>Jasmine didn't want to hurt anyone. She was certainly *willing* to hurt
>>people. Thousands of people. But only in service of a good end. And that's
>>important: It's not just that *she* sees it as a good end, but that for
>>many people in the real world it really *would be* a good end. The world's
>>population wouldn't just be fooled into thinking they were happy, they
>>really *would be* happy.
>
> The problem is that people being happy is not Jasmine's goal. Jasmine
> ruling over a perfect world is her goal. She wants a happy world but she
> wants nothing less, and she won't stop killing until she gets it. She'll
> do whatever she has to, to acheive her end. She doesn't care about
> individual happiness, so any individual is fair game if they are between
> her and her goal.
I don't think that's true. She doesn't value them above the whole world,
sure, but I think there's ample evidence that she cares for individuals.
> Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
> another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
You can apply 'what happens next?' questions to any utopia; it's one of
the flaws in the concept.
Doesn't make Jasmine Evil for wanting to bring one about, though.
>>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
>>was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
>>peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
>
> She was so not upset for us. She was upset for herself - her perfect
> world was in ruins.
There was an element of that, sure. But:
"I could have stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty...how
many precious, beautiful lives would have been saved in a *handful* of
years?"
Do you really think she was lying when she described lives as precious and
beautiful? I don't. She had no reason to. She was frustrated because her
perfect world in ruins, because of the suffering it meant *for us*.
> If she were upset for us, she'd have taken Angel's
> offer to help make the world a better place.
No. This is a mark of her immaturity, her selfishness. She can be upset
for us and angry *at* us, all at the same time.
It's not a mark of Evil, though.
>>I can't see her
>>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
>>demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
>>forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
>>desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
>>would quite like, actually.
>
> It was played as her true nature revealing itself from under the facade.
Uh...ok. Where'd *that* interpretation come from?
Jasmine didn't *have* a facade. There was *no point*. Everyone was going
to do what she said anyway! What we saw - everything she said - was the
truth, because there's nothing in the text to suggest otherwise.
So, yeah, she wanted a temple. But her first request was for everyone to
love each other.
>>On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided, and
>>quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was portrayed
>>more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
>
> There was never any indication that is was physiologically necessary.
Apart from needing to eat to be able to heal herself, and so on.
>>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
>>quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
>>trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
>>but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
>
> The difference between Wrong and Evil is one of scale and Jasmine, with
> her body count, is way up the scale and climbing.
The count of lives she'd *save* climbs at an even higher rate, though.
Out of interest, are you a pacifist? I'm not implying it's a bad thing if
you are, I have strong leanings in that direction myself. But if you're
*not* - how do you justify wars?
>>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
>>> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
>>> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
>>> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>>
>>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>
> She did but we know they're not.
We do?
The Powers haven't been particularly helpful when Angel tried to contact
them. They could have intervened numerous times, but they didn't. Their
hands-off approach is arguably as unhelpful as Jasmine's hands-on
approach.
And as far as we know, Jasmine may have sent all the visions.
>>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
>>> Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
>>> carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
>>> usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
>>
>>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
>
> Give me some examples of him showing any kind of range or subtlety.
His scenes with Angel in 'A New World' and 'Benediction'. His reactions to
Angel in 'Deep Down'. His anger and frustration in 'Rain of Fire'. His
conflict in 'Inside Out'. His soliloquy in this episode.
Yeah, I'm a VK fanboy.
>>> Is that what they
>>> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
>>> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
>>
>>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>>out pretty much as planned.
>
> Was he? He was certainly not 100% sure when he killed the girl before
> her birth.
OK, he was *hoping*. And seized at what seemed to be a confirmation of his
hopes. Point is, he had every reason to accept Jasmine.
>>Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
>>Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
>>utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
>>humanity.
>>
>>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
>>the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
>>harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
>
> He was fazed when Cordy asked him to kill the girl for the birth, but
> not fazed when Jasmine eats people?
Exactly so. Because as far as he's concerned, that death turned out to be
a good thing, didn't it? It brought Jasmine into the world.
> Besides if Jasmine took all that care over Cordy - who was in a coma and
> so incapable of hurting her, why did she not take any precautions over
> Connor? She must have known Connor was not directly under her control.
> He's a much bigger risk - he's got freewill and he's mobile. Oh and he's
> got superstrength.
And he's her father. And she cares about him.
Chalk another one up in the 'not evil' column.
> But I didn't hate it all. I laughed at Gunn getting out of the cage
> (although if he could do that, surely Angelus could have escaped?)
Well, he did escape.
But to take the point seriously: Yes, I think that if AI had been happy to
let Angelus bang away at his cage door for an hour or so without
tranquilising him, there's a good chance he would have busted out.
> and the Galaxy Quest quote.
Please tell me you don't think 'to serve man' originates with _Galaxy
Quest_...
Niall
--
Verbing weirds language.
Jonathan Dupont
news:28q7bvcnfq64fh3km...@4ax.com:
> On 03 May 2003 15:05:52 GMT, Niall Harrison <s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>Previously, on alt.buffy.europe - Shuggie wrote:
>>> Below are spoilers for episode 21 of season 4 of Angel & Buffy S6
>
>>It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have
>>to define 'good' and 'evil'.
...
>>Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire
>>to hurt, to do wrong;
>
> The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow for
> cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the lack of
> care for the consequences of actions.
Huh? Evil is *always* in the intent. Being careless about consequences
isn't a good idea, but it just means you're stupid, not evil.
> The paedophile who has convinced
> himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition
> not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
(a) This is very different from the general principle you just mentioned
(b) Of course he wouldn't
>>the villain trying to bring about the end of the world.
>>
>>That wasn't Jasmine.
>>
>
> It was in this episode. She said she had just enough strength left to
> wipe out the world's population.
I think she's doing it as the next best thing. Very similar to Willow at
the end of S6.
>>Jasmine didn't want to hurt anyone. She was certainly *willing* to
>>hurt people. Thousands of people. But only in service of a good end.
>>And that's important: It's not just that *she* sees it as a good end,
>>but that for many people in the real world it really *would be* a good
>>end. The world's population wouldn't just be fooled into thinking they
>>were happy, they really *would be* happy.
>>
>
> The problem is that people being happy is not Jasmine's goal. Jasmine
> ruling over a perfect world is her goal. She wants a happy world but
> she wants nothing less, and she won't stop killing until she gets it.
> She'll do whatever she has to, to acheive her end. She doesn't care
> about individual happiness, so any individual is fair game if they are
> between her and her goal.
Yes... It's a means versus ends thing. Nothing to do with evil-ness, per
se.
> Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
> another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
She's spent quite a long time just working up to this. I doubt she'll
get bored for some time yet. Plus, the PTB don't seem to care enough to
interfere, Their limit is one snowfall and a few visions...
(As Niall said, that could have been Jasmine too, come to think of it.
Heh - we finally might have an explanation for why Angel was brought
back from Hell.)
>>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost,
>>she was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the
>>world of peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
>
> She was so not upset for us. She was upset for herself - her perfect
> world was in ruins. If she were upset for us, she'd have taken Angel's
> offer to help make the world a better place. But she doesn't want
> that, she wants everything or nothing, perfect world or wipe it out.
Maybe. I think it's a bit of both, and you do have to take into account
that she's very immature and petulant. I'm not concinced you can argue
this for certain either way.
>>I can't see her
>>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would
>>be demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world
>>brought forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example
>>of a burning desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when
>>pressed, Jasmine would quite like, actually.
>>
>
> It was played as her true nature revealing itself from under the
> facade.
It was a joke. And, really, one temple isn't a lot to ask in the big
scheme of things.
>>On the other hand, Jasmine was hardly Good. She was deeply misguided,
>>and quite terrifyingly immature. She ate people, although that was
>>portrayed more as a physiological necessity than anything else.
>>
>
> There was never any indication that is was physiologically necessary.
> There were hints that perhaps it was necessary for the mind-control.
I'm sure at one point she had to do it to heal.
>>[Digression: To me, the implication in 'Peace Out' is not that Jasmine
>>is eating more people as time goes on but that Jasmine needs to eat a
>>lot of people before she can enthrall an entire world.
>
> That's possible.
That's what I saw too.
>>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above,
>>I'm quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a
>>fair trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the
>>episode - but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not
>>Evil.
>>
>
> The difference between Wrong and Evil is one of scale and Jasmine,
> with her body count, is way up the scale and climbing.
No. It isn't. Scale is irrelevant. A child stumbling on a button that
sets off a thousand nukes that destroy the world is *not* evil. And in
any case this is a matter of percentages.
>>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we
>>> sort of knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us
>>> so in so many words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a
>>> PTB concept of good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>>
>>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>>
>
> She did but we know they're not. Doesn't that tell you something? What
> she calls indifference, they would call allowing free will. The irony
> is that she's indifferent to any individual's happiness or suffering
> in this world.
Or she just has a plan beyond it. So she disagrees with the other PTB -
by itself, that doesn't mean anything much, just that she's an
individual.
>>> Unfortunately this was another lack-lustre episode for me.
Finally something I can agree with. :)
>>Top ten for me. Probably top three. :)
Not even top ten in the season. On rewatching it, the whole thing just
feels too slow and, well, "lack-lustre".
>>> Although having said that, once again we get the "Angel goes to an
>>> alternate dimension to fight one-on-one with the demon to get the
>>> mystical whosit that's the solution to the problem." So that's
>>> unoriginal to begin with.
>>
>>Except that the solution to the problem is in and of itself a problem.
>
> That doesn't make the temple scene any less of a cliche.
It's not so much that it's unoriginal, as it's too easy. ME have two
things they could use here - Angel doesn't age and we've already
established that time in other dimensions moves different. Angel could
have gone on an epic quest for as long as they liked without it making
any difference to the plot. Instead, it takes him all of five minutes.
>>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so
>>> heavily on Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong
>>> enough actor to carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the
>>> very end where his usual sullenness is passable as the
>>> dispair/apathy he feels.
>>
>>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
I'm thinking more recent CC...
...
> Was he? He was certainly not 100% sure when he killed the girl before
> her birth. He was torn between what Cordy and Darla were telling him
> and although he chose Cordy he was still conflicted. So I think he
> viewed what she told him with some suspicion.
I agree that it causes some problems.
>>> Also, he witnessed a Jasmine feeding session. That didn't give him
>>> pause for thought but the whereabouts of Cordy did?
>>
>>Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
>>Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
>>utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
>>humanity.
>>
>>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's
>>not in the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the
>>thought of harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
Well, maybe. OTOH he was brought up by a British (presumably)
protestant, so he shouldn't be that strange.
To be fair, I've never really been a fan of the character. Compare (if
you have it) the Season 3 film tests for Amy Acker and Vincent
Kartheiser. The first is absolutely hilarious and the second is, well,
annoying.
>>> I didn't like the way they sprung the idea that Connor could kill
>>> Jasmine, without any setup, on us. Cordy's role as mother has been
>>> very very different to Connor's and so it feels forced that we can
>>> automatically transfer Wes' revelation about Cordy to Connor. Once
>>> again, surprise is the premium, forget the flow of the story.
>>
>>It sounds like you're saying that mothers are more connected to their
>>children than fathers. I hope that's not what you're saying.
>>
>>Differently connected, maybe...
>>
>
> I wasn't making a general point about mothers and fathers, I was
> making a specific point about Cordy, Connor and Jasmine.
I'm back to the agreeing with Niall. If Cordy can affect Jasmine, than
Connor should be able to too.
> Besides if Jasmine took all that care over Cordy - who was in a coma
> and so incapable of hurting her, why did she not take any precautions
> over Connor? She must have known Connor was not directly under her
> control. He's a much bigger risk - he's got freewill and he's mobile.
> Oh and he's got superstrength.
Because he's special to her, in much the same way as Cordy. Plus, she's
not evil, so she doesn't think like that...
...
> But I didn't hate it all. I laughed at Gunn getting out of the cage
> (although if he could do that, surely Angelus could have escaped?) and
> the Galaxy Quest quote.
>
>
> --
> Shug
The thing that confuses me is I'm sure they said that they were taking
the cage down. Never mind.
Still looking forward to next week,
Jon
Scott Kelly
Iain Clark said -
>>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
>>was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
>>peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
>
>I agree. She even told the woman to get out of her car before
>throwing it at Angel.
Minor pedant:
The car Jasmine threw was already empty; it was the car that Angel
landed on after Jasmine punched him that had a woman in it. He told
her to 'Run'.
:)
Scott
--
Flattery Will Get You Absolutely Anywhere You Want Sugar
Ian Shuttleworth
In article <10519870...@urchin.earth.li>, s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk
(Niall Harrison) wrote:
> > >It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have
> > > to define 'good' and 'evil'.
> >
> > Oh please! You can apply that logic to *any* question.
[snip]
> > >Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire
> > > to hurt, to do wrong;
> >
> > The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow for
> > cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the lack of
> > care for the consequences of actions. The paedophile who has convinced
> > himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition
> > not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>
> Uh, he's not evil. He's a very sick individual.
>
> Evil would be a paedophile who's quite aware that the child isn't going
> to enjoy it, and does it *for that reason*.
>
> (If he just doesn't care, he's amoral)
This seems to me to threaten circularity, Niall: locating evil in an
intent to do wrong simply shifts the question to "what is wrong?".
And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political or
criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights? Because none
spring to my mind; indeed, by such a definition, as far as I can see even
much of the conduct of Satan himself doesn't qualify. (Not that I'm
claiming Satan is a historical figure...)
I'm unpersuaded, in the end, that such a definition is at all meaningful.
Obviously such evaluations are all a matter of subjectivity and where each
of us draws the line, but I think it has to be considered in terms of
conduct at least as much as motivation, otherwise you in effect forbid the
drawing of any lines anywhere on the field on which actions are mapped.
--
Ian S.
Shuggie
wrote:
That's vaguely insulting Niall, I'm disappointed. It's one thing to not
define your terms, it's another to deliberate set up a trick question as
in your example. Is that really what you think I was doing?
It's clear from your remarks that you have a very specific, very narrow
definition of evil, one I don't share. Which makes it pointless for me
to try to reply to a lot of what you wrote.
<snip>
>>>When Angel destroyed her hold, Jasmine wasn't upset that she'd lost, she
>>>was upset *for us*. For all the pain that would continue, for the world of
>>>peace that would never be. That's hardly the mark of Evil.
>>
>> She was so not upset for us. She was upset for herself - her perfect
>> world was in ruins.
>
>There was an element of that, sure. But:
>
>"I could have stopped it, Angel. All of it. War, disease, poverty...how
>many precious, beautiful lives would have been saved in a *handful* of
>years?"
>
>Do you really think she was lying when she described lives as precious and
>beautiful?
No lying but self-deluded. She believes that she thinks of them as
precious but the lack of care she takes over them, the degree to which
she'll destroy them, the lack of any remorse - tells me she doesn't
really understand what it means to hold human life as precious.
<snip>
>> If she were upset for us, she'd have taken Angel's
>> offer to help make the world a better place.
>
>No. This is a mark of her immaturity, her selfishness. She can be upset
>for us and angry *at* us, all at the same time.
>
She was 'forged in the fires of creation' and she's immature? That sound
you hear is my mind boggling.
>>>I can't see her
>>>request for one measly temple as egomania, I'm afraid; egomania would be
>>>demanding a temple in every town, or the wealth of the world brought
>>>forward for her to appreciate. It wasn't played as an example of a burning
>>>desire to dominate, it was played as something that, when pressed, Jasmine
>>>would quite like, actually.
>>
>> It was played as her true nature revealing itself from under the facade.
>
>Uh...ok. Where'd *that* interpretation come from?
>
>Jasmine didn't *have* a facade. There was *no point*. Everyone was going
>to do what she said anyway! What we saw - everything she said - was the
>truth, because there's nothing in the text to suggest otherwise.
>
Of course Jasmine had a facade! Her real face was the maggot-infested
monster, therefore the face she presents to the world is a facade! It's
no accident that everyone who escapes her control literally sees her
differently.
She's also continually lying to, or hiding information from her
followers. I agree it seems unnecessary but she is anyway.
<snip>
>>>> Finally, we find out that the other PTBs opposed her. I guess we sort of
>>>> knew that from the Darla incarnation, but Jasmine tells us so in so many
>>>> words. So we can now rule out the idea that she has a PTB concept of
>>>> good that doesn't make sense to mere mortals.
>>>
>>>Uh? Her point is that the other Powers are *indifferent*.
>>
>> She did but we know they're not.
>
>We do?
>
>The Powers haven't been particularly helpful when Angel tried to contact
>them. They could have intervened numerous times, but they didn't.
The Powers do do things to help - sending visions, champions and so on -
but they obviously respect free will too much to intervene directly too
often.
>Their
>hands-off approach is arguably as unhelpful as Jasmine's hands-on
>approach.
>
You can argue over the success of either approach but you can't call
them indifferent.
>And as far as we know, Jasmine may have sent all the visions.
>
Now you're reaching.
>>>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily on
>>>> Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough actor to
>>>> carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very end where his
>>>> usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he feels.
>>>
>>>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
>>
>> Give me some examples of him showing any kind of range or subtlety.
>
>His scenes with Angel in 'A New World' and 'Benediction'. His reactions to
>Angel in 'Deep Down'. His anger and frustration in 'Rain of Fire'. His
>conflict in 'Inside Out'. His soliloquy in this episode.
>
None of them particularly remarkable for me I'm afraid.
>>>> Is that what they
>>>> were going for? Because that makes him a damn fine actor for the past
>>>> few weeks where he's looked completely controlled.
>>>
>>>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>>>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>>>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>>>out pretty much as planned.
>>
>> Was he? He was certainly not 100% sure when he killed the girl before
>> her birth.
>
>OK, he was *hoping*. And seized at what seemed to be a confirmation of his
>hopes. Point is, he had every reason to accept Jasmine.
>
I disagree. I think he has every reason to be sceptical, to go along
with things but still question them. Look at the way he was with Cordy,
the amount of wheedling and persuading she had to do to keep him on
track. Suddenly he's all docile and compliant. Which fits him being
mind-controlled like the rest. Doing it out of free will - not so much.
>>>Early on in the season, there were complaints from some quarters that
>>>Connor was too normal, fitting in too well. His worldview should be
>>>utterly alien, some said, since he was raised with no society, no
>>>humanity.
>>>
>>>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
>>>the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
>>>harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
>>
>> He was fazed when Cordy asked him to kill the girl for the birth, but
>> not fazed when Jasmine eats people?
>
>Exactly so. Because as far as he's concerned, that death turned out to be
>a good thing, didn't it? It brought Jasmine into the world.
>
But in the absence of mind-control we aren't given any convincing reason
why Connor would think Jasmine in the world *is* a good thing. We sort
of have to accept it, because it's presented as such, but we're never
given any reason as to why.
>> and the Galaxy Quest quote.
>
>Please tell me you don't think 'to serve man' originates with _Galaxy
>Quest_...
>
:P
"Never give in, never surrender!"
--
Shug
Oh - as usual - Dear!
Jonathan Dupont
news:memo.20030503...@shutters.compulink.co.uk:
> [spoiler space and spoilers removed, as I'm digressing]
>
> In article <10519870...@urchin.earth.li>,
> s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk (Niall Harrison) wrote:
>
>> > >It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you
>> > >have
>> > > to define 'good' and 'evil'.
>> >
>> > Oh please! You can apply that logic to *any* question.
> [snip]
>> > >Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The
>> > >desire
>> > > to hurt, to do wrong;
>> >
>> > The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow
>> > for cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the
>> > lack of care for the consequences of actions. The paedophile who
>> > has convinced himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by
>> > your definition not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>>
>> Uh, he's not evil. He's a very sick individual.
>>
>> Evil would be a paedophile who's quite aware that the child isn't
>> going to enjoy it, and does it *for that reason*.
>>
>> (If he just doesn't care, he's amoral)
>
> This seems to me to threaten circularity, Niall: locating evil in an
> intent to do wrong simply shifts the question to "what is wrong?".
Not really.
> And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
> well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political
> or criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights?
Indeed. Where is your problem with this? (As a side note, there's a
reason Buffy & Angel don't kill humans).
> Because
> none spring to my mind; indeed, by such a definition, as far as I can
> see even much of the conduct of Satan himself doesn't qualify. (Not
> that I'm claiming Satan is a historical figure...)
Slightly different. God is defined as good, so anything that goes
against him is evil. Satan personifies that, so he is the ultimate evil.
Under more normal Christain theology, we're all inherently evil (or
commit sins, or fallen, or whatever) and need to be saved.
> I'm unpersuaded, in the end, that such a definition is at all
> meaningful.
I agree - evil is a stupid idea in the first place; thankfully the show
is a metaphor. :)
The use of evil anyway tends to be as a way of marking things that it's
'okay to kill'. I would argue that it is not right to do that to any
human. If you want to use evil, use it as a grand metaphysical concept.
Specifically in the Buffyverse this makes it useful.
> Obviously such evaluations are all a matter of
> subjectivity and where each of us draws the line, but I think it has
> to be considered in terms of conduct at least as much as motivation,
> otherwise you in effect forbid the drawing of any lines anywhere on
> the field on which actions are mapped.
Not at all. Actions can still be mapped to their effects ("an earthquake
is bad") or to their moral implications ("that was the wrong thing to
do"). Saying an earthquake is morally wrong is meaningless. Humans can
commit bad acts (actions which have negative consequences) perhaps even
in the short term to deliberately have negative effects without a moral
reason to do so, but IMO they cannot (or I know no non mental illness
example of) be evil.
Jon
Niall Harrison
> It's clear from your remarks that you have a very specific, very narrow
> definition of evil, one I don't share. Which makes it pointless for me
> to try to reply to a lot of what you wrote.
Whereas I see your definition as being so broad as to be essentially
meaningless, and I'm trying to understand why.
Fundamentally, what it comes down to is: Does Jasmine have a point? Is
she, like Holtz, a character with a valid (albeit extreme) point of view?
Does this plotline raise questions about good, evil, free will and all
that jazz, or is it a strawmen?
I'm strongly in the camp that thinks it's an intelligent and nuanced plot.
That's why I can't characterise Jasmine as Evil.
> <snip>
>
>>> If she were upset for us, she'd have taken Angel's
>>> offer to help make the world a better place.
>>
>>No. This is a mark of her immaturity, her selfishness. She can be upset
>>for us and angry *at* us, all at the same time.
>
> She was 'forged in the fires of creation' and she's immature? That sound
> you hear is my mind boggling.
Like much else this season, it seems to hark back to greek and roman
mythology. Their gods were just as human as Jasmine.
[The temple request]
>>> It was played as her true nature revealing itself from under the facade.
>>
>>Uh...ok. Where'd *that* interpretation come from?
>>
>>Jasmine didn't *have* a facade. There was *no point*. Everyone was going
>>to do what she said anyway! What we saw - everything she said - was the
>>truth, because there's nothing in the text to suggest otherwise.
>
> Of course Jasmine had a facade! Her real face was the maggot-infested
> monster, therefore the face she presents to the world is a facade! It's
> no accident that everyone who escapes her control literally sees her
> differently.
Physically, she presented a facade, of course. But her personality, her
intent? She never lied, because, as I said, she had no reason to. That's
one of the things I like about the storyline; she's not 'evil and
therefore ugly', she just *happens* to be ugly.
> She's also continually lying to, or hiding information from her
> followers. I agree it seems unnecessary but she is anyway.
When?
>>And as far as we know, Jasmine may have sent all the visions.
>
> Now you're reaching.
Why? We know she organised the death of Gunn's sister, Fred's trip to
Pylea, Connor's conception; we know she was a Power. Why is it at all
implausible that she sent the visions?
>>>>Has he? Go back and look; he just follows everyone's cues. He sees Angel
>>>>fall to his kness, and he does likewise. Remember, Connor was *expecting*
>>>>Jasmine to be a wonderous thing; from his point of view, this all turned
>>>>out pretty much as planned.
>>>
>>> Was he? He was certainly not 100% sure when he killed the girl before
>>> her birth.
>>
>>OK, he was *hoping*. And seized at what seemed to be a confirmation of his
>>hopes. Point is, he had every reason to accept Jasmine.
>
> I disagree. I think he has every reason to be sceptical, to go along
> with things but still question them. Look at the way he was with Cordy,
> the amount of wheedling and persuading she had to do to keep him on
> track. Suddenly he's all docile and compliant. Which fits him being
> mind-controlled like the rest. Doing it out of free will - not so much.
But he desparately, deeply wants to believe. As the soliloquy showed. He's
had a hard year, to put it mildly; he wants to rest. So he jumped at the
chance.
>>>>I think they've done a pretty good job of showing that. So no, he's not in
>>>>the least fazed by eating people, but yes, he is fazed by the thought of
>>>>harm coming to someone he's come to care about personally.
>>>
>>> He was fazed when Cordy asked him to kill the girl for the birth, but
>>> not fazed when Jasmine eats people?
>>
>>Exactly so. Because as far as he's concerned, that death turned out to be
>>a good thing, didn't it? It brought Jasmine into the world.
>
> But in the absence of mind-control we aren't given any convincing reason
> why Connor would think Jasmine in the world *is* a good thing.
Apart from, y'know, everyone being happy and peaceful all of a sudden.
Shuggie
I don't agree - evil is in the act as well as the intent. Niall was
saying that so long as the intent is for good it's not evil regardless
of consequences.
The trouble is, in most cases, the person is ignoring or downplaying
possible bad consequences and emphasising the potential good in order to
justify the act. Rain of Fire in order to get two people to sleep
together is so not a justifiable act. And Jasmine knew the consequences.
>> The paedophile who has convinced
>> himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition
>> not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>
>(a) This is very different from the general principle you just mentioned
How?
>(b) Of course he wouldn't
He's evil in my book.
<snip>
>Yes... It's a means versus ends thing. Nothing to do with evil-ness, per
>se.
>
But the ends don't justify the means. And Jasmine's means are evil.
That's pretty much my whole point.
>> Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
>> another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
>
>She's spent quite a long time just working up to this. I doubt she'll
>get bored for some time yet. Plus, the PTB don't seem to care enough to
>interfere, Their limit is one snowfall and a few visions...
>
... and send champions like Angel.
I think they care but they have some sort of Prime Directive which leads
them to work, mostly, indirectly.
<snip>
>> The difference between Wrong and Evil is one of scale and Jasmine,
>> with her body count, is way up the scale and climbing.
>
>No. It isn't. Scale is irrelevant. A child stumbling on a button that
>sets off a thousand nukes that destroy the world is *not* evil. And in
>any case this is a matter of percentages.
That's an accident, it's neither wrong nor evil. Niall, IMHO, was
splitting hairs by saying Jasmine acted wrongly but was not evil.
<snip>
>>
>> I wasn't making a general point about mothers and fathers, I was
>> making a specific point about Cordy, Connor and Jasmine.
>
>I'm back to the agreeing with Niall. If Cordy can affect Jasmine, than
>Connor should be able to too.
>
But this being a mystical connection it's not *automatic* that the
Connor's bond with Jasmine is the same as Cordy's.
--
Shug
Was bitten on the cheek by a spider. Do not appear to be able to
climb walls or have any kind of extrasensory abilities yet.
So far I've just got a spider bite on my cheek. Seems
deeply unfair, really.
- Neil Gaiman
Tafka
Scott Kelly <scott....@nospamworld.com>. alt.buffy.europe. Sat, 03 May
2003 20:18:09 GMT:
[snip]
>Scott
I feel like I've been .... ridiculed!
Scotty? You've been downloading but not voting in the lovely Five-Star
Poll threads in uk.media.tv.angel this season? Not once? Tsk, tsk.
Naughty boy!
-Tafka-
Believe me I don't wanna go, and it'll grieve me 'cause I love you so.
Niall Harrison
> [spoiler space and spoilers removed, as I'm digressing]
By the time I get to the bottom, I'm mentioning the names of _Angel_ bad
guys from S3 and S4. No plot spoilers, or even character descriptions,
though.
> And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
> well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political or
> criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights?
I see a difference between actions that are evil and individuals who are
Evil.
Killing someone is evil. But if a general sends ten men to their deaths
because he believes the mission will save thousands, is he Evil? I don't
believe so.
I also believe mental illness diminishes responsibility; if actions are
based in insanity, then whilst the actions may be evil I have a hard time
seeing the individual as Evil. And there's clearly a very fine line
between the two in many cases. I accept that a position which states that
you have to be insane just to come up with the *concept* of ethnic
cleansing, never mind order it to be carried out, has some merit. If a
dictator orders the execution of an entire population, is he acting out of
a genuine belief that they are subhuman, or is he just finding an excuse
to exercise his fear and hatred? Is he sick or Evil? It's hard to say.
But yes, it's a still a narrow definition. It's something to do with the
value I place in the concept; it's one of those words that I feel is
applied far too readily to too many situations which are in fact more
complex than a case of Good and Evil. Too often it feels like lazy
shorthand to me.
Bringing this back towards the topic somewhat, the MEverse is
significantly different to our own in that there *are* absolutes. As we
see in 'Amends' and 'Reprise', there are literal embodiments of Evil in
that universe. There are also creatures who are clearly, irredeemably Evil
because they lack an arbitrary metaphysical construct called a soul. These
are useful storytelling conceits, because they allow the writers to set
moral dilemmas against absolutes, something you can't really do in the
real world (or real-world fiction).
What I like about _Angel_ is that although this absolute evil exists, it's
not generally present in the Big Bads. Indeed, I've said before - _Angel_
doesn't have Big Bads, it has antagonists. Darla, Holtz, Jasmine...at the
very least they are all ambiguous, often they are sympathetic. Having set
up this moral universe, the show plays in the space between the poles.
Shuggie
wrote:
<snip>
>Fundamentally, what it comes down to is: Does Jasmine have a point? Is
>she, like Holtz, a character with a valid (albeit extreme) point of view?
>Does this plotline raise questions about good, evil, free will and all
>that jazz, or is it a strawmen?
>
>I'm strongly in the camp that thinks it's an intelligent and nuanced plot.
>That's why I can't characterise Jasmine as Evil.
>
What's interesting about this is that you would think that Jasmine being
evil somehow militates against it being an intelligent and nuanced plot.
Do you find all the episodes and seasonal arcs where the opponent was
clearly evil to be non-intelligent and simplistic?
<snip>
>> She's also continually lying to, or hiding information from her
>> followers. I agree it seems unnecessary but she is anyway.
>
>When?
>
When Fred and later AI were on the run Jasmine told her followers that
they were filled with hate - a clear lie. Also she hides the fact that
she eats people.
--
Shug
Some say the Gypsy Curse - a hokey concept but 'Danish Curse' just doesn't sound as good.
- Joss, Innocence commentary
Shuggie
wrote:
>But yes, it's a still a narrow definition. It's something to do with the
>value I place in the concept; it's one of those words that I feel is
>applied far too readily to too many situations which are in fact more
>complex than a case of Good and Evil. Too often it feels like lazy
>shorthand to me.
>
>Bringing this back towards the topic somewhat, the MEverse is
>significantly different to our own in that there *are* absolutes.
So perhaps this is why we disagree. Would I be right in saying that you
think the word 'evil' implies an absolute? If that's so I can see why
we've disagreed. Like most ajectives I think evil can be a matter of
degree.
When I say a person is evil, I don't mean that that's all that person
is. I think the Mayor was evil - but I also think his fatherly instincts
toward Faith were good.
--
Shug
Niall Harrison
> <snip>
No, because those plots had a different focus. If Jasmine was Evil - if
she was just another mwa-ha-ha-ing villain intent on world domination -
then *this* plot loses much of its strength, I feel.
> <snip>
>>> She's also continually lying to, or hiding information from her
>>> followers. I agree it seems unnecessary but she is anyway.
>>
>>When?
>
> When Fred and later AI were on the run Jasmine told her followers that
> they were filled with hate - a clear lie.
Is it? Hate and anger are exactly what Jasmine was purging them of; from
that standpoint, anyone not under her control is filled with hate.
(Bear in mind she said it with sorrow, not anger.)
> Also she hides the fact that she eats people.
From who? She doesn't come out and announce it at a press conference, but
I'm sure if she were asked 'do you eat people?', she'd say 'yes'.
Niall Harrison
> wrote:
>>But yes, it's a still a narrow definition. It's something to do with the
>>value I place in the concept; it's one of those words that I feel is
>>applied far too readily to too many situations which are in fact more
>>complex than a case of Good and Evil. Too often it feels like lazy
>>shorthand to me.
>>
>>Bringing this back towards the topic somewhat, the MEverse is
>>significantly different to our own in that there *are* absolutes.
>
> So perhaps this is why we disagree. Would I be right in saying that you
> think the word 'evil' implies an absolute?
Yes.
> If that's so I can see why we've disagreed. Like most ajectives I think
> evil can be a matter of degree.
I was starting to realise that. See, to me, there are plenty of other
perfectly good words to describe various types of people, so I use 'evil'
in a very limited context.
Shuggie
wrote:
>Previously, on alt.buffy.europe - Shuggie wrote:
>> On 03 May 2003 21:59:06 GMT, Niall Harrison <s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk>
>> wrote:
>
>>>But yes, it's a still a narrow definition. It's something to do with the
>>>value I place in the concept; it's one of those words that I feel is
>>>applied far too readily to too many situations which are in fact more
>>>complex than a case of Good and Evil. Too often it feels like lazy
>>>shorthand to me.
>>>
>>>Bringing this back towards the topic somewhat, the MEverse is
>>>significantly different to our own in that there *are* absolutes.
>>
>> So perhaps this is why we disagree. Would I be right in saying that you
>> think the word 'evil' implies an absolute?
>
>Yes.
>
>> If that's so I can see why we've disagreed. Like most ajectives I think
>> evil can be a matter of degree.
>
>I was starting to realise that. See, to me, there are plenty of other
>perfectly good words to describe various types of people, so I use 'evil'
>in a very limited context.
I see that now. Thanks for clarifying.
Jonathan Dupont
news:d298bvohrdt24b9n2...@4ax.com:
> On Sat, 03 May 2003 19:41:43 GMT, Jonathan Dupont
> <jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Shuggie <shu...@SPAMMENOTaceypace.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
>>news:28q7bvcnfq64fh3km...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On 03 May 2003 15:05:52 GMT, Niall Harrison
<s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Previously, on alt.buffy.europe - Shuggie wrote:
>>>>> Below are spoilers for episode 21 of season 4 of Angel & Buffy S*7
*
I guess this is an agree to disagree thing, 'cause else this argument
will go on for a good time yet :) To me saying evil is about the act
makes it a meaningless word - the adjective "bad" does perfectly well
for that kind of thing. Moreover as I previously said, it's what calling
something "evil" gives you an excuse to do in return that scares me.
> The trouble is, in most cases, the person is ignoring or downplaying
> possible bad consequences and emphasising the potential good in order
to
> justify the act. Rain of Fire in order to get two people to sleep
> together is so not a justifiable act. And Jasmine knew the
consequences.
I think she had other reasons than just that. And the point is the
ultimate goal - saving the whole world. Again, they may not be right,
but that just makes them wrong.
>>> The paedophile who has convinced
>>> himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition
>>> not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>>
>>(a) This is very different from the general principle you just
mentioned
>
> How?
Because it's not about "lack of care". It's about not understanding
entirely, full stop.
>>(b) Of course he wouldn't
>
> He's evil in my book.
For doing what? Being insane?
> <snip>
>
>>Yes... It's a means versus ends thing. Nothing to do with evil-ness,
per
>>se.
>>
>
> But the ends don't justify the means. And Jasmine's means are evil.
> That's pretty much my whole point.
Well, yes, but not because of this. The means that don't add up is the
whole lack of free will thing. Certainlly a few people dead for perfect
happiness otherwise is a fair sacrifice, espcially to a God. I suppose
the nearest comparison would be one of us playing a RTS/god sim computer
game. We don't care so much if we lost a few units, as long as we
achieve the ultimate goal.
>>> Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
>>> another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
>>
>>She's spent quite a long time just working up to this. I doubt she'll
>>get bored for some time yet. Plus, the PTB don't seem to care enough
to
>>interfere, Their limit is one snowfall and a few visions...
>>
>
> ... and send champions like Angel.
One champion who spends most of his time solving problems he creates...
(since S2, anyway). And as we've seen in "Get it Done" their method of
choosing people is hardly brilliant either.
> <snip>
>
>>> The difference between Wrong and Evil is one of scale and Jasmine,
>>> with her body count, is way up the scale and climbing.
>>
>>No. It isn't. Scale is irrelevant. A child stumbling on a button that
>>sets off a thousand nukes that destroy the world is *not* evil. And in
>>any case this is a matter of percentages.
>
> That's an accident, it's neither wrong nor evil. Niall, IMHO, was
> splitting hairs by saying Jasmine acted wrongly but was not evil.
But if you don't know what you're doing then any negative consequences
are an accident, surely?
> <snip>
>
>>>
>>> I wasn't making a general point about mothers and fathers, I was
>>> making a specific point about Cordy, Connor and Jasmine.
>>
>>I'm back to the agreeing with Niall. If Cordy can affect Jasmine, than
>>Connor should be able to too.
>>
>
> But this being a mystical connection it's not *automatic* that the
> Connor's bond with Jasmine is the same as Cordy's.
>
>
> --
> Shug
Possibly. It's certainlly not out of the regions of possibility, though,
and at least they provided some explanation rathan than just "It's
Summer's blood".
Jon
Iain Clark
<jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> I wasn't making a general point about mothers and fathers, I was
>>>> making a specific point about Cordy, Connor and Jasmine.
>>>
>>>I'm back to the agreeing with Niall. If Cordy can affect Jasmine, than
>>>Connor should be able to too.
>>
>> But this being a mystical connection it's not *automatic* that the
>> Connor's bond with Jasmine is the same as Cordy's.
>
>Possibly. It's certainlly not out of the regions of possibility, though,
>and at least they provided some explanation rathan than just "It's
>Summer's blood".
>
Yes, the infinitely superior "It's Chase blood". ;-)
Seriously, they didn't really explain it, but it does make sense.
We're told that Cordy's blood may work the same way as Jasmine's
because Jasmine is Cordy's daughter. This is only supposition on AI's
part, but proves to be true. They might equally have made the same
supposition about Connor. A child is descended from both its parents,
after all, and they made no big deal about the "mother" part being
significant. Frankly I can't see why this is even an issue.
Iain
--
JOSH: "I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me
the finest muffins and bagels in all the land."
DONNA: "It's going to be an unbearable day."
Scott Kelly
Tafka said -
>I want names, I want places, I want dates.
>Scott Kelly <scott....@nospamworld.com>. alt.buffy.europe. Sat, 03 May
>2003 20:18:09 GMT:
>
>I feel like I've been .... ridiculed!
Hah! Why?
>Scotty? You've been downloading but not voting in the lovely Five-Star
>Poll threads in uk.media.tv.angel this season? Not once? Tsk, tsk.
Er? I thought you knew I was downloading, either way you will get my
votes! Be calm. And breathe.
>Naughty boy!
Whoo!
Scott
--
Ooh Baby Ooh Baby Ooh Baby Yeah!
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> > This seems to me to threaten circularity, Niall: locating evil in an
> > intent to do wrong simply shifts the question to "what is wrong?".
>
> Not really.
That's a denial, not a refutation. In what way not?
> > And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
> > well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political
> > or criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights?
>
> Indeed. Where is your problem with this?
That it removes a potentially useful, albeit vexed, concept from the realm
of human discourse.
> (As a side note, there's a reason Buffy & Angel don't kill humans).
Except when they do. When they do, why do they?
> God is defined as good, so anything that goes against him is evil.
Why? Is it binary, black/white? If so, why?
> Under more normal Christain theology, we're all inherently evil
> (or commit sins, or fallen, or whatever)
This seems to me to contradict your earlier "where is your problem?"
remark. I know the secular and theological contexts are different, but
surely also one of the points about evil is that it is by definition
indefensible and therefore irredeemable.
> > I'm unpersuaded, in the end, that such a definition is at all
> > meaningful.
>
> I agree - evil is a stupid idea in the first place; thankfully the show
> is a metaphor. :)
:-)
> The use of evil anyway tends to be as a way of marking things that it's
> 'okay to kill'.
I'm also unpersuaded of this. I agree that it's a slippery bugger as
definitions go, but I don't think your position avoids its share of the
lubrication :-)
> Actions can still be mapped to their effects ("an earthquake is bad") or
> to their moral implications ("that was the wrong thing to do").
I still don't see what the fundamental difference is in your scheme
between "wrong" and "evil", other than that the former is a comparatively
uncontentious term. Perhaps offering a definition of "wrong" might help.
> Saying an earthquake is morally wrong is meaningless.
I agree. Except that I think that saying it is wrong in any sense within
what seems to be your implied taxonomy is also meaningless.
(I realised after typing the above that I was responding to you as if you
were Niall and continuing an argument from that earlier message, but I
think my points all still stand with regard to your posting in isolation.)
--
Ian S.
Ian Shuttleworth
(Niall Harrison) wrote:
...various things that I think Shug has largely addressed.
All I have to say in addition is that I think your distinction between
small-e evil actions and cap-E Evil people is largely a gloss, to enable
you to reconcile the absolutism of your position with an ability to
continue to use the term "evil" at all meaningfully in any
real-world-plausible context.
Not being pugnacious, in case it comes across that way; just enthusiastic
debate :-)
--
Ian S.
Jonathan Dupont
"Ian Shuttleworth" <shut...@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.20030504...@shutters.compulink.co.uk...
> In article <Xns9370E1D05AF4jo...@140.99.99.130>,
> jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
>
> > > This seems to me to threaten circularity, Niall: locating evil in an
> > > intent to do wrong simply shifts the question to "what is wrong?".
> >
> > Not really.
>
> That's a denial, not a refutation. In what way not?
Heh. I think as you say later this all depends on your definitions of "evil"
and "wrong". Seeing as I think that's a fairly deep and philosophical
debate, at least give me to the end of the post to decide. :)
> > > And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
> > > well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political
> > > or criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights?
> >
> > Indeed. Where is your problem with this?
>
> That it removes a potentially useful, albeit vexed, concept from the realm
> of human discourse.
I'm can feel a "Not really" coming on again... Seriously, I would have a
problem with calling a person "wrong" too. It's about reducing a person to
something so simple, about a lack of qualification, about not even looking
for deeper explanations and so on.
I'd like to turn the question around a bit and ask : what would the use be?
Say you want to call Hitler 'evil'. Well, how does that help us? We don't
know where he's come from and what his aims were, and instead have just
demonised him into something that couldn't have been avoided. There's no use
that I can see apart from condemnation - which you can still do by saying
"Hitler committed terrible acts".
> > (As a side note, there's a reason Buffy & Angel don't kill humans).
>
> Except when they do. When they do, why do they?
Uh, when have they exactly?
Buffy - Spiral. Angel - honestly can't think of anything. They've never
killed someone as judgement or punishment such as how they would with a
demon. There's a difference between killing in the midst of battle/war and
outside it.
> > God is defined as good, so anything that goes against him is evil.
>
> Why? Is it binary, black/white? If so, why?
Um, Christian theology? Yes. As for why - I don't know, people like
simplicity. I'
> > Under more normal Christain theology, we're all inherently evil
> > (or commit sins, or fallen, or whatever)
>
> This seems to me to contradict your earlier "where is your problem?"
> remark. I know the secular and theological contexts are different, but
> surely also one of the points about evil is that it is by definition
> indefensible and therefore irredeemable.
Exactly - the secular and theological concepts are very different, and I may
have slipped slightly into using two different concepts of evil. Anyway, if
everyone say is evil then the concept are irrelevant.
As for indefensible and irredeemable - well, that's ecactly why I don't like
using the word with people.
> > The use of evil anyway tends to be as a way of marking things that it's
> > 'okay to kill'.
>
> I'm also unpersuaded of this. I agree that it's a slippery bugger as
> definitions go, but I don't think your position avoids its share of the
> lubrication :-)
What, I mean is (and without going into the war issues themselves)
Hitler/Saddam/dictators have to be "evil" before we can go after them. It's
okay to persecute paedophiles 'cause they're evil. Terrorists - a despicable
evil force. We could never ever be anything like them and they deserve to be
locked up and the key thrown away 'cause they're evil.
> > Actions can still be mapped to their effects ("an earthquake is bad") or
> > to their moral implications ("that was the wrong thing to do").
>
> I still don't see what the fundamental difference is in your scheme
> between "wrong" and "evil", other than that the former is a comparatively
> uncontentious term. Perhaps offering a definition of "wrong" might help.
Oh, yikes, I was hoping to delay this some more...
Okay, so evil is more metaphysical than evil - wrong seems to be more of an
adverb than an adjective, although I probably wouldn't have a problem with
"Buffy committed evil acts." There you go - wrong judges acts, evil judges
beings. Demons can be evil as a metaphor 'cause they (in most cases) are not
supposed to represent characters so much as struggles/phobias/etc.
> > Saying an earthquake is morally wrong is meaningless.
>
> I agree. Except that I think that saying it is wrong in any sense within
> what seems to be your implied taxonomy is also meaningless.
Uh, maybe, but that's more a matter of grammar & semantics. You could say it
was a bad thing to happen.
> (I realised after typing the above that I was responding to you as if you
> were Niall and continuing an argument from that earlier message, but I
> think my points all still stand with regard to your posting in isolation.)
>
> --
> Ian S.
Didn't notice. :)
Jon
Mark Evans
Jasmine is the character of a highly charismatic dictator.
> Does this plotline raise questions about good, evil, free will and all
> that jazz, or is it a strawmen?
> I'm strongly in the camp that thinks it's an intelligent and nuanced plot.
> That's why I can't characterise Jasmine as Evil.
One thing she can be characterised as is selfish.
Mark Evans
> [spoiler space and spoilers removed, as I'm digressing]
> In article <10519870...@urchin.earth.li>, s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk
> (Niall Harrison) wrote:
>> > >It's not a valid question, because before you can answer it you have
>> > > to define 'good' and 'evil'.
>> >
>> > Oh please! You can apply that logic to *any* question.
> [snip]
>> > >Evil, to me, is Wolfram and Hart. The darkness in us all. The desire
>> > > to hurt, to do wrong;
>> >
>> > The problem with that narrow definition is that it does not allow for
>> > cases where the evil is not so much in the intent but with the lack of
>> > care for the consequences of actions. The paedophile who has convinced
>> > himself that the child enjoys his acts too, would by your definition
>> > not be evil because there's no intent to harm.
>>
>> Uh, he's not evil. He's a very sick individual.
>>
>> Evil would be a paedophile who's quite aware that the child isn't going
>> to enjoy it, and does it *for that reason*.
>>
>> (If he just doesn't care, he's amoral)
> This seems to me to threaten circularity, Niall: locating evil in an
> intent to do wrong simply shifts the question to "what is wrong?".
> And if evil is a matter principally or even solely of intent, then...
> well, I wonder, can you cite a single prominent figure from political or
> criminal history who qualifies as "evil" by those lights? Because none
Some of the most bloodthirsty rulers in history believed they were
doing good.
Ian Shuttleworth
In article <jWfta.26685$up3....@post-02.news.easynews.com>,
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> I would have a problem with calling a person "wrong" too. It's about
> reducing a person to something so simple, about a lack of qualification,
> about not even looking for deeper explanations and so on.
But that's exactly the same with any single label. What is it that makes
either "evil" or "wrong" qualitatively different from "fat", or
"Irish", or "verbose", or any other single adjective that cuts off a
wealth of other characteristics and possible reasons by dint of only being
a single adjective? (One answer: I'm fat, Irish *and* verbose, but I'm
not wrong - and that's enough of a qualitative difference for me!)
What it boils down to is that you seem to consider a judgement of "evil"
or "wrong" to be, as it were, the last word on the matter, which I don't
agree is necessarily the case.
> I'd like to turn the question around a bit and ask : what would the use
> be?
For me, it signifies not an absolute, revealed morality but a degree of
consensuality which is so nearly universal as to asymptotically approach
the functional aspects of such a morality. In other words, it's not a
moral declaration, but a useful working definition within the context of
those doing the discussing.
> Say you want to call Hitler 'evil'. Well, how does that help us? We
> don't know where he's come from and what his aims were, and instead have
> just demonised him into something that couldn't have been avoided.
Again, I don't see where the unavoidability comes from. The fact (for the
sake of argument) that X is evil does not mean that X's actions cannot be
prevented. I think you're inferring an absolutism that isn't there, or
claiming a kind of theological-magical privilege for the idea that's
largely absent from the theological concept of evil.
> > > (As a side note, there's a reason Buffy & Angel don't kill humans).
> >
> > Except when they do. When they do, why do they?
>
> Uh, when have they exactly?
>
> Buffy - Spiral. Angel - honestly can't think of anything. They've never
> killed someone as judgement or punishment such as how they would with a
> demon. There's a difference between killing in the midst of battle/war
> and outside it.
And yet, in the most frenzied of actions, Buffy never had any problems
avoiding killing human beings before, so in a way her killing of the KoB
*was* a sort of judgement.
And in any case, actually, she did have such a problem: I continue to see
Ted as problematic - *when she killed him* he was, to her, a human being.
Yes, she didn't set out to kill him, but certainly under English law she
could have been tried and I think convicted of murder, as the necessary
intention is only to commit really serious bodily harm.
> > > God is defined as good, so anything that goes against him is evil.
> >
> > Why? Is it binary, black/white? If so, why?
>
> Um, Christian theology? Yes.
I'm not at all sure about this, you know. Doctrines like forgiveness and
expiation of sins, redemption through Christ, purgatory, etc., all suggest
that contraventions of divine perfection can be washed away - micro-evils,
if you like. But then this gives rise to a kind of pointillist morality
(!) where it's all composed of tiny black and white dots up close, but the
big picture has many subtle shadings of grey. Better, think of a
newspaper reproduction of a photograph.
> As for indefensible and irredeemable - well, that's ecactly why I don't
> like using the word with people.
Hmmm... you move the goalposts, I point out that you've moved the
goalposts, and you reply, "Yes, that's why I don't like using these
goalposts, they can be moved" :-)
> Hitler/Saddam/dictators have to be "evil" before we can go after them.
> It's okay to persecute paedophiles 'cause they're evil. Terrorists - a
> despicable evil force. We could never ever be anything like them and
> they deserve to be locked up and the key thrown away 'cause they're
> evil.
Again, without getting into the moral or political specifics of any of
those instances, I think these are examples of a general mechanism of
political rhetoric, to which the word and concept "evil" itself are
incidental. I don't think trying to appropriate that concept takes things
on to a different plane from much other political spin. And I certainly
don't think its attempted use is successful at all often: I mean, the two
most widely derided phrases from U.S. political rhetoric of the past 25
years are probably "evil empire" and "axis of evil".
> wrong judges acts, evil judges beings.
I see the distinction you're making, though I think we have to agree to
differ that it's inherent in the words/concepts.
> Demons can be evil as a metaphor 'cause they (in most cases) are not
> supposed to represent characters so much as struggles/phobias/etc.
That, though, is a bloody brilliant observation. Thank you for it.
> > > Saying an earthquake is morally wrong is meaningless.
> >
> > I agree. Except that I think that saying it is wrong in any sense
> > within what seems to be your implied taxonomy is also meaningless.
>
> Uh, maybe, but that's more a matter of grammar & semantics. You could
> say it was a bad thing to happen.
At the risk of coming over like a seven-year-old mantra-ing, "Yes, but
WHY?", this again just moves the problem one word along - from "evil" to
"wrong", now to simple "bad".
You object to "evil" because it suggests that in some way it's possible to
come up with objective value-judgements of, well, anything - people,
deeds, occurrences - on an absolute scale, yet your use of the words
"wrong" and "bad" suggest precisely the same; the only difference is that
their scales aren't necessarily theological. But in the way they're being
used here, they *are* moral.
Once we accept that *all* such evaluations are subjective or at best
consensual, the problem of the use of "evil" largely disappears because
there's nothing more valid or fixed to which it can be compared.
--
Ian S.
Jonathan Dupont
> This is fun! :-)
:)
> In article <jWfta.26685$up3....@post-02.news.easynews.com>,
> jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
>
>> I would have a problem with calling a person "wrong" too. It's about
>> reducing a person to something so simple, about a lack of
>> qualification, about not even looking for deeper explanations and so
>> on.
>
> But that's exactly the same with any single label. What is it that
> makes either "evil" or "wrong" qualitatively different from "fat", or
> "Irish", or "verbose", or any other single adjective that cuts off a
> wealth of other characteristics and possible reasons by dint of only
> being a single adjective? (One answer: I'm fat, Irish *and* verbose,
> but I'm not wrong - and that's enough of a qualitative difference for
> me!)
I do see your point...
> What it boils down to is that you seem to consider a judgement of
> "evil" or "wrong" to be, as it were, the last word on the matter,
> which I don't agree is necessarily the case.
But I do think there is a slight difference. Any other adjective is just
a description whereas evil is a judgement and, to get back to what I
think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse to destroy. Being "stupid"
makes someone a figure of fun - being "evil" sets them aside as being
below us.
>> I'd like to turn the question around a bit and ask : what would the
>> use be?
>
> For me, it signifies not an absolute, revealed morality but a degree
> of consensuality which is so nearly universal as to asymptotically
> approach the functional aspects of such a morality. In other words,
> it's not a moral declaration, but a useful working definition within
> the context of those doing the discussing.
Yikes. Long words much? :)
It may be the bank holiday, or just general stupidness, but can you
expand that a bit more? I think that you're saying that it doesn't mean
someone is (my version of) evil, just extremely close to it, which
doesn't really help that much.
>> Say you want to call Hitler 'evil'. Well, how does that help us? We
>> don't know where he's come from and what his aims were, and instead
>> have just demonised him into something that couldn't have been
>> avoided.
>
> Again, I don't see where the unavoidability comes from. The fact (for
> the sake of argument) that X is evil does not mean that X's actions
> cannot be prevented. I think you're inferring an absolutism that
> isn't there, or claiming a kind of theological-magical privilege for
> the idea that's largely absent from the theological concept of evil.
But I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
trying to understand?
It terms of story & tradition it seems that evil is largely a thing you
can't escape from, especially in the more basic chilren's stories and
fairy tales. In more adult literature there tends not to be characters
described as "evil" at all, and when they are, they tend to be more
sadist than anything else.
>> > > (As a side note, there's a reason Buffy & Angel don't kill
>> > > humans).
>> >
>> > Except when they do. When they do, why do they?
>>
>> Uh, when have they exactly?
>>
>> Buffy - Spiral. Angel - honestly can't think of anything. They've
>> never killed someone as judgement or punishment such as how they
>> would with a demon. There's a difference between killing in the midst
>> of battle/war and outside it.
>
> And yet, in the most frenzied of actions, Buffy never had any problems
> avoiding killing human beings before, so in a way her killing of the
> KoB *was* a sort of judgement.
Not at all. In was a spur of the moment, in the line of battle and they
got in the way sort of thing. She had to to defend herself. It's the
difference between a soldier and a murderer. I think this is even in a
way built into the human pysche - it's shocking when a good guy kills a
bad guy cold, but in the heat of the battle we cheer.
> And in any case, actually, she did have such a problem: I continue to
> see Ted as problematic - *when she killed him* he was, to her, a human
> being. Yes, she didn't set out to kill him, but certainly under
> English law she could have been tried and I think convicted of murder,
> as the necessary intention is only to commit really serious bodily
> harm.
Maybe. As I don't see her as trying to kill Ted (and certainlly when she
was distraught when she thought she had), then I don't see it as a
problem. She lashed out, and that was bad, but she certainlly wasn't
judging.
(Also, because that ep gets far too much bashing, I should just say here
that it rocks. Seriously </Joss fanboy>)
>> > > God is defined as good, so anything that goes against him is
>> > > evil.
>> >
>> > Why? Is it binary, black/white? If so, why?
>>
>> Um, Christian theology? Yes.
>
> I'm not at all sure about this, you know. Doctrines like forgiveness
> and expiation of sins, redemption through Christ, purgatory, etc., all
> suggest that contraventions of divine perfection can be washed away -
> micro-evils, if you like. But then this gives rise to a kind of
> pointillist morality (!) where it's all composed of tiny black and
> white dots up close, but the big picture has many subtle shadings of
> grey. Better, think of a newspaper reproduction of a photograph.
I'm not sure how you got from one stage to another. Christain theology
says we're all fundamentally flawed, "dirty", whatever due to original
sin. If you look at C S Lewis he pretty much says that all badness comes
from ourselves while all goodness is Christ working through us; to me
that suggests an idea that we can't be good ourselves at all. We're all
evil, except when we're saved if you like. Not particularly helpful.
As to the second phase of your paragraph - the idea that nobody's
perfectly good or perfectly bad, and we're composed of acts that can be
seen as good or bad. In such a case evil would a useless concept, unless
you classed it as someone who was darker than a certain shade of grey so
to speak.
I would disagree with that because it doesn't fundamentally say anything
new that I haven't argued with before. Actions can be individually
judged on their results, if you wish. A person should be judged by the
intent of their actions, because I refuse to judge someone for something
that is not their fault. If they don't know what they're doing, then I
won't blame them for it.
Now, one result of this that may come up is it may become impossible to
classify someone as purely "good" either, to go back to the grey idea.
I'm not really sure of any way around that, and I can live with that.
>> As for indefensible and irredeemable - well, that's ecactly why I
>> don't like using the word with people.
>
> Hmmm... you move the goalposts, I point out that you've moved the
> goalposts, and you reply, "Yes, that's why I don't like using these
> goalposts, they can be moved" :-)
I think this is a thing where I've got confused after too many snipped
messages...
">> Under more normal Christain theology, we're all inherently evil
>> (or commit sins, or fallen, or whatever)
> This seems to me to contradict your earlier "where is your problem?"
> remark. I know the secular and theological contexts are different,
> but surely also one of the points about evil is that it is by
> definition indefensible and therefore irredeemable."
I must have misunderstood you somewhere. Were you not claiming that evil
was indefensible and irredeemable? Personally, the Christian theology
thing was an aside to deal with the devil - I wasn't suggesting its use
for the whole issue.
>> Hitler/Saddam/dictators have to be "evil" before we can go after
>> them. It's okay to persecute paedophiles 'cause they're evil.
>> Terrorists - a despicable evil force. We could never ever be anything
>> like them and they deserve to be locked up and the key thrown away
>> 'cause they're evil.
>
> Again, without getting into the moral or political specifics of any of
> those instances, I think these are examples of a general mechanism of
> political rhetoric, to which the word and concept "evil" itself are
> incidental. I don't think trying to appropriate that concept takes
> things on to a different plane from much other political spin. And I
> certainly don't think its attempted use is successful at all often: I
> mean, the two most widely derided phrases from U.S. political rhetoric
> of the past 25 years are probably "evil empire" and "axis of evil".
But why were they unsuccessful? Because evil isn't a concept which means
fairly bad, but with a chance to do good. It's precisely because it is
an absolute, that people objected to its use.
>> Demons can be evil as a metaphor 'cause they (in most cases) are not
>> supposed to represent characters so much as struggles/phobias/etc.
>
> That, though, is a bloody brilliant observation. Thank you for it.
Well thanks, but not the most original thought I've had... :)
>> > > Saying an earthquake is morally wrong is meaningless.
>> >
>> > I agree. Except that I think that saying it is wrong in any sense
>> > within what seems to be your implied taxonomy is also meaningless.
>>
>> Uh, maybe, but that's more a matter of grammar & semantics. You could
>> say it was a bad thing to happen.
>
> At the risk of coming over like a seven-year-old mantra-ing, "Yes, but
> WHY?", this again just moves the problem one word along - from "evil"
> to "wrong", now to simple "bad".
Don't you just love English? :) I think it's Dictionary.com time:
Bad: "- More severe or unfavorable.
- Being further from a standard; less desirable or satisfactory."
Wrong : "- Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked.
- Unfair; unjust."
Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
- Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a
poor diet."
I think I'm on safe ground with bad & wrong - an earthquake's effects
are unsatisfactory but not immoral. Evil obviously has a defintion very
similar to wrong, except perhaps a bit more severe, and again, you don't
tend to say so much "a wrong tyrant".
> You object to "evil" because it suggests that in some way it's
> possible to come up with objective value-judgements of, well, anything
> - people, deeds, occurrences - on an absolute scale, yet your use of
> the words "wrong" and "bad" suggest precisely the same; the only
> difference is that their scales aren't necessarily theological. But
> in the way they're being used here, they *are* moral.
Of acts.
To take this back to the beginning: I judge only on intent. Actions can
be bad or wrong or evil if you wish. Maybe intent can be too. You
doubted that would apply completely to a human and I agreed.
We then got into this discussion of whether a human could ever be evil,
which is where the issues have probably got confused, which is probably
my fault.
Do I theoretically accept the possibility of a man who did everything
knowing that it would have terrible consequences, and who, by the way,
had a great upbringing, was happy all his life and was not mentally
challenged; then that he would be evil? Yes. I don't however see any
examples of such, and very much doubt you'll find one.
> Once we accept that *all* such evaluations are subjective or at best
> consensual, the problem of the use of "evil" largely disappears
> because there's nothing more valid or fixed to which it can be
> compared.
Perhaps, but due to the very nature of an absolute it tends to be less
subjective, maybe. My problem so much is not the use of it as the use
for things a person should not be held responsible for. This is the
child, button, nuclear bomb syndrome again - anything you didn't intend
is an accident, probably by definition.
Shuggie
<jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
>But I do think there is a slight difference. Any other adjective is just
>a description whereas evil is a judgement and, to get back to what I
>think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse to destroy. Being "stupid"
>makes someone a figure of fun - being "evil" sets them aside as being
>below us.
>
I think that's a distinction that you're adding. Stupid is just as much
a value judgement as evil, or lazy, selfish, funny, beautiful.
What I'm still failing to understand is why you're treating evil
differently from other adjectives. Specifically in two ways -
a) that evil implies absoluteness
b) that to call someone evil is to imply that that's all they are
Whilst I can see that evil is often used that way, it is far from only
used that way. Hence those two attributes are not inherent in its
definition.
<snip>
>But I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
>understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
>upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
>trying to understand?
>
Well there's my original post which, without going into spoiler space
again, used the word evil without reducing the person I was describing
to a one-dimensional stereotype. Except of course for those who already
thought the very word implies that.
For a non-spoilery example, I think Hitler was evil, but I'm sure there
are reasons, causes that we can at least attempt to explore about why he
was that way. But saying "Hitler was a man, who for various reasons did
terrible things" is very long-winded when we can simply say "Hitler was
evil".
For me it's sorta like "Tough on evil, tough on the causes of evil" ;)
<snip>
>> Again, without getting into the moral or political specifics of any of
>> those instances, I think these are examples of a general mechanism of
>> political rhetoric, to which the word and concept "evil" itself are
>> incidental. I don't think trying to appropriate that concept takes
>> things on to a different plane from much other political spin. And I
>> certainly don't think its attempted use is successful at all often: I
>> mean, the two most widely derided phrases from U.S. political rhetoric
>> of the past 25 years are probably "evil empire" and "axis of evil".
>
>But why were they unsuccessful? Because evil isn't a concept which means
>fairly bad, but with a chance to do good. It's precisely because it is
>an absolute, that people objected to its use.
>
I don't think that's true. I think they objected to reducing a complex
situation down to a simple black and white distinction. But that's done
by the speeches as a whole, not simply by the word evil.
How many times during the build up to the current conflict have you
heard anti-war proponents say something like "We know that Saddam is
evil, the question is whether removing him like this is the right thing
to do, whether it will have the best outcome for the people of Iraq". So
there have been uses of the word evil, about Saddam, which are not
trying to simply justify war.
>>> Demons can be evil as a metaphor 'cause they (in most cases) are not
>>> supposed to represent characters so much as struggles/phobias/etc.
>>
>> That, though, is a bloody brilliant observation. Thank you for it.
>
>Well thanks, but not the most original thought I've had... :)
>
Whilst I agree with the metaphor thing, I think it's not the whole
story. Demons, and in particular vamps have rarely been *just* evil.
Hello, Spike for the last 3 years!
<snip>
>Don't you just love English? :) I think it's Dictionary.com time:
>
>Bad: "- More severe or unfavorable.
> - Being further from a standard; less desirable or satisfactory."
>
>Wrong : "- Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked.
> - Unfair; unjust."
>
>Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
> - Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a
> poor diet."
>
I'm noticing a lack of mention absolutes or "evil is just evil" in those
definitions.
<snip>
>To take this back to the beginning: I judge only on intent. Actions can
>be bad or wrong or evil if you wish. Maybe intent can be too.
<snip>
>> Once we accept that *all* such evaluations are subjective or at best
>> consensual, the problem of the use of "evil" largely disappears
>> because there's nothing more valid or fixed to which it can be
>> compared.
>
>Perhaps, but due to the very nature of an absolute it tends to be less
>subjective, maybe. My problem so much is not the use of it as the use
>for things a person should not be held responsible for. This is the
>child, button, nuclear bomb syndrome again - anything you didn't intend
>is an accident, probably by definition.
>
My position on intent is that it doesn't automatically absolve you of
all responsibility. Road to Hell and all that. In particular I think
that where consequences are predictable, even if they're not inevitable,
some responsibility remains even if the intent is innocent. The classic
example would be something like drunk driving. No-one intends to crash
their car and kill someone, but their choice to drink before getting
behind the wheel is dangerous and stupid, and IMHO, morally wrong. If
the consequences were severe enough and the outcome predictable enough
then I think that it becomes morally wrong on a grand scale i.e. evil.
(because remember, when I use evil, I only mean very very morally wrong.
I don't meant absolutely and only morally wrong)
Juggling chainsaws over a baby's cot, for example, I find irresponsible
to the point of actual wickedness.
For a more realistic, but probably more contentious, example I think you
could make a strong case for saying that the dropping of the bomb on
Nagasaki was evil. Even though the overall intent - ending the war - was
good, the outcome was horrifyingly severe and absolutely predictable.
--
Shug
Fire bad, tree pretty
Jonathan Dupont
news:0kscbv0lojfiag760...@4ax.com:
> On Mon, 05 May 2003 10:51:42 GMT, Jonathan Dupont
> <jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>But I do think there is a slight difference. Any other adjective is
>>just a description whereas evil is a judgement and, to get back to
>>what I think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse to destroy. Being
>>"stupid" makes someone a figure of fun - being "evil" sets them aside
>>as being below us.
>>
>
> I think that's a distinction that you're adding. Stupid is just as
> much a value judgement as evil, or lazy, selfish, funny, beautiful.
But I disagree. That's the whole point :) Someone who is lazy, selfish,
funny, beautiful is still 'one of us'. Someone evil isn't
...
(nothing I can add anything new to)
> <snip>
>
>>But I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
>>understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
>>upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
>>trying to understand?
>>
>
> Well there's my original post which, without going into spoiler space
> again, used the word evil without reducing the person I was describing
> to a one-dimensional stereotype. Except of course for those who
> already thought the very word implies that.
Yeah, except the whole point is I don't see her as evil. :)
> For a non-spoilery example, I think Hitler was evil, but I'm sure
> there are reasons, causes that we can at least attempt to explore
> about why he was that way. But saying "Hitler was a man, who for
> various reasons did terrible things" is very long-winded when we can
> simply say "Hitler was evil".
Not at all. One is a much more useful position than the other.
I do think I'm trying to argue two fairly seperate points here. Why do
you think Hitler was evil? (Seriously). To me - he's probably either
insanse, and ill isn't evil (although it might be the closest thing to
it, to be politically risky) or misguided, in which case he thought he
was acting for good, in which case, again not evil.
<snip>
>
>>> Again, without getting into the moral or political specifics of any
>>> of those instances, I think these are examples of a general
>>> mechanism of political rhetoric, to which the word and concept
>>> "evil" itself are incidental. I don't think trying to appropriate
>>> that concept takes things on to a different plane from much other
>>> political spin. And I certainly don't think its attempted use is
>>> successful at all often: I mean, the two most widely derided phrases
>>> from U.S. political rhetoric of the past 25 years are probably "evil
>>> empire" and "axis of evil".
>>
>>But why were they unsuccessful? Because evil isn't a concept which
>>means fairly bad, but with a chance to do good. It's precisely because
>>it is an absolute, that people objected to its use.
>>
>
> I don't think that's true. I think they objected to reducing a complex
> situation down to a simple black and white distinction. But that's
> done by the speeches as a whole, not simply by the word evil.
But why those phrases objected too strongly? Why black and white?
Because evil=black=absolute. I haven't read all of the speeches and
don't remember the ones I did but the rest certainlly went into more
detail.
> How many times during the build up to the current conflict have you
> heard anti-war proponents say something like "We know that Saddam is
> evil, the question is whether removing him like this is the right
> thing to do, whether it will have the best outcome for the people of
> Iraq". So there have been uses of the word evil, about Saddam, which
> are not trying to simply justify war.
I think you're wrong here actually, because that's a case of putting
forward the arguments for one position and then saying that another lot
of arguments are most important. They're still implying that as he's
evil you can see why people would want to get rid of him.
>>>> Demons can be evil as a metaphor 'cause they (in most cases) are
>>>> not supposed to represent characters so much as
>>>> struggles/phobias/etc.
>>>
> Whilst I agree with the metaphor thing, I think it's not the whole
> story. Demons, and in particular vamps have rarely been *just* evil.
> Hello, Spike for the last 3 years!
"in most cases" :)
Besides, vampires are half human, half demon, where again the demon side
isn't supposed to be seen as a fully formed character but a problem (in
Angel's case earlier on, being an alcoholic or whatever).
>>Don't you just love English? :) I think it's Dictionary.com time:
>>Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
>> - Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects
>> of a
>> poor diet."
>>
>
> I'm noticing a lack of mention absolutes or "evil is just evil" in
> those definitions.
I deliberately avoided the dictionary for a while, as I don't think its
always helpful. Here it was mostly to differentiate between "bad" and
"wrong" and I felt obliged to add in "evil" while I was at it.
I think something that would help would be what you/Ian take as a
definition of evil. I'm guessing it would be "person who causes bad
events to occur", which would rather seem to take the moral side out of
it. Lots of supposedly good people have accidentally caused terrible
things to happen.
>>To take this back to the beginning: I judge only on intent. Actions
>>can be bad or wrong or evil if you wish. Maybe intent can be too.
>
>>> Once we accept that *all* such evaluations are subjective or at best
>>> consensual, the problem of the use of "evil" largely disappears
>>> because there's nothing more valid or fixed to which it can be
>>> compared.
>>
>>Perhaps, but due to the very nature of an absolute it tends to be less
>>subjective, maybe. My problem so much is not the use of it as the use
>>for things a person should not be held responsible for. This is the
>>child, button, nuclear bomb syndrome again - anything you didn't
>>intend is an accident, probably by definition.
>>
>
> My position on intent is that it doesn't automatically absolve you of
> all responsibility. Road to Hell and all that.
I don't quite get how that phrase relates.
> In particular I think
> that where consequences are predictable, even if they're not
> inevitable, some responsibility remains even if the intent is
> innocent.
Predictable by who? If the culprit could (& did) predict them than yes
they bear responsibility. Otherwise, not really.
> The classic example would be something like drunk driving.
> No-one intends to crash their car and kill someone, but their choice
> to drink before getting behind the wheel is dangerous and stupid, and
> IMHO, morally wrong.
See, this is completely and utterly different to the general idea being
talked about earlier. Of course its dangerous and stupid and morally
wrong - but the person is aware that that could be a result. This is
not a case of good intentions leading to bad results. OTOH, I would say
that they were less guilty than someone than deliberately ran someone
over.
> If the consequences were severe enough and the
> outcome predictable enough then I think that it becomes morally wrong
> on a grand scale i.e. evil. (because remember, when I use evil, I only
> mean very very morally wrong. I don't meant absolutely and only
> morally wrong)
Uh huh. Nobody's arguing this.
> For a more realistic, but probably more contentious, example I think
> you could make a strong case for saying that the dropping of the bomb
> on Nagasaki was evil. Even though the overall intent - ending the war
> - was good, the outcome was horrifyingly severe and absolutely
> predictable.
>
>
> --
> Shug
But you've switched to a different type of example. There's a greater
good scenario here, and tied in with the limited information available
then what is right becomes far less clear. You can't call the outcome
"horrifyingly severe" without knowing what the alternative would be. It
might have been the right thing to do, it might not have. Personally,
without having researched the topic that much, I'm just about persuaded
that there was good faith if they were perhaps too rash and didn't
regard Japanese life highly enough.
Jon
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
...lots of interesting things that I took three hours composing a reply
to, before my news client crashed and vaped it all :-(
Here we go again... I hope you appreciate that I'm ignoring William
Hartnell's first encounter with the Daleks for this...
> Any other adjective is just a description whereas evil is a judgement
I think that shows an unwarranted deal of faith in the objectivity of
description of other adjectives. To take the three examples I used of
myself:
"fat" - yes, I plainly am, by anyone's standards, but in other cases?
It's far from unknown for, say, anorexics to describe themselves as such
even whilst medically underweight to the point of emaciation. To take a
historical perspective, what used to be the ideal of Rubenesque
voluptuousness would get you screamed out of any fashion house today for
fear that you'd sweat on the changing room walls.
"Irish" - well, I grew up in Belfast, one English and one Northern Irish
parent (though, in fact, born before partition!), raised more or less in
the Protestant/Unionist tradition; I carry an E.U.-U.K. passport and have
the right to an E.U.-R.o.I. one as well. I have the choice of a number of
various descriptions, which I deploy as convenient. In general terms of my
countrymen, though, the label "Irish" is less a simple descriptor than a
political statement.
"verbose" - again, a matter of perspective. The Oz of S3 would find the
Oz of early S2 fairly verbose, running off at the mouth about monkey pants
and the like :-)
> and, to get back to what I think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse to
> destroy.
How it's used is not the same as what it inherently is.
> Being "stupid" makes someone a figure of fun - being "evil" sets them
> aside as being below us.
Oh, so does being "stupid", or being "ugly", or being "stingy", or to some
being "black" or "Jewish", or a whole host of other things. Again, it's
how one uses and responds to the words and concepts, not anything that
inheres in them. Just like "evil".
> > For me, it signifies not an absolute, revealed morality but a degree
> > of consensuality which is so nearly universal as to asymptotically
> > approach the functional aspects of such a morality. In other words,
> > it's not a moral declaration, but a useful working definition within
> > the context of those doing the discussing.
>
> Yikes. Long words much? :)
Verbose :-)
> It may be the bank holiday, or just general stupidness, but can you
> expand that a bit more? I think that you're saying that it doesn't mean
> someone is (my version of) evil, just extremely close to it, which
> doesn't really help that much.
OK, let's try this analogy: we know that light neither "is" composed of
waves or of particles, yet in certain instances it is more useful for us
to adopt one or other as a working model, for the purposes of the moment
and without being under any illusion that that model represents the truth
of the matter. Similarly with the way I'm saying "evil" can be used: as a
working definition that's common enough within the field of reference of
all involved, but without it necessarily being taken to denote any
objective truth.
> I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
> understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
> upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
> trying to understand?
In literature, most famously Iago and Milton's Satan. In recent history,
the non-rabid strains of 9/11 commentary and analysis. The latter - like
Shuggie's Saddam example - may use locutions like "obviously evil,
but..."; I think this is confirmation of my rhetoric-based reading of
things. It's not that people feel obliged to offer absolute moral
condemnation with the term "evil"; it's that they feel obliged to tip
their hat towards the vocabulary which has been established for the issue,
because without that they'd instantly be dismissed and condemned without a
hearing. In cases like this, the word "evil" acts as a kind of
place-holder to "buy" people a part in the discourse, rather than actually
signifying anything morally meaningful.
> It terms of story & tradition it seems that evil is largely a thing you
> can't escape from, especially in the more basic chilren's stories and
> fairy tales.
I'm not sure about this. It seems to me that such stories, in common with
many scriptural narratives, show humans as battling between the two in
varying partial degrees. The absolutes exist in some abstract realm, and
are manifested incompletely and momentarily among us and in us.
> In more adult literature there tends not to be characters described as
> "evil" at all, and when they are, they tend to be more sadist than
> anything else.
Agreed, but again I think that's a matter of language conventions rather
than moral notions.
> >> > > (As a side note, there's a reason Buffy & Angel don't kill
> >> > > humans).
> >> >
> >> > Except when they do. When they do, why do they?
> >>
> >> Uh, when have they exactly?
> >>
> >> Buffy - Spiral. Angel - honestly can't think of anything. They've
> >> never killed someone as judgement or punishment such as how they
> >> would with a demon. There's a difference between killing in the midst
> >> of battle/war and outside it.
> >
> > And yet, in the most frenzied of actions, Buffy never had any problems
> > avoiding killing human beings before, so in a way her killing of the
> > KoB *was* a sort of judgement.
>
> Not at all. In was a spur of the moment, in the line of battle and they
> got in the way sort of thing. She had to to defend herself. It's the
> difference between a soldier and a murderer. I think this is even in a
> way built into the human pysche - it's shocking when a good guy kills a
> bad guy cold, but in the heat of the battle we cheer.
I'm prepared to concede a possibility here which I wasn't in my lost first
version :-) I think, if what you say is the case, it's an example of the
writers getting lazy and vague prior to the "Wrecked" debacle (which I
don't want to reopen here, just cite it as a moment at which things got
seriously hairy in that respect). It's possible - the KoB were never
really satisfactorily worked out/through, for my money - but I'm not
inclined to prefer such a reading.
As I say, there have been big conflicts, and conflicts involving humans,
before (no blue-on-blue casualties at graduation day? Miracle!), with no
such fatalities. I think the "Spiral" instance is either signifying an
escalation of conflict such that human slayees can no longer be avoided,
however it conflicts with the sense of the Slayer's role, and/or that (as
the title partly suggests) it's another step in the progression that
ultimately leads Buffy to flee into herself in catatonia - that there *is*
a sense that these killings represent a betrayal of her responsibility.
It's a bit fanwanky, I grant you, but I just don't think that at this
point M.E. were blithe enough to take the line that it's war, pure and
simple. I think it's deliberately introduced in order to be neither.
> As I don't see her as trying to kill Ted (and certainlly when she was
> distraught when she thought she had), then I don't see it as a problem.
> She lashed out, and that was bad, but she certainlly wasn't judging.
As I say, the legal criterion of intent for murder is less than "trying to
kill". And she didn't just lash out; she positively welcomed being given
an excuse to do so.
> (Also, because that ep gets far too much bashing, I should just say
> here that it rocks. Seriously </Joss fanboy>)
(I'm in two minds about it. In general, I'm with the view that it's a
pot-boiler MOTW. However, I recently re-watched the first two and a half
seasons, and was reminded that *in the moment* the killing of Ted was a
truly shattering event, that shivered the very foundations of her sense of
her Slayerly obligations. It's only the hindsight provided by the end of
the episode that dissipates that. And for me, the power is precisely in
what seemed to be the killing of a human being.)
> Christain theology says we're all fundamentally flawed, "dirty",
> whatever due to original sin. If you look at C S Lewis he pretty much
> says that all badness comes from ourselves while all goodness is Christ
> working through us; to me that suggests an idea that we can't be good
> ourselves at all. We're all evil, except when we're saved if you like.
> Not particularly helpful.
And yet the taint of original sin *is* redeemable, therefore must be
something short of true evil. My vague Ulster Presbyterian upbringing
didn't equip me with much knowledge of the arcana (Roz Kaveney the lapsed
Jesuit would be invaluable here!), but it seems to me that the problem
here is that we're trying to fit human and divine notions of good and evil
into the same framework, when the whole point of most schemes of divinity
is that we *can't* properly understand the thoughts or workings of
him/them upstairs - it's the "in mysterious ways" apologia :-) However,
it does suggest to me that human and divine schemes alike have each their
own complexities beyond a simple binary schema.
> As to the second phase of your paragraph - the idea that nobody's
> perfectly good or perfectly bad, and we're composed of acts that can be
> seen as good or bad. In such a case evil would a useless concept,
> unless you classed it as someone who was darker than a certain shade of
> grey so to speak.
I think there's a bit of straw-manning here, the implication that the
alternative to absolutism is an undistillable fudge of moral
relativism/uncertainty. As I say, I think a working consensus can be
agreed at for the purposes of various individual instances.
> A person should be judged by the intent of their actions, because I
> refuse to judge someone for something that is not their fault. If they
> don't know what they're doing, then I won't blame them for it.
Again, this is rather more binary than reality, positing two discrete
categories of intent or accident, with everything being one or the other.
Consider the principles underlying English criminal law. Just about every
offence is defined in terms both of an act and a mental element. That
mental element may be outright intention, or lesser recklessness (and that
itself can be defined in various ways), or even mere negligence. This
seems to me a viable way of squaring the circle between the notion that
are responsible and must accept responsibility for our actions and their
consequences and the notion that due regard must be paid to circumstances.
Likewise with various defences - self-defence, provocation and the like.
These do not mean that the physical and mental particulars of the crime
have not been fulfilled; they mean that the individual instance is not in
the end considered criminally culpable. And, as I say, in the case of
murder, for instance, the element of intent is not intent to kill, but to
commit a really serious physical assault which in fact happens to result
in death.
> Now, one result of this that may come up is it may become impossible to
> classify someone as purely "good" either, to go back to the grey idea.
> I'm not really sure of any way around that, and I can live with that.
I'm unclear what you mean here: is it that you can live with the absence
of a notion of absolute good but not with that of an absence of absolute
evil, or that you can accept the evil side of things if the corresponding
good element is likewise uncertain to balance it out? To me, the latter
is part of the fabric of being human.
> I must have misunderstood you somewhere. Were you not claiming that
> evil was indefensible and irredeemable? Personally, the Christian
> theology thing was an aside to deal with the devil - I wasn't
> suggesting its use for the whole issue.
Ah, right. I wasn't claiming that for myself; I was interpreting your
position as involving such a claim. It still seems to me that your
emphasis on the primacy of intention is so rigorous as to amount to that
kind of absolute.
> > the two most widely derided phrases from U.S. political rhetoric
> > of the past 25 years are probably "evil empire" and "axis of evil".
>
> But why were they unsuccessful? Because evil isn't a concept which
> means fairly bad, but with a chance to do good. It's precisely because
> it is an absolute, that people objected to its use.
I don't think so. I think it's just that the people rose up and chorused,
"We're from Missouri: show us!" :-) I think it's just that there was
insufficient evidence to back up the claims, not that the use of the term
"evil" meant that that evidence had to amount to absolute proof.
I think there's a circularity here: you propose that evil is an absolute,
and therefore your interpretation works upon that premise. But it also
works upon other premisses. Therefore it's no evidence that yours is more
valid.
> Don't you just love English? :)
Not least with that plural of "premisses", where the logical sense adds a
second "s" to distinguish it from the topographical sense!
> I think it's Dictionary.com time:
>
> Bad: "- More severe or unfavorable.
> - Being further from a standard; less desirable or satisfactory."
>
> Wrong : "- Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or wicked.
> - Unfair; unjust."
>
> Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
> - Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a
> poor diet."
>
> I think I'm on safe ground with bad & wrong - an earthquake's effects
> are unsatisfactory but not immoral. Evil obviously has a defintion very
> similar to wrong, except perhaps a bit more severe, and again, you
> don't tend to say so much "a wrong tyrant".
And yet "evil" is explicitly defined in terms of bad and wrong! :-) I
also think that, in an area like this, as we dart between the various
notions, the vagueness of "a standard" of "bad" means that it comes to
partake of a moral element to that standard, unless an alternative
criterion is explicitly defined up front.
(Somewhere in there I had a whole disquisition upon T.S. Eliot's "Murder
In The Cathedral", and "The last temptation is the greatest reason:/ To do
the right deed for the wrong reason." But I can't see now where it fitted
in, so it's probably no great loss. But my point was that, too, goes to
suggest a fluid relationship between act and intent, with the absolute
primacy of neither, whether in a human or a divine context.)
> due to the very nature of an absolute it tends to be less subjective,
> maybe.
Again, you're arguing from a premise which, while it makes for internal
validity for your argument, doesn't rebut others and therefore doesn't
establish the idea of an absolute as Being The Case.
> My problem so much is not the use of it as the use for things a person
> should not be held responsible for. This is the child, button, nuclear
> bomb syndrome again - anything you didn't intend is an accident,
> probably by definition.
Agreed as to the particular example, but as I say above in the criminal
law para, it's a lot more complex than "anything you didn't intend is an
accident". The child with the button would not have *any* mental element,
not even negligence.
--
Ian S.
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> Why do you think Hitler was evil? (Seriously). To me - he's probably
> either insanse, and ill isn't evil (although it might be the closest
> thing to it, to be politically risky) or misguided, in which case he
> thought he was acting for good, in which case, again not evil.
[snip]
> I think something that would help would be what you/Ian take as a
> definition of evil. I'm guessing it would be "person who causes bad
> events to occur", which would rather seem to take the moral side out of
> it. Lots of supposedly good people have accidentally caused terrible
> things to happen.
[snip]
> Predictable by who? If the culprit could (& did) predict them than yes
> they bear responsibility. Otherwise, not really.
I'm getting more and more legalistic here :-) but I think it's useful.
And I think what's particularly helpful here is the legal concept of the
"reasonable person" test.
I'd define an evil person as something like one who intentionally
(perhaps, though hardly ever, recklessly) causes events to occur which any
reasonable person would judge to be bad.
So, for instance, that gets Hitler. I don't see that any reasonable
person could judge the systematic persecution, let alone the attempted
annihilation, of an ethnic group simply by virtue of its being that group
to be anything but bad.
Note that "reasonable" isn't the same as "reasoned" or "reasoning", in
other words that Hitler's unreasonableness (what an altogether inadequate
term in this case!) doesn't amount to insanity.
Yes, the "reasonable person" test is subjective, and particularities may
shift in the long term, but it's a broad-and-strong-consensual
subjectivity rather than an individual one. This is what I mean by "evil"
being a kind of near-universal working definition rather than a firm
absolute.
Your point about "predictable by whom?" is involved in "recklessness" in
law. There are, as I recall, two distinct flavours of "recklessness" (as
a result of case law, not planning). I never got to grips with them
during my brief study of law, and 20 years on, I can remember little more
than that there is such a distinction. So if anybody can remind me of the
details of the difference between _Caldwell_ and _Cunningham_
recklessness, I'd be grateful :-)
(I'd also say that, in terms of the human impact of her policies, Thatcher
qualifies as evil, but that's getting a bit *too* far OT!)
--
Ian S.
Shuggie
<jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
>> I think that's a distinction that you're adding. Stupid is just as
>> much a value judgement as evil, or lazy, selfish, funny, beautiful.
>
>But I disagree. That's the whole point :) Someone who is lazy, selfish,
>funny, beautiful is still 'one of us'. Someone evil isn't
>
Still not seeing where you're getting the distinction (other than just
stating it).
>...
>(nothing I can add anything new to)
>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>But I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
>>>understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
>>>upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
>>>trying to understand?
>>>
>>
>> Well there's my original post which, without going into spoiler space
>> again, used the word evil without reducing the person I was describing
>> to a one-dimensional stereotype. Except of course for those who
>> already thought the very word implies that.
>
>Yeah, except the whole point is I don't see her as evil. :)
But your disagreeing with me doesn't negate the fact that I used evil in
that sense and therefore it's a valid cite.
It occurs to me that there's something of an irony in claiming that my
definition of evil is incorrect because it never gets used, when here I
am a-using it. :)
Reminds me of the foreword to The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett. It
was one of a couple of books that he wrote before he got famous. In the
foreword he says the publishers were persuaded to re-release it when
they got sick of telling people there was no demand for it. :)
>
>> For a non-spoilery example, I think Hitler was evil, but I'm sure
>> there are reasons, causes that we can at least attempt to explore
>> about why he was that way. But saying "Hitler was a man, who for
>> various reasons did terrible things" is very long-winded when we can
>> simply say "Hitler was evil".
>
>Not at all. One is a much more useful position than the other.
>
Depends what I want to say. I may not want to delve into the reasons for
Hitler's evil acts at that particular moment.
>I do think I'm trying to argue two fairly seperate points here. Why do
>you think Hitler was evil? (Seriously). To me - he's probably either
>insanse, and ill isn't evil (although it might be the closest thing to
>it, to be politically risky) or misguided, in which case he thought he
>was acting for good, in which case, again not evil.
>
He committed evil acts. If you prefer he's an evil-doer. He was
conscious of the effects his acts had, and therefore responsible. I
don't know the reasons why he did what he did - and some of them may be
mitigating factors - but that doesn't change what he did. Which was
evil.
I do think after a certain point what you do is what you are. Hitler
committed enough evil, often enough that I can call him evil.
<snip>
>>>Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
>>> - Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects
>>> of a
>>> poor diet."
>>>
>>
>> I'm noticing a lack of mention absolutes or "evil is just evil" in
>> those definitions.
>
>I deliberately avoided the dictionary for a while, as I don't think its
>always helpful. Here it was mostly to differentiate between "bad" and
>"wrong" and I felt obliged to add in "evil" while I was at it.
>
OK
>I think something that would help would be what you/Ian take as a
>definition of evil. I'm guessing it would be "person who causes bad
>events to occur", which would rather seem to take the moral side out of
>it. Lots of supposedly good people have accidentally caused terrible
>things to happen.
>
I can't speak for Ian but the definition above is a good start.
If you specifically want to know what an evil person is then see also my
comments about Hitler. Further I believe someone who acts in a way so as
to cause evil, either deliberately or through extreme irresponsibility
can be called evil.
I have to admit though - if I think about it for any length of time I'll
probably want to adjust that definition - so please don't hold me to the
letter of it. We're grappling with a tricky subject here :)
<snip>
>> My position on intent is that it doesn't automatically absolve you of
>> all responsibility. Road to Hell and all that.
>
>I don't quite get how that phrase relates.
>
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
You didn't think I meant the Chris Rea song did you? :)
>> In particular I think
>> that where consequences are predictable, even if they're not
>> inevitable, some responsibility remains even if the intent is
>> innocent.
>
>Predictable by who? If the culprit could (& did) predict them than yes
>they bear responsibility. Otherwise, not really.
>
Yes, I meant predictable by the culprit.
>> The classic example would be something like drunk driving.
>> No-one intends to crash their car and kill someone, but their choice
>> to drink before getting behind the wheel is dangerous and stupid, and
>> IMHO, morally wrong.
>
>See, this is completely and utterly different to the general idea being
>talked about earlier. Of course its dangerous and stupid and morally
>wrong - but the person is aware that that could be a result. This is
>not a case of good intentions leading to bad results.
But it's an illustration of my definition of evil, which you were asking
about.
>OTOH, I would say
>that they were less guilty than someone than deliberately ran someone
>over.
>
So would I. But crucially, since my definition of evil is not an
absolute, I could in theory, hold them to both be evil, just one more
than the other.
>> If the consequences were severe enough and the
>> outcome predictable enough then I think that it becomes morally wrong
>> on a grand scale i.e. evil. (because remember, when I use evil, I only
>> mean very very morally wrong. I don't meant absolutely and only
>> morally wrong)
>
>Uh huh. Nobody's arguing this.
>
Well I thought you were. I thought you were arguing for a definition of
evil that's not just an extreme of morally wrong, but an absolute of it.
>> For a more realistic, but probably more contentious, example I think
>> you could make a strong case for saying that the dropping of the bomb
>> on Nagasaki was evil. Even though the overall intent - ending the war
>> - was good, the outcome was horrifyingly severe and absolutely
>> predictable.
>>
>But you've switched to a different type of example.
Is there some rule that says I can't? It's another example of what I'd
call evil (or potentially, I said a case could be made, I didn't say I
was convinced by it) where the intent was for good but the outcome was
at best morally questionable.
>There's a greater
>good scenario here, and tied in with the limited information available
>then what is right becomes far less clear.
I agree. Although I purposely chose Nagasaki because it was the second
bomb. The degree to which the US had had time to process the results of
the first is still an issue of course.
>You can't call the outcome
>"horrifyingly severe" without knowing what the alternative would be.
I think the deaths of 74,000 and the injuring of another 75,000 can be
called horrifyingly severe even if the alternative was much much worse.
>It
>might have been the right thing to do, it might not have. Personally,
>without having researched the topic that much, I'm just about persuaded
>that there was good faith if they were perhaps too rash and didn't
>regard Japanese life highly enough.
>
I tend to think that unless you can predict that such an act actually
will cost fewer lives than it saves then it's wrong, or at least
probably wrong. It's hard to be dogmatic about these things but I do
tend to think that the burden of proof has to be on the side of the
person wanting to commit such an act.
I also think that burden should be fulfilled before the act is committed
as far as is humanly possible. Doing something because we think it might
end in a good outcome falls under the morally wrong irresponsible
heading for me. We have to be as convinced as we can be.
Jonathan Dupont
> In article <Xns937278B11364jo...@140.99.99.130>,
> jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
>
> ...lots of interesting things that I took three hours composing a
> reply to, before my news client crashed and vaped it all :-(
> Here we go again... I hope you appreciate that I'm ignoring William
> Hartnell's first encounter with the Daleks for this...
I appreciate the effort. :)
(Remind me to stop using :)s. I'm starting to get addicted to the
things, and I really don't think I should...)
>> Any other adjective is just a description whereas evil is a judgement
>
> I think that shows an unwarranted deal of faith in the objectivity of
> description of other adjectives. To take the three examples I used of
> myself:
> "fat" - yes, I plainly am, by anyone's standards, but in other cases?
> It's far from unknown for, say, anorexics to describe themselves as
> such even whilst medically underweight to the point of emaciation. To
> take a historical perspective, what used to be the ideal of Rubenesque
> voluptuousness would get you screamed out of any fashion house today
> for fear that you'd sweat on the changing room walls.
Although interestingly fashion is starting to change slightly in that by
far the most complaints I hear in Buffy groups are about SMG/Amy Acker's
thinness.
> "Irish" - well, I grew up in Belfast, one English and one Northern
> Irish parent (though, in fact, born before partition!), raised more or
> less in the Protestant/Unionist tradition; I carry an E.U.-U.K.
> passport and have the right to an E.U.-R.o.I. one as well. I have the
> choice of a number of various descriptions, which I deploy as
> convenient. In general terms of my countrymen, though, the label
> "Irish" is less a simple descriptor than a political statement.
I'd actually put Irish (not in everyday life obviously) in the same
class as evil. Same with Jews, if you were a Nazi (was going to leave
that second clause out and then saw how it looked, and thought rather
better of it...)
Racism would be a fairly close analogy to how I see it. In a community
you'd expect to have thin people, clever people, annoying people and
you'd accept them as much. Even people you hated. The evil person (say a
medieval witch - evil, so let's go burn) you wouldn't think as one of
you.
I just don't can't imagine the following:
"Hey! Welcome to our school - the fat boy over there, that's Bill. The
one who uses too many words, Bob. Pretty girl to your left is Sarah. Oh,
and that's William, very cool guy. Oh, and did I mention, evil."
> "verbose" - again, a matter of perspective. The Oz of S3 would find
> the Oz of early S2 fairly verbose, running off at the mouth about
> monkey pants and the like :-)
I'm beginning to get accustomed to the verbose thing. I mean honestly -
"asymptotically" :)
>> and, to get back to what I think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse
>> to destroy.
>
> How it's used is not the same as what it inherently is.
Well, sort of is. Point of a language and all.
Okay, I'm being deliberately difficult, but still.
...
> OK, let's try this analogy: we know that light neither "is" composed
> of waves or of particles, yet in certain instances it is more useful
> for us to adopt one or other as a working model, for the purposes of
> the moment and without being under any illusion that that model
> represents the truth of the matter.
Right, bring quantum physics in - that'll simplify matters ... :)
> Similarly with the way I'm saying
> "evil" can be used: as a working definition that's common enough
> within the field of reference of all involved, but without it
> necessarily being taken to denote any objective truth.
So basically as just an insult? "That new math's teacher - he's evil!"
(Or genocidal dictator. Whatever.)
The thing about insults is they don't really have any useful definition
/ meaning.
>> I do think there's an absolutism there. When people don't want to
>> understand they say "They're evil!". When they do - "They had a bad
>> upbringing." Could you give some cites/understanding of using evil &
>> trying to understand?
>
> In literature, most famously Iago and Milton's Satan. In recent
> history, the non-rabid strains of 9/11 commentary and analysis. The
> latter - like Shuggie's Saddam example - may use locutions like
> "obviously evil, but..."; I think this is confirmation of my
> rhetoric-based reading of things. It's not that people feel obliged
> to offer absolute moral condemnation with the term "evil"; it's that
> they feel obliged to tip their hat towards the vocabulary which has
> been established for the issue, because without that they'd instantly
> be dismissed and condemned without a hearing. In cases like this, the
> word "evil" acts as a kind of place-holder to "buy" people a part in
> the discourse, rather than actually signifying anything morally
> meaningful.
I agree with you to some extent, but again feel that if you're using
"evil" in that way, then you don't really mean it, and so you're sort of
irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The people who passionately feel
it tend to be the ones not giving Saddam a break.
>> It terms of story & tradition it seems that evil is largely a thing
>> you can't escape from, especially in the more basic chilren's stories
>> and fairy tales.
>
> I'm not sure about this. It seems to me that such stories, in common
> with many scriptural narratives, show humans as battling between the
> two in varying partial degrees. The absolutes exist in some abstract
> realm, and are manifested incompletely and momentarily among us and in
> us.
But the thing is, once you're born good, you're good and if you're evil,
you're evil (and usually ugly, but there you go). There's scarcely any
possibility of redemption or at least none that comes to mind. I suppose
there's the Beast (as in Beauty), but he was more arrogant than evil.
The hero on occasion may be tempted, but they never seriously go through
with it.
...
> As I say, there have been big conflicts, and conflicts involving
> humans, before (no blue-on-blue casualties at graduation day?
> Miracle!), with no such fatalities. I think the "Spiral" instance is
> either signifying an escalation of conflict such that human slayees
> can no longer be avoided, however it conflicts with the sense of the
> Slayer's role, and/or that (as the title partly suggests) it's another
> step in the progression that ultimately leads Buffy to flee into
> herself in catatonia - that there *is* a sense that these killings
> represent a betrayal of her responsibility. It's a bit fanwanky, I
> grant you, but I just don't think that at this point M.E. were blithe
> enough to take the line that it's war, pure and simple. I think it's
> deliberately introduced in order to be neither.
Good points, and I think you're underestimating ME a bit. I have a
feeling they knew what they were doing at least then.
>> As I don't see her as trying to kill Ted (and certainlly when she was
>> distraught when she thought she had), then I don't see it as a
>> problem. She lashed out, and that was bad, but she certainlly wasn't
>> judging.
>
> As I say, the legal criterion of intent for murder is less than
> "trying to kill". And she didn't just lash out; she positively
> welcomed being given an excuse to do so.
True. There was certainlly a dark side thing coming on there. As for the
legal side, I've never really cared to be honest. The law is defined by
morals, not the other way round.
>> (Also, because that ep gets far too much bashing, I should just say
>> here that it rocks. Seriously </Joss fanboy>)
>
> (I'm in two minds about it. In general, I'm with the view that it's a
> pot-boiler MOTW. However, I recently re-watched the first two and a
> half seasons, and was reminded that *in the moment* the killing of Ted
> was a truly shattering event, that shivered the very foundations of
> her sense of her Slayerly obligations. It's only the hindsight
> provided by the end of the episode that dissipates that. And for me,
> the power is precisely in what seemed to be the killing of a human
> being.)
It helps that I'm ridiculously in love with S2, MOTW week episode or
not. Everything about it - the dialogue, the acting, the way the cast
looks (okay, mostly SMG), the music - is perfect to me, and is never
matched again. I find a lot of those eps a joy to watch even when the
plot isn't so brilliant. This one though I don't feel the plot was an
abberation, and although I'm not totally in love with deus ex machina
style of the robot reveal, I don't think it ruins the episode totally.
>> Christain theology says we're all fundamentally flawed, "dirty",
>> whatever due to original sin. If you look at C S Lewis he pretty much
>> says that all badness comes from ourselves while all goodness is
>> Christ working through us; to me that suggests an idea that we can't
>> be good ourselves at all. We're all evil, except when we're saved if
>> you like. Not particularly helpful.
>
> And yet the taint of original sin *is* redeemable, therefore must be
> something short of true evil. My vague Ulster Presbyterian upbringing
> didn't equip me with much knowledge of the arcana (Roz Kaveney the
> lapsed Jesuit would be invaluable here!), but it seems to me that the
> problem here is that we're trying to fit human and divine notions of
> good and evil into the same framework, when the whole point of most
> schemes of divinity is that we *can't* properly understand the
> thoughts or workings of him/them upstairs - it's the "in mysterious
> ways" apologia :-) However, it does suggest to me that human and
> divine schemes alike have each their own complexities beyond a simple
> binary schema.
I disagree. The way I've always read it, original sin is not redeemable.
It is in fact impossible for a human to do on their own. We must instead
rely on Christ to sacrifice himself for us (for our evil, if you like).
I still must say that I do see it as binary in nature.
...
>> A person should be judged by the intent of their actions, because I
>> refuse to judge someone for something that is not their fault. If
>> they don't know what they're doing, then I won't blame them for it.
>
> Again, this is rather more binary than reality, positing two discrete
> categories of intent or accident, with everything being one or the
> other.
I would see it as a binary. Did the person intend the harm? Then its
their fault. Neglicence is a slightly unusual case of this, but it works
into the same system.
> Consider the principles underlying English criminal law. Just about
> every offence is defined in terms both of an act and a mental element.
> That mental element may be outright intention, or lesser recklessness
> (and that itself can be defined in various ways), or even mere
> negligence. This seems to me a viable way of squaring the circle
> between the notion that are responsible and must accept responsibility
> for our actions and their consequences and the notion that due regard
> must be paid to circumstances. Likewise with various defences -
> self-defence, provocation and the like. These do not mean that the
> physical and mental particulars of the crime have not been fulfilled;
> they mean that the individual instance is not in the end considered
> criminally culpable. And, as I say, in the case of murder, for
> instance, the element of intent is not intent to kill, but to commit a
> really serious physical assault which in fact happens to result in
> death.
I would agree. Neglicence really is what we're arguing about, and as
long as a person had a reason to be careful and they weren't I would
blame them. If it was a totally unexpected consequence then, well, the
opposite.
>> Now, one result of this that may come up is it may become impossible
>> to classify someone as purely "good" either, to go back to the grey
>> idea. I'm not really sure of any way around that, and I can live with
>> that.
>
> I'm unclear what you mean here: is it that you can live with the
> absence of a notion of absolute good but not with that of an absence
> of absolute evil, or that you can accept the evil side of things if
> the corresponding good element is likewise uncertain to balance it
> out? To me, the latter is part of the fabric of being human.
I was simply saying that if I dislike the notion of (most examples of)
people being described as evil, then I should have a similar problem
with the use of good. I shouldn't be happy with the sentence "Churchill
was a good man". Just pointing out a possible problem in my own
position.
...
>> > the two most widely derided phrases from U.S. political rhetoric
>> > of the past 25 years are probably "evil empire" and "axis of evil".
>>
>> But why were they unsuccessful? Because evil isn't a concept which
>> means fairly bad, but with a chance to do good. It's precisely
>> because it is an absolute, that people objected to its use.
>
> I don't think so. I think it's just that the people rose up and
> chorused, "We're from Missouri: show us!" :-) I think it's just that
> there was insufficient evidence to back up the claims, not that the
> use of the term "evil" meant that that evidence had to amount to
> absolute proof.
Wasn't it more taking it as a Christian crusade or thinking that George
Bush was thinking of things in too simplistic terms? I don't see this as
a place where people were looking for evidence - it was the entire
attitude they disliked.
...
>> I think it's Dictionary.com time:
>>
>> Bad: "- More severe or unfavorable.
>> - Being further from a standard; less desirable or
>> satisfactory."
>>
>> Wrong : "- Contrary to conscience, morality, or law; immoral or
>> wicked.
>> - Unfair; unjust."
>>
>> Evil : "- Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
>> - Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects
>> of a
>> poor diet."
>>
>> I think I'm on safe ground with bad & wrong - an earthquake's effects
>> are unsatisfactory but not immoral. Evil obviously has a defintion
>> very similar to wrong, except perhaps a bit more severe, and again,
>> you don't tend to say so much "a wrong tyrant".
>
> And yet "evil" is explicitly defined in terms of bad and wrong! :-) I
> also think that, in an area like this, as we dart between the various
> notions, the vagueness of "a standard" of "bad" means that it comes to
> partake of a moral element to that standard, unless an alternative
> criterion is explicitly defined up front.
Possibly. I don't think you could take "wrong" the other way though so
to speak, and de-moral-ise it.
>> My problem so much is not the use of it as the use for things a
>> person should not be held responsible for. This is the child, button,
>> nuclear bomb syndrome again - anything you didn't intend is an
>> accident, probably by definition.
>
> Agreed as to the particular example, but as I say above in the
> criminal law para, it's a lot more complex than "anything you didn't
> intend is an accident". The child with the button would not have
> *any* mental element, not even negligence.
But it's really not. Add neglicence in (Should a person have reasonably
expected bad events to occur? Did they not do somethey they know they
should have done?) and I don't see anything not covered. Why is it more
complex?
Niall Harrison
> <jonatha...@hotblahmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>>But I do think there is a slight difference. Any other adjective is just
>>a description whereas evil is a judgement and, to get back to what I
>>think is basis of my reasoning, an excuse to destroy. Being "stupid"
>>makes someone a figure of fun - being "evil" sets them aside as being
>>below us.
>
> I think that's a distinction that you're adding. Stupid is just as much
> a value judgement as evil, or lazy, selfish, funny, beautiful.
Tangental: This really annoys me, sometimes, when I want to use to words
as descriptive but value-neutral.
I was talking with a colleague at work who likes romantic comedies. We
were talking about a female friend of mine; my colleague said I should
take her to see a romantic comedy. I replied that no, that wouldn't work,
she generally prefers more intelligent films.
I didn't mean that to be insulting; heck, I've got as much time for a good
popcorn-flick as anyone. All I meant was that she prefers a different type
of film that can be categorised as more intelligent - I didn't mean to
imply *better*, in any way. And yet, because of the way the word is used
in general conversation, that is exactly what was implied. I realised
this, and apologised.
> a) that evil implies absoluteness
>
> b) that to call someone evil is to imply that that's all they are
>
> Whilst I can see that evil is often used that way, it is far from only
> used that way. Hence those two attributes are not inherent in its
> definition.
Ah, but they *should* be. :-)
Niall
--
Can you take me where you're going if you're never coming back?
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> > "Irish" - well, I grew up in Belfast, one English and one Northern
> > Irish parent (though, in fact, born before partition!), raised more or
> > less in the Protestant/Unionist tradition; I carry an E.U.-U.K.
> > passport and have the right to an E.U.-R.o.I. one as well. I have the
> > choice of a number of various descriptions, which I deploy as
> > convenient. In general terms of my countrymen, though, the label
> > "Irish" is less a simple descriptor than a political statement.
>
> I'd actually put Irish (not in everyday life obviously) in the same
> class as evil. Same with Jews, if you were a Nazi (was going to leave
> that second clause out and then saw how it looked, and thought rather
> better of it...)
Not sure what you mean here: in terms of absoluteness (what "is" a Jew?
What "is" an Irishman? I'm refraining from quoting _Ulysses_ on "what is
a nation?" here...!) or of intent? Does that intent have to be settled?
Is my intent to be Irish at the times I identify as such enough for those
moments, and equally properly negated by my intent at other moments when I
describe myself as British, Northern Irish or whatever?
> Racism would be a fairly close analogy to how I see it. In a community
> you'd expect to have thin people, clever people, annoying people and
> you'd accept them as much. Even people you hated. The evil person (say
> a medieval witch - evil, so let's go burn) you wouldn't think as one of
> you.
>
> I just don't can't imagine the following:
>
> "Hey! Welcome to our school - the fat boy over there, that's Bill. The
> one who uses too many words, Bob. Pretty girl to your left is Sarah.
> Oh, and that's William, very cool guy. Oh, and did I mention, evil."
I'm here to tell you that any one of those can be used as an indicator of
exclusion. I won't go into the various fatso vilifications I've suffered;
suffice to say that there's nothing that sets evil necessarily apart here
in that regard.
> I'm beginning to get accustomed to the verbose thing. I mean honestly -
> "asymptotically" :)
Useful word. And that's not verbosity, it's sesquipedalianism :-)
> > How it's used is not the same as what it inherently is.
>
> Well, sort of is. Point of a language and all.
Well, yes and no. More no :-)
I agree that words can determine thoughts sometimes more than vice-versa;
sometimes accepting a certain vocabulary of discourse limits us to
thinking only within the box of that vocabulary. That's close to, though
not quite, what I meant by the obligation to use the term "evil" about
9/11 even if one then goes on to try and understand its motivations and so
on. But these confinements are the result of inattention; they happen
because we let them, because we don't take enough care to remember that
it's us using the language, not the other way round.
Especially with abstract terms such as "evil" (in contrast to, say "table"
or the like), there's nothing you can point to and say definitively, "This
is what 'evil' describes." Just as hounds and greyhounds, mongrels,
spaniels, curs, shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept all by the
name of dogs, only more so :-)
> Right, bring quantum physics in - that'll simplify matters ... :)
Well, in a way, yes. We don't know whether Schrödinger's cat is good or
evil until we open the box; it's our observation that collapses the state
vector. We determine the value. :-þ
> > Similarly with the way I'm saying "evil" can be used: as a working
> > definition that's common enough within the field of reference of all
> > involved, but without it necessarily being taken to denote any
> > objective truth.
>
> So basically as just an insult? "That new math's teacher - he's evil!"
> (Or genocidal dictator. Whatever.)
No. Again, there's a whole continuum of degrees of consensuality that
you're not acknowledging.
> I agree with you to some extent, but again feel that if you're using
> "evil" in that way, then you don't really mean it, and so you're sort
> of irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The people who passionately
> feel it tend to be the ones not giving Saddam a break.
Why is it they who get to say what the word "really" means? What is it
that makes their use of it more accurate, more valid, more "true" than
others? Answer: it chimes with yours :-)
> the thing is, once you're born good, you're good and if you're evil,
> you're evil (and usually ugly, but there you go).
Tell that to Lucifer, son of the morning. Or to Edmund in _King Lear_.
Or to Annakin Skywalker. Or, indeed, tell it to Donald Rumsfeld in the
1980s about America's client in Iraq that he was visiting and giving
extensive defence aid to.
> > ...It's a bit fanwanky, I grant you, but I just don't think that at
> > this point M.E. were blithe enough to take the line that it's war,
> > pure and simple. I think it's deliberately introduced in order to be
> > neither.
>
> Good points, and I think you're underestimating ME a bit. I have a
> feeling they knew what they were doing at least then.
Well, it's because I want to credit them with complexity that I veer away
from the simple-war interpretation.
> The law is defined by morals, not the other way round.
But it's defined by social morality rather than absolute, theological
morality. Even in theocracies, Sharia or whatever is law because the
régime says it is, not because it's there and unassailably right.
> I'm ridiculously in love with S2... the way the cast looks (okay,
> mostly SMG)
Oh, how can she compete with the apogee of Willow's pastel-opaques phase?
;-)
> The way I've always read it, original sin is not redeemable. It is in
> fact impossible for a human to do on their own. We must instead rely on
> Christ to sacrifice himself for us (for our evil, if you like). I still
> must say that I do see it as binary in nature.
By Christ, yes, but that still makes it redeemable, just not by our good
works. And by Christ specifically taking human form in order to make such
a sacrifice.
> > Again, this is rather more binary than reality, positing two discrete
> > categories of intent or accident, with everything being one or the
> > other.
>
> I would see it as a binary. Did the person intend the harm? Then its
> their fault. Neglicence is a slightly unusual case of this, but it
> works into the same system.
This is where we have to agree respectfully to differ on the fundamental,
I think. To me, the legal classification of mental elements is partly a
useful fiction, but only a small part; it's the codification of it into
offences that's the fiction - the recognition that there is a continuum
of... let's try and pick something neutral and call it "attention" to
one's acts, of which full conscious intent and accident are only the
extremes.
> Neglicence really is what we're arguing about, and as long as a person
> had a reason to be careful and they weren't I would blame them. If it
> was a totally unexpected consequence then, well, the opposite.
I think, in the specific _Angel_ instance I spoiler-excised, we're
actually talking something closer to the middle, some flavour of
recklessness. In general, I think it's a moderately mighty gloss to speak
of negligence as a form of intent, and I don't think that's just the
partial hang-over of law study :-)
> I was simply saying that if I dislike the notion of (most examples of)
> people being described as evil, then I should have a similar problem
> with the use of good. I shouldn't be happy with the sentence "Churchill
> was a good man". Just pointing out a possible problem in my own
> position.
Yes, that's cool, and I subscribe to that balance, though obviously
drawing the line at a different place from you, to match where I draw it
with regard to evil.
> Wasn't it more taking it as a Christian crusade or thinking that George
> Bush was thinking of things in too simplistic terms? I don't see this
> as a place where people were looking for evidence - it was the entire
> attitude they disliked.
I suppose there was a certain amount of crusading in Reagan's "evil
empire" remark as well, given the cliché of "godless communism". And a
lot of what I'm thinking about with regard to Bush and Iraq is the U.N.
business, and the slipperiness of Bush and Blair's pretended rationale(s).
But I still think that the use of "evil" was a symptom of that... what
*is* the noun from "simplistic"?... rather than a determinant of it. I
think it was one among many arguments they deployed, not the culmination
of the others into an absolute.
> Possibly. I don't think you could take "wrong" the other way though so
> to speak, and de-moral-ise it.
I think it's relatively easy to speak of "wrong" in utilitarian terms; if
one has a humanistic-utilitarian worldview, then it's a small matter to
characterise something of "bad" effects as wrong" within that value
scheme. But it doesn't elevate it to a definitive moral verdict, because
it's still clearly within that system.
One can say, for instance, that this government's adherence to PFI-type
schemes for hospitals and the like is wrong, in the context that it's
clearly an invalid conclusion on the undoctored(!) figures which they
claim justify it, and it's therefore an adherence to a point of dogma in
the face of evidence. In fact, this is in some ways an instance of
absolutist faith being "wrong" in the face of reason! ...not in the way of
an atheist claiming that religious belief is "wrong", but on harder
evidence which the believers themselves claim to be using as a basis of
their position.
> > it's a lot more complex than "anything you didn't intend is an
> > accident".
>
> But it's really not. Add neglicence in (Should a person have reasonably
> expected bad events to occur? Did they not do somethey they know they
> should have done?) and I don't see anything not covered. Why is it more
> complex?
As I say, I think this is an instance of claiming a black-and-white
picture only by dint of rendering the various greys down into individual
particles and deeming anything darker than (128,128,128) to be "black" and
anything lighter to be "white".
--
Ian S.
Tan Coul
wrote:
>Of course, there's the free will issue. That's the price: You'll be
>deliriously happy, but you can't choose to do evil. Like I said above, I'm
>quite sure that for plenty of people around the world, that's a fair
>trade. I strongly disagree, for the reasons Angel stated in the episode -
>but I don't think it's an Evil position. Wrong, yes, but not Evil.
Well has it been said, that the price of freedom is eternal vigi- hey,
who took my 3-bean chilli wrap? Come on you guys, that's mean...
--
www.oscartelos.co.uk
The best Chester Zoo photo website ever made by a cat (probably.)
Last updated March 13th 2003
Dan Milburn
>> Also what happens when she gets bored with the world and moves on to
>> another dimension? or the remaining PTBs turn up to depose her?
>
> You can apply 'what happens next?' questions to any utopia; it's one of
> the flaws in the concept.
>
> Doesn't make Jasmine Evil for wanting to bring one about, though.
But she *knows* what happens next, because she's done it before. She has
no good reason to believe that things will turn out any better this time,
except that she's apparently convinced herself that she can 'iron out the
bugs'. Which possibly makes her insane rather than evil, but that doesn't
really matter. She's *not* going to bring good to the world, except
possibly in the short term.
<snip>
>>>> But my biggest problem with this episode is that it relies so heavily
>>>> on Connor. Firstly Vincent Kartheiser just isn't a strong enough
>>>> actor to carry what's asked of him her, except perhaps at the very
>>>> end where his usual sullenness is passable as the dispair/apathy he
>>>> feels.
>>>
>>>Funny. I think he's on a pegging with AD as far as talent goes.
>>
>> Give me some examples of him showing any kind of range or subtlety.
>
> His scenes with Angel in 'A New World' and 'Benediction'. His reactions
> to Angel in 'Deep Down'. His anger and frustration in 'Rain of Fire'.
> His conflict in 'Inside Out'. His soliloquy in this episode.
>
> Yeah, I'm a VK fanboy.
Seeing Vincent at the weekend has given me a new perspective on this. He
is a damn good actor. Unfortunately he's been stuck in a role that has
had almost no variation or progression for an entire season, and he
admitted that it could get boring to perform as well as to watch. VK
rocks. Connor doesn't. But at least I now know that he *could* be much
more interesting, if only the writers would let him.
<snip>
>> Besides if Jasmine took all that care over Cordy - who was in a coma
>> and so incapable of hurting her, why did she not take any precautions
>> over Connor? She must have known Connor was not directly under her
>> control. He's a much bigger risk - he's got freewill and he's mobile.
>> Oh and he's got superstrength.
>
> And he's her father. And she cares about him.
>
> Chalk another one up in the 'not evil' column.
Not enough to tell him what she'd done with Cordy, though..
Dan
Niall Harrison
And we know that this was wrong because...?
Niall
--
Look! There's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming!
Dan Milburn
I'm not seeing that the burden of proof lies with me here. We don't, and
that's not the point. We, and she, don't know that it was *right*. It
could be, but "because Jasmine says so" is not a good enough reason to
believe it.
In any case, the larger point is that if things *do* go wrong, we know
that Jasmine ain't gonna stick around to help fix the mess that she's
made. She'll just regard it as a failed experiment, and go somewhere else
to try again, which makes all her talk of caring and doing good complete
nonsense.
Dan
Niall Harrison
The point I was objecting to was your certainty that something would
definitely, without question, go wrong.
> In any case, the larger point is that if things *do* go wrong, we know
> that Jasmine ain't gonna stick around to help fix the mess that she's
> made. She'll just regard it as a failed experiment, and go somewhere else
> to try again, which makes all her talk of caring and doing good complete
> nonsense.
Uh, no. The We Loved Her First Dimension was a trial run for our
dimension. Our dimension is the real thing. There's no reason to believe
things will go wrong, and there's no reason to believe Jasmine is going to
leave if they *do* go wrong.
The question of whether or not we would *want* things to go right, of
course, remains open. But there's no reason to doubt Jasmine when she says
she believes she's fixed the bugs, or when she says they were a trial run
for us.
Niall
--
And the moral of the story is - Kids! Don't make deals with magical
omnisexual cephalopods! They are Bad Bad Bad!
Dan Milburn
'She has no good reason to believe that things will turn out any better
this time'. I stand by that statement, although I wasn't actually
expressing certainty that things *will* go wrong. If you want to believe
that something is the case simply because Jasmine said so, I can only
conclude that the brainwashing spell extended somewhat further than we
believed.
>> In any case, the larger point is that if things *do* go wrong, we know
>> that Jasmine ain't gonna stick around to help fix the mess that she's
>> made. She'll just regard it as a failed experiment, and go somewhere
>> else to try again, which makes all her talk of caring and doing good
>> complete nonsense.
>
> Uh, no. The We Loved Her First Dimension was a trial run for our
> dimension. Our dimension is the real thing. There's no reason to
> believe things will go wrong,
Except that they did last time. There's even less reason to believe that they won't.
> and there's no reason to believe Jasmine is going to leave if they *do*
> go wrong.
Except that that's what she did last time. I don't know if you've been
watching the same Jasmine I have, but throwing away her broken toy like a
petulant child strikes me as *exactly* what she'd do if things go wrong.
> The question of whether or not we would *want* things to go right, of
> course, remains open. But there's no reason to doubt Jasmine when she
> says she believes she's fixed the bugs, or when she says they were a
> trial run for us.
There's no reason to doubt that she *believes* she's fixed the bugs.
There's plenty of reason to doubt that she actually *has* fixed them. She
didn't even know that or how her spell could be broken until it happened,
for PTBs' sake!
Dan
pikelet
<s...@tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk> is twanging, all Hoob-like, at me. I calmly
say:
>Uh, no. The We Loved Her First Dimension was a trial run for our
>dimension. Our dimension is the real thing. There's no reason to believe
>things will go wrong, and there's no reason to believe Jasmine is going to
>leave if they *do* go wrong.
So in other words, in an episode that's focussed on just how much
Having Faith messed up an alternate dimension, in an episode that's
focussed on just how much Having Faith messes up the entire populace
of LA, you're going to take things on faith when Jasmine says she has
faith in them?
I think you missed one of the secondary points this episode, and its
forerunners, have been making, my friend :)
Tim
--
And she said losing love is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you're torn apart
Everybody sees the wind blow
Gunnar Harboe
That was very confusing.
"Faith? What's she got to do with anything?"
Niall Harrison
Hang on, I'm lost.
The debate is: Is Jasmine Evil?
The subdebate is:
(a) Jasmine wants to bring about utopia. That's not evil. [1]
(b) Ah, but what happens when she buggers off like she did in the We Loved
Her First dimension?
Now, I say: There is no reason to believe she's going to bugger off
because there's no reason for her to lie at any point.
This is not a reason for the characters not to kill her, because as I've
said elsewhere, I'm with Angel: The price was too high. But internal to
the story, it matters that she's believable.
If the story is "Jasmine isn't really going to try that hard to bring
about world peace, she's just going to bugger off at the first sign of
trouble anyway", then, um, that takes away any angst inherent in fighting
her. Don't worry that the world will be thrust into chaos and despair when
you depose her, because it's going to happen sooner or later anyway. The
strength of the arc is that when Jasmine is killed *something good is
lost*.
Having Faith doesn't mess up the inhabitants of LA. Having Faith turns the
inhabitants of LA into mindless zombies, but genuinely happy and peaceful
zombies. It's taking away that Faith that brings the pain and the anger
and the chaos. So the question is: Is the peace of mind that Faith brings
worth the cost? Internal to the story, that the answer is 'no' has no
bearing on whether or not we can believe Jasmine's intentions are pure.
In summary: You suck, and should be writing wibblings for 'Inside Out',
anyway.
Niall
[1] That the utopia comes with a price is irrelevant here; it's not
malicious.
--
Does it take the fireworks to make you look in wonder?
Ian Shuttleworth
shut...@cix.co.uk (Ian Shuttleworth) wrote:
I left off the end of a sentence:
> To me, the legal classification of mental elements is partly a useful
> fiction, but only a small part; it's the codification of it into
> offences that's the fiction - the recognition that there is a continuum
> of... let's try and pick something neutral and call it "attention" to
> one's acts, of which full conscious intent and accident are only the
> extremes.
...should go on to say:
[the recognition that... only the extremes] is, in my view, an
acknowledgement of a factor that's quite real in its innumerable
variations and shadings.
Or words to that effect.
--
Ian S.
Dan Milburn
You seem very stuck on this "Jasmine has no reason to lie, therefore
everything she says must be true" thing. One doesn't have to lie to be
wrong about something, even ones own future actions - your reasoning would
only make any logical sense if she was omniscient, which she plainly
isn't. In any case, I may have missed it, but I've just rewatched some of
the relevant scenes, and I don't think she says anything on that
particular subject at all.
What we *do* know is that she abandoned the world in the other dimension,
dismissing it as a trial run, and that when Angel removed her power to
control people in this one, her first response was to destroy our world
rather than try and help it any further. I really don't know how they
could have made it any clearer that Jasmine will give up as soon as things
don't go her way.
> If the story is "Jasmine isn't really going to try that hard to bring
> about world peace, she's just going to bugger off at the first sign of
> trouble anyway", then, um, that takes away any angst inherent in
> fighting her. Don't worry that the world will be thrust into chaos and
> despair when you depose her, because it's going to happen sooner or
> later anyway. The strength of the arc is that when Jasmine is killed
> *something good is lost*.
So why even have that dimension where she tried and failed? The *only*
logical conclusion is that the same thing could happen here, unless some
compelling reason is given why things will definitely turn out
differently, and as I keep trying to say, that Jasmine says so *is not a
compelling reason*, not because she's lying but because she can't possibly
know what will happen. Things *could* turn out differently, but it's by no
means a certainty. If you're saying that buggers up the strength of the
arc, then, well, what can I say except that I didn't think the arc was all
that strong anyway, but you're going to have to argue the case somewhat
more convincingly if you want me to believe that Jasmine absolutely,
without question, was going to bring about utopia.
Dan
Niall Harrison
> but you're going to have to argue the case somewhat
> more convincingly if you want me to believe that Jasmine absolutely,
> without question, was going to bring about utopia.
*shrug*
She already had done, as far as most of LA was concerned.
Niall
--
My night is coloured headache gray.
Jonathan Dupont
> In article <Xns9372D599A5D0Bjo...@140.99.99.130>,
> jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
>> I'd actually put Irish (not in everyday life obviously) in the same
>> class as evil. Same with Jews, if you were a Nazi (was going to leave
>> that second clause out and then saw how it looked, and thought rather
>> better of it...)
>
> Not sure what you mean here: in terms of absoluteness (what "is" a
> Jew? What "is" an Irishman? I'm refraining from quoting _Ulysses_ on
> "what is a nation?" here...!) or of intent?
Nothing to do with intent at all. :) Simply the racist idea that another
a subset isn't fully human (or inferior) - something that is used all
the time in popular culture. Aragorn can slaughter orcs by the thousand,
not because they're stupid, but because of their you-know-what-ness.
>> Racism would be a fairly close analogy to how I see it. In a
>> community you'd expect to have thin people, clever people, annoying
>> people and you'd accept them as much. Even people you hated. The evil
>> person (say a medieval witch - evil, so let's go burn) you wouldn't
>> think as one of you.
>>
>> I just don't can't imagine the following:
>>
>> "Hey! Welcome to our school - the fat boy over there, that's Bill.
>> The one who uses too many words, Bob. Pretty girl to your left is
>> Sarah. Oh, and that's William, very cool guy. Oh, and did I mention,
>> evil."
>
> I'm here to tell you that any one of those can be used as an indicator
> of exclusion. I won't go into the various fatso vilifications I've
> suffered; suffice to say that there's nothing that sets evil
> necessarily apart here in that regard.
I'm sensing an agree to disagree moment. :)
Yes, people can be set aside within a group as a figure of fun, a
scapegoat, whatever - but they're still fundamentally part of the
community, just performing a not particularly pleasant role in it.
Now, the obvious response to this is: what makes "evil" different? That
would be where my absolutism if you like comes in.
>> I'm beginning to get accustomed to the verbose thing. I mean honestly
>> - "asymptotically" :)
>
> Useful word. And that's not verbosity, it's sesquipedalianism :-)
You do realise that has only about 250 results on Google. I could write
a random sequence of letters and get more than that...
<language stuff>
> Especially with abstract terms such as "evil" (in contrast to, say
> "table" or the like), there's nothing you can point to and say
> definitively, "This is what 'evil' describes."
That's arguably applicable to any term, including "table." You can't
point to the definitive table, unless you want to go all Plato on me.
Words obviously describe groups of objects agreed to the same name by
general social consent. Or something like that, anyway.
>> Right, bring quantum physics in - that'll simplify matters ... :)
>
> Well, in a way, yes. We don't know whether Schrödinger's cat is good
> or evil until we open the box; it's our observation that collapses the
> state vector. We determine the value. :-þ
:)
>> > Similarly with the way I'm saying "evil" can be used: as a working
>> > definition that's common enough within the field of reference of
>> > all involved, but without it necessarily being taken to denote any
>> > objective truth.
>>
>> So basically as just an insult? "That new math's teacher - he's
>> evil!" (Or genocidal dictator. Whatever.)
>
> No. Again, there's a whole continuum of degrees of consensuality that
> you're not acknowledging.
Okay... Get you. (I think)
>> I agree with you to some extent, but again feel that if you're using
>> "evil" in that way, then you don't really mean it, and so you're sort
>> of irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The people who passionately
>> feel it tend to be the ones not giving Saddam a break.
>
> Why is it they who get to say what the word "really" means? What is
> it that makes their use of it more accurate, more valid, more "true"
> than others? Answer: it chimes with yours :-)
Cynic. The reason I say that is because the (for shorthand) anti-war
people or whatever who say "evil" like that say it, and you can tell
they don't want to. I think you're ignoring what I said - if they really
wanted to use that particular word then their meaning might be
important, but as a simple password, then it's less so.
Could they be using evil as "he's a very bad person"? Maybe. Not the way
I see it, though.
>> the thing is, once you're born good, you're good and if you're evil,
>> you're evil (and usually ugly, but there you go).
>
> Tell that to Lucifer, son of the morning. Or to Edmund in _King
> Lear_. Or to Annakin Skywalker.
Ignoring the more complicated examples. 'cause hey, you'll only trounce
me ... Anakin Skywalker, born good, died good. Darth Maul & Palpatine,
so far no good whatsoever.
>> The way I've always read it, original sin is not redeemable. It is in
>> fact impossible for a human to do on their own. We must instead rely
>> on Christ to sacrifice himself for us (for our evil, if you like). I
>> still must say that I do see it as binary in nature.
>
> By Christ, yes, but that still makes it redeemable, just not by our
> good works. And by Christ specifically taking human form in order to
> make such a sacrifice.
Uh, well yes, but so what? I was never arguing that Christ was evil, so
I'm not getting your point.
>> > Again, this is rather more binary than reality, positing two
>> > discrete categories of intent or accident, with everything being
>> > one or the other.
>>
>> I would see it as a binary. Did the person intend the harm? Then its
>> their fault. Neglicence is a slightly unusual case of this, but it
>> works into the same system.
>
> This is where we have to agree respectfully to differ on the
> fundamental, I think. To me, the legal classification of mental
> elements is partly a useful fiction, but only a small part; it's the
> codification of it into offences that's the fiction - the recognition
> that there is a continuum of... let's try and pick something neutral
> and call it "attention" to one's acts, of which full conscious intent
> and accident are only the extremes is, in my view, an
> acknowledgement of a factor that's quite real in its innumerable
> variations and shadings.
> Or words to that effect.
Arguably it's a difficult thing to call for a legal or practical
framework. Deciding what one could reasonably expected may well be a
grey area, just by the difficulty of deciding these things. From a
moral/theoretical view, not so much. You're still going to have explain
to me a difficulty, because I don't see what,
>> Wasn't it more taking it as a Christian crusade or thinking that
>> George Bush was thinking of things in too simplistic terms? I don't
>> see this as a place where people were looking for evidence - it was
>> the entire attitude they disliked.
>
> I suppose there was a certain amount of crusading in Reagan's "evil
> empire" remark as well, given the cliché of "godless communism". And
> a lot of what I'm thinking about with regard to Bush and Iraq is the
> U.N. business, and the slipperiness of Bush and Blair's pretended
> rationale(s).
Well, maybe, but sort of irrelevant to the terms at hand.
> But I still think that the use of "evil" was a symptom of that...
> what
> *is* the noun from "simplistic"?...
Hah! Verbose boy fails. :)
> rather than a determinant of it.
> I think it was one among many arguments they deployed, not the
> culmination of the others into an absolute.
To summarise - you believe people's objections to the terms "axis of
evil" and "evil empire" didn't come to the terms themselves, but from a
lack of evidence backing them up.
To be repetitive - disagree. There were lots of reasons people disagreed
with Bush & co., but their attitude to his language was often very
simple and here I think was one clear case. The terms were not liked,
the attitude wasn't liked - that doesn't neccesarily imply a causality
between the two.
...
>> > it's a lot more complex than "anything you didn't intend is an
>> > accident".
>>
>> But it's really not. Add neglicence in (Should a person have
>> reasonably expected bad events to occur? Did they not do somethey
>> they know they should have done?) and I don't see anything not
>> covered. Why is it more complex?
>
> As I say, I think this is an instance of claiming a black-and-white
> picture only by dint of rendering the various greys down into
> individual particles and deeming anything darker than (128,128,128) to
> be "black" and anything lighter to be "white".
I know you probably feel you've already done so quite a lot (feel free
to quote), but I think I'm going to have ask for expanding again.
Because I honestly don't see the grey. You knew what was going to happen
(or what should be expected to happen, in terms of neglicence) and you
take the responsibility. Otherwises, you don't
Dan Milburn
As she probably had for the bugs shortly after she arrived in their
dimension. I'm not arguing with the fact that she brought about some
short-term 'good' to the people of LA, or that it was Angel who took that
away from them. On that level the story works. In the longer term? Not
so much.
Dan
Shuggie
Shuttleworth) wrote:
>I suppose there was a certain amount of crusading in Reagan's "evil
>empire" remark as well, given the cliché of "godless communism". And a
>lot of what I'm thinking about with regard to Bush and Iraq is the U.N.
>business, and the slipperiness of Bush and Blair's pretended rationale(s).
> But I still think that the use of "evil" was a symptom of that... what
>*is* the noun from "simplistic"?... rather than a determinant of it.
Please tell me the irony here is deliberate. It's too delicious not to
be. :)
But on the off-chance it's not - the noun from simplistic in this
context would probably be simplification rather than simplicity. However
the problem with even simplification is that it rather loses the
overtones of being deliberately misleading that simplistic has here.
Which is kinda like having to settle for a word that merely means
morally very wrong when what you really want is something that has that
extra association of absolutism to it ')
--
Shug
"To look at her you'd never guess,
that she could hurt so bad in such a beautiful dress"
- Tonio K, Living Doll
Ian Shuttleworth
shu...@SPAMMENOTaceypace.freeserve.co.uk (Shuggie) wrote:
> > what *is* the noun from "simplistic"?
>
> Please tell me the irony here is deliberate. It's too delicious not to
> be. :)
You know, I don't think it was. But I'm always ready to follow up my own
pratfalls with a self-pisstaking, "I meant to do that!" Or, indeed,
"Thank you; we're here through Saturday - enjoy the veal" :-)
--
Ian S.
pikelet
She lied to the creatures in the other dimension. They thought she was
going to come back. She was going to do no such thing.
Mindless belief without proof is what ended up with the alternate
dimension going all civil-war--ry, according to the Keeper of the
Word, or whoever that bloke was. Factions who believed split from
those who became disillusioned, and suddenly faith that was groundless
ended up destroying their society.
Groundless faith - that which is created through a spell - has been
something of an affliction in LA. It's shown to be a Bad Thing.
We're not saying that she's lying. Nobody's suggesting that. What I'm
saying, and what I think Dan is saying, is that although she may think
that she's telling the truth, there's no reason at all to think that
she's right. She probably thought that her Bug Dimension people were
going to be perfectly happy at the time, but funnily enough they
weren't.
In fact, we *know* that she's wrong. She hasn't ironed out all the
bugs, which is precisely why AI are going against her in the first
place. So she's wrong, and it's her self-belief being so utterly
misplaced that's the problem. She's arrogant, over-confident and
believes her own hype.
The problem that all the red shirts have been exhibiting is that
they've stopped thinking. They just think that they're living a life
that they want to live, because Jasmine says that it's the way they
*should* live. But the whole point of these episodes has been that
merely because Jasmine says it to be so does not mean that it *is* so.
'There's no reason to believe things will go wrong'? They're wrong
pretty much from the very beginning. First with Fred, then with the
rest of AI. The only people who 'know' her, in the sense of being
taken into her circle of confidence from the very beginning, are the
ones to realise what a phoney she is.
'No reason to believe Jasmine will leave if they *do* go wrong'? She
*already did*. She left the Bug Dimension, having given them *exactly*
the same promises that she's given to the populace of AI. You're
taking her word for it that this is the Real Thing, and not just a
trial run, but how the hell can you trust someone who takes an entire
dimension, messes it up, and chalks it up to experience?
So my two issues are, as regards Jasmine's *inability* to bring about
Utopia:
(a) She may well be lying about her ability to do this thing, and/or
(b) She may well be deluding herself about her ability to do this
thing.
Either way, we know for a fact that she's done (a) before, and we now
also know for a fact that (b) is also self-evidently true. As a
result, we *can't* take her word for it. We're being asked to believe
something that is untrue. She simply cannot bring about Utopia. How on
earth can you say - *especially* with hindsight - that there's no
reason to believe things won't go wrong? There's sure as hell no
reason to think that they'll go perfectly right, since her one and
only trial run thus far was a dismal failure.
>If the story is "Jasmine isn't really going to try that hard to bring
>about world peace, she's just going to bugger off at the first sign of
>trouble anyway", then, um, that takes away any angst inherent in fighting
>her.
Eh?
That's like saying 'I think your new girlfriend's going to naff off
the first time she sees your 'Angel' DVD collection, you sad git'
means that the pain when she *does* leave it automatically negated
because you were warned. That doesn't follow.
The point of the angst is that AI discover that their faith, their
love, was *misplaced*. It's little to do with her long-term
motivations, it's to do with the way she made everyone feel and the
fact that that love wasn't earned.
>Don't worry that the world will be thrust into chaos and despair when
>you depose her, because it's going to happen sooner or later anyway. The
>strength of the arc is that when Jasmine is killed *something good is
>lost*.
Yes, it is. But the point is that the something to which you refer is
*lost by choice*. Whether Jasmine buggers off to another dimension in
six months' time or not, her loss will always be wrenching for her
followers - see the Bug Dimension as a case in point. But the *whole
point of the arc* is that people need to make a choice. The strength
of the arc is that when Jasmine is killed, Jasmine is killed because
the one person who's been closest to her all along realises that her
motivations *aren't* genuine.
'My whole life has been a lie. I just figured this one was better than
the others', or words to that effect.
Jasmine has lied. Nobody can dispute that, surely? Nobody can say that
she is entirely genuine. How, then, you can turn around and say that
she has no reason to lie is beyond me. We don't *know* that she's
lying about her long-term intentions, but then again we don't know
that she's not. Perhaps she lies because she thinks that even though
AI see her real face, they can still love her like Connor does.
Perhaps she thinks she's telling the truth, that she really has
'ironed out all the bugs'. But she doesn't *know* that. There is no
proof. One thing we know for sure - the last time she tried something
like this, it fouled up. This time, too, it fouled up. She obviously
*hadn't* ironed out all the bugs. So how do we know we can take
anything else she's ever said as being trustworthy?
>Having Faith doesn't mess up the inhabitants of LA. Having Faith turns the
>inhabitants of LA into mindless zombies, but genuinely happy and peaceful
>zombies.
Since they're living a lie, having been deceived on a massive scale,
I'm less likely to use the term 'genuinely happy and peaceful', to be
honest.
>It's taking away that Faith that brings the pain and the anger
>and the chaos. So the question is: Is the peace of mind that Faith brings
>worth the cost? Internal to the story, that the answer is 'no' has no
>bearing on whether or not we can believe Jasmine's intentions are pure.
I say again - Jasmine's intentions are to repeat a failed experiment,
taking away the free will of an entire species because she feels like
it. She sets herself up as, and deems herself to be, better than
humanity. The flaw lies in the fact that she's really not. In fact,
she's a fairly crap human being.
She can't embrace her flaws. She can't face up to the fact that she
might be wrong. And when things don't go her way? She resorts to
throwing cars at people, which is about as immature as you can get.
She has no respect for the individual, possessing them at will. She
has no respect for the sanctity of life, feeling that her actions in
killing 'thousands' can balance some unseen cosmic scales.
If you mean her 'intentions are pure' in the sense that she doesn't
see just how deeply wrong her actions are, then that's not so terribly
different either. It means that she's pretty much completely amoral,
which would also make her a bad human being.
Forget all her 'please, I'm not a deity' rubbish, because she acts
like one. Uniliaterally, she deems what is good for all, regardless of
whether it is or not. She diminishes every single life to the point of
utterly meaninglessness. There are no differences between the people
in her world - they can all be food, they can all be left to burn in
their shops, she doesn't actually *care*. She has a bad plan, which is
to try to make everyone happy, but she hasn't even learned the
fundamental lesson of 'you can't please all the people all the time'.
In fact, if last season was all about what it's like to be a father,
then this season could well be what it's like to be a child. Connor,
after all, spends all his time wanting respect from people, and
desperately wanting to be seen as an adult by somebody. Jasmine's plan
is the scheme of an infant child. She has no idea what it's like to
live in the world, and she thinks that she can just take away the pain
and everyone will be okay.
I'm straying dangerously close to Star Trek-esque 'I need my pain'
guff here, but it's true. Jasmine's actions so utterly devalue the
Human Experience (tm) that she probably can't be judged by
conventional morality, since she seems to have not the first bit of
understanding of it herself. Notions of the purity of her intentions,
therefore, are rather moot.
The simple fact is, from a human perspective, her intentions are not
pure at all. She seeks to bring a warm fuzzy glow to me at the cost of
everything I am, everything that my life thus far has made me. The
whole of my existence up until this point, rendered irrelevent for a
warm fuzzy glow? Blimey, even I'm not that desperate.
I don't take her word for anything. Her concepts of the truth are
somewhat elastic, given that she seeks to hide her true appearance and
everything. Her morality is akin to that of the serial killer who was
told to kill young women to please his dead mother. At no point have
we seen *anything* to suggest that Jasmine is telling us the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The only point of support that you have is that she apparently has
nothing to gain from her creation of 'utopia', and thus must be
altruistically motivated. Again, I don't think that this is the case.
She has a point to prove, and I can't help but feel that her failure
in the Bug Dimension and subsequent dismissal of it smack more than
slightly of ego. She's no God, that's for sure, and she's no perfect
human being either. She's as flawed as everyone else, it turns out, or
at least has as simplistic a world-view as anyone could have being the
offspring of two terminally brain-dead parents, and thus is in no
position to tell us how we should be living, no matter how good she
tells us it feels.
Side-note: What the hell was that guy who attacked her at the fountain
on - how did he come into contact with her blood, again? And why did
he go all scaley and horrible in the hospital? What was that all
about? Were there plans for the Bug People to invade our dimension en
masse to be close to Jasmine, and was he turning into one somehow? Did
Jasmine make him into a Bug Person? What was that all abotu, anyway?
I'm not going to mention her desire to bring about Utopia (ie, the
what she wants to bring about, not the how of it), since that pretty
much goes against everything the show has ever told us ('no big win',
and all that), and she even goes so far as to acknowledge that
herself. However, since the entire premise of the show - way back when
- was Angel was on the brink of becoming a creature of evil, one day
feeding on a human and figuring that he's 'still ahead by the
numbers', are we really supposed to see Jasmine as 'not evil', when
her attitude and actions are precisely those which we see the Powers
(rightly) condemning through Doyle in 'City Of...'?
So to your (a), I saw that you're proceeding to make a value judgement
which goes against every ethos the show has ever suggested, and to
your (b), I say that it is you, my friend, who sucks, and not I.
Tim
--
What's with these homies dissin' my girl?
Ian Shuttleworth
timothy...@hertford.ox.ac.uk.issmenotwithspammylips (pikelet) wrote:
> Forget all her 'please, I'm not a deity' rubbish, because she acts
> like one.
Well, not quite. Deities can issue commandments, but they can't compel -
all they can do is lay down sanctions for disobedience. So Jasmine really
isn't up to scratch even as gods go. She wants to be more.
> The simple fact is, from a human perspective, her intentions are not
> pure at all. She seeks to bring a warm fuzzy glow to me at the cost of
> everything I am, everything that my life thus far has made me. The
> whole of my existence up until this point, rendered irrelevent for a
> warm fuzzy glow? Blimey, even I'm not that desperate.
I think I might well, but - crucially - I know in my current lucid state
that I'd be wrong to do so.
It's the notion of earned happiness, and this underlies Angel's entire
quest. In S1 we saw him reject the Gem of Amara and the demon-blood
humanity because they were unearned. Here, he takes the same decision for
the whole world - mightily arrogant, but not fundamentally wrong. In
fact, it might not even be overplaying it to compare his view and his (OK,
Connor's) achievement to Christ's: they haven't redeemed mankind, but have
given mankind the wherewithal to find that redemption freely.
Shakespeare wrote, "Love sought is good, but given unsought is better."
But he put the words into the mouth of Olivia in _Twelfth Night_, who was
pretty definitively mistaken to place her love in Cesario :-)
--
Ian S.
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> the racist idea that another a subset isn't fully human (or inferior) -
> something that is used all the time in popular culture. Aragorn can
> slaughter orcs by the thousand, not because they're stupid, but because
> of their you-know-what-ness.
OK. So what is it that racial/ethnic characteristics - which are
otherwise more or less descriptive (notwithstanding my caveat about
Irishness) - have in common with "evil" in this respect, then, that allows
them both to carry inherent connotations of exclusion which other terms
don't? As far as I can see, the only thing they have in common is that
that's how we sometimes use them. So once again, it doesn't inhere in the
nature of the terms.
Orcs are an extreme example, and not I think square with the case of race.
It may be speciesism, which I think is a slightly different kettle of
fish from racism. Consider them as akin to demons in the M.E.-verse...
but with the crucial difference that we are never once shown an orc that
is anything other than brutish, violent, selfish, thuggish or motivated by
any kind of altruism or compassion. (I was going to use the term
"wicked", but at this late stage I really don't want to throw another term
into the taxonomy!)
> I'm sensing an agree to disagree moment. :)
I think we're reaching shake-hands-and-part-respectfully bedrock, yes :-)
> Yes, people can be set aside within a group as a figure of fun, a
> scapegoat, whatever - but they're still fundamentally part of the
> community, just performing a not particularly pleasant role in it.
This makes me think of the notion of left-wing versus right-wing horror I
mentioned briefly in the intro to my "Reading..." chapter. It's not a
matter of political ideology:
"'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' is famously a near-rabid anti-Communist
parable, but the narrative mode of its horror is left-wing -the pod-people
are outwardly indistinguishable from us, and to many intents and purposes
*are* us"
Scapegoating by characteristic - whether descriptive or moral - is an
inherently right-wing mode. It's a matter of how you tell the story, not
something that lives in the fabric of the characters by dint of that
characteristic, if you see what I mean.
> Now, the obvious response to this is: what makes "evil" different? That
> would be where my absolutism if you like comes in.
But you've just conceded that it doesn't make "evil" different from, for
instance, racial scapegoating. This would be where your absolutism goes
back out again :-)
> >> I'm beginning to get accustomed to the verbose thing. I mean honestly
> >> - "asymptotically" :)
> >
> > Useful word. And that's not verbosity, it's sesquipedalianism :-)
>
> You do realise that has only about 250 results on Google. I could write
> a random sequence of letters and get more than that...
Hey, it's in the Shorter OED and in P.G. Wodehouse - that'll do me :-)
> > Especially with abstract terms such as "evil" (in contrast to, say
> > "table" or the like), there's nothing you can point to and say
> > definitively, "This is what 'evil' describes."
>
> That's arguably applicable to any term, including "table." You can't
> point to the definitive table, unless you want to go all Plato on me.
> Words obviously describe groups of objects agreed to the same name by
> general social consent. Or something like that, anyway.
Which, in that respect, only goes to back up my principal argument anyway:
that terms are what we use them for, always relative to our cultural
perspective and usage, "evil" as much as "table". I'm on an each-way bet
here :-)
> >> I agree with you to some extent, but again feel that if you're using
> >> "evil" in that way, then you don't really mean it, and so you're sort
> >> of irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The people who passionately
> >> feel it tend to be the ones not giving Saddam a break.
> >
> > Why is it they who get to say what the word "really" means? What is
> > it that makes their use of it more accurate, more valid, more "true"
> > than others? Answer: it chimes with yours :-)
>
> Cynic. The reason I say that is because the (for shorthand) anti-war
> people or whatever who say "evil" like that say it, and you can tell
> they don't want to. I think you're ignoring what I said - if they
> really wanted to use that particular word then their meaning might be
> important, but as a simple password, then it's less so.
And I think this is *your* each-way bet :-) ...that uses of "evil" that
don't coincide with your definition can be discounted because they're a
priori wrong. I don't think sincere meaning and passwordism are at all
mutually exclusive, because my perspective permits them both to exist in
the same space.
> Ignoring the more complicated examples. 'cause hey, you'll only trounce
> me ...
:-D
> Anakin Skywalker, born good, died good.
And Beethoven's 9th, starts on D, ends on D (I hope!). Doesn't say a thing
about what comes between those moments, otherwise Beethoven would be Glenn
Branca :-)
> >> The way I've always read it, original sin is not redeemable. It is in
> >> fact impossible for a human to do on their own. We must instead rely
> >> on Christ to sacrifice himself for us (for our evil, if you like). I
> >> still must say that I do see it as binary in nature.
> >
> > By Christ, yes, but that still makes it redeemable, just not by our
> > good works. And by Christ specifically taking human form in order to
> > make such a sacrifice.
>
> Uh, well yes, but so what? I was never arguing that Christ was evil, so
> I'm not getting your point.
a) original sin *is* redeemable after all, howbeit by faith rather than
works;
b) it's been made redeemable by Christ, who was both divine *and human*,
and therefore *did* have the capacity for evil. He could have listened to
the Tempter; He could have walked away from Gethsemane. No, He didn't,
but that wasn't as it were a pre-ordained result of His goodness,
otherwise He wouldn't have been meaningfully human. Consider _The Last
Temptation_ in this light. The glory of Christ's sacrifice (if you into
that) resides in his being fallible and still going through with it - he
didn't fall, but was fallIBLE. Absolutism would destroy the perfection of
His act, by reducing the whole business to a mechanism.
(Roz also points out that the doctrine of Original Sin was created by
Augustine five centuries on, and that Augustine started out as a
Manichaean - a heresy, interestingly, which often seems to inform the
Angelverse...)
> Arguably it's a difficult thing to call for a legal or practical
> framework. Deciding what one could reasonably expected may well be a
> grey area, just by the difficulty of deciding these things. From a
> moral/theoretical view, not so much. You're still going to have explain
> to me a difficulty, because I don't see what,
But morality is a social construct as much as law; it just appeals to an
extra-human authority and (or because it) prefers to deal in fewer
nuances.
> Hah! Verbose boy fails. :)
The OED offers "simplism" :-ş
> There were lots of reasons people disagreed with Bush & co., but their
> attitude to his language was often very simple and here I think was one
> clear case. The terms were not liked, the attitude wasn't liked - that
> doesn't neccesarily imply a causality between the two.
Agreed with the last sentence, but that also doesn't imply that the
attitude had primacy or stood in the position you ascribe to it.
> I honestly don't see the grey. You knew what was going to happen (or
> what should be expected to happen, in terms of neglicence) and you take
> the responsibility. Otherwises, you don't
I think that's where the difference lies - the difference between "you
knew", "you should have known", "you would have known if you'd looked",
"you would have known and should have looked", "you might not have known
but a reasonable person would have and you're capable of being reasonable
even if you weren't in this case", and in all those variations the further
distinction between "knew what was going to happen", "knew what was likely
to happen" and "knew what might happen". Negligence is, I think, closer
to "you might not have been able to know for sure but had a duty to take
more care" than the, er, simplism you use :-)
That's a lot of grey around one verb! ...and not, I think, boilable-down
unless you're satisfied with a rather unpalatable goo :-)
It's a pity I don't have any friends at Oxford now, to take me there at
all regularly; as I've said to Gunnar before, this is really one for
continuation down the pub :-)
--
Ian S.
Jonathan Dupont
> In article <Xns9373EB1C3A169jo...@140.99.99.130>,
> jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
>
>> the racist idea that another a subset isn't fully human (or inferior)
>> - something that is used all the time in popular culture. Aragorn can
>> slaughter orcs by the thousand, not because they're stupid, but
>> because of their you-know-what-ness.
>
> OK. So what is it that racial/ethnic characteristics - which are
> otherwise more or less descriptive (notwithstanding my caveat about
> Irishness) - have in common with "evil" in this respect, then, that
> allows them both to carry inherent connotations of exclusion which
> other terms don't? As far as I can see, the only thing they have in
> common is that that's how we sometimes use them. So once again, it
> doesn't inhere in the nature of the terms.
A difficult question, I'll admit, although I'm glad you've conceded that
they are at least used that way sometimes. I'm not sure I could answer your
other point properly, at least not soundly. It seems to be a fundamental
part of our society - white hats & black hats, good guys & bad guys, us vs
them but more so. That's not an answer I know, but I do think that how a
term can, and often is used, may well be as important as what we arbitarily
define (you may say this as hypocritical) to be its precise definition.
> Orcs are an extreme example, and not I think square with the case of
> race.
> It may be speciesism, which I think is a slightly different kettle of
> fish from racism. Consider them as akin to demons in the
> M.E.-verse... but with the crucial difference that we are never once
> shown an orc that is anything other than brutish, violent, selfish,
> thuggish or motivated by any kind of altruism or compassion.
Maybe - in fact, probably. At the same time I'm not quite convinced how
metaphorically Tolkien was writing, and Orc's importance beyond being an
enemy. I'll give you that in this case this is more speciesism than
anything else, but I could have found a different example from a while back
(the main one being the roles of savages/Arabs in boys adventure novels
from turn of the century).
...
>
>> Now, the obvious response to this is: what makes "evil" different?
>> That would be where my absolutism if you like comes in.
>
> But you've just conceded that it doesn't make "evil" different from,
> for instance, racial scapegoating. This would be where your
> absolutism goes back out again :-)
Not getting you. They're both absolute in the same way. To a racist you're
not on a scale of Jewness, you are or you aren't. (I'm aware that isn't
entirely historically accurate - but the point is, there was a definite cut
off point).
>
>> > Especially with abstract terms such as "evil" (in contrast to, say
>> > "table" or the like), there's nothing you can point to and say
>> > definitively, "This is what 'evil' describes."
>>
>> That's arguably applicable to any term, including "table." You can't
>> point to the definitive table, unless you want to go all Plato on me.
>> Words obviously describe groups of objects agreed to the same name by
>> general social consent. Or something like that, anyway.
>
> Which, in that respect, only goes to back up my principal argument
> anyway: that terms are what we use them for, always relative to our
> cultural perspective and usage, "evil" as much as "table". I'm on an
> each-way bet here :-)
Maybe. :)
(I'm still seeing the majority useage with my definition, but there you
go...)
...
>> Ignoring the more complicated examples. 'cause hey, you'll only
>> trounce me ...
>
>:-D
>
>> Anakin Skywalker, born good, died good.
>
> And Beethoven's 9th, starts on D, ends on D (I hope!). Doesn't say a
> thing about what comes between those moments, otherwise Beethoven
> would be Glenn Branca :-)
The point is that Anakin is shown to be inherently good, and repents. We
get no indication that Palpatine is anything other than evil.
>> >> The way I've always read it, original sin is not redeemable. It is
>> >> in fact impossible for a human to do on their own. We must instead
>> >> rely on Christ to sacrifice himself for us (for our evil, if you
>> >> like). I still must say that I do see it as binary in nature.
>> >
>> > By Christ, yes, but that still makes it redeemable, just not by our
>> > good works. And by Christ specifically taking human form in order
>> > to make such a sacrifice.
>>
>> Uh, well yes, but so what? I was never arguing that Christ was evil,
>> so I'm not getting your point.
>
> a) original sin *is* redeemable after all, howbeit by faith rather
> than works;
> b) it's been made redeemable by Christ,
I have an objection to your word "made." It isn't made redeemable for
anybody else - he just redeems it himself.
> who was both divine *and
> human*, and therefore *did* have the capacity for evil. He could have
> listened to the Tempter; He could have walked away from Gethsemane.
> No, He didn't, but that wasn't as it were a pre-ordained result of His
> goodness, otherwise He wouldn't have been meaningfully human.
> Consider _The Last Temptation_ in this light. The glory of Christ's
> sacrifice (if you into that) resides in his being fallible and still
> going through with it - he didn't fall, but was fallIBLE. Absolutism
> would destroy the perfection of His act, by reducing the whole
> business to a mechanism.
Last sentence I'm staying well away from, but the point is he didn't commit
evil as he didn't have original sin (born from a virgin, or whatever). It's
still impossible for us mortals to redeem ourselves.
> But morality is a social construct as much as law; it just appeals to
> an extra-human authority and (or because it) prefers to deal in fewer
> nuances.
This looks like another gigantic debate (of which I'm not even sure my
side), so again, staying clear...
>> I honestly don't see the grey. You knew what was going to happen (or
>> what should be expected to happen, in terms of neglicence) and you
>> take the responsibility. Otherwises, you don't
>
> I think that's where the difference lies - the difference between "you
> knew",
Which we agree on.
> "you should have known",
As it stands, meaningless with further information.
"you would have known if you'd looked",
Did the person have any reason to look?
> "you would have known and should have looked",
Possibily same as above two, but sounds slightly more like neglicence.
> "you might not have known but a reasonable person would have and you're
capable of being reasonable even if you weren't in this case",
Again unclear, but it would depend on why they supposedly weren't being
reasonable.
> and in all those
> variations the further distinction between "knew what was going to
> happen", "knew what was likely to happen" and "knew what might
> happen".
This is all about weighing up good with the bad, and not really intimately
related I feel.
> Negligence is, I think, closer to "you might not have been
> able to know for sure but had a duty to take more care" than the, er,
> simplism you use :-)
But that's a concrete position that we can use, not the grey area that you
rely on. :) Did the person have a duty or didn't they? Thus judgement is
made.
> That's a lot of grey around one verb! ...and not, I think,
> boilable-down unless you're satisfied with a rather unpalatable goo
> :-)
Goo me up.
> It's a pity I don't have any friends at Oxford now, to take me there
> at all regularly; as I've said to Gunnar before, this is really one
> for continuation down the pub :-)
I think we've pretty much drawn to a close. Was fun. :)
Ian Shuttleworth
jonatha...@hotblahmail.com (Jonathan Dupont) wrote:
> I think we've pretty much drawn to a close. Was fun. :)
Indeed. I still disagree with, and am confident I can refute, most of
what you say, but really we're into the phase of just restating in other
ways, and it was a tad OT at the best of times.
But if we ever meet up, the first one's on you :-)
(PS Apols for mistakenly attributing Oxonianity to you - my eye strayed to
Niall's header at that point.)
--
Ian S.
pikelet
> In article <g6ggbvo5rptilng6g...@4ax.com>,
>> The simple fact is, from a human perspective, her intentions are not
>> pure at all. She seeks to bring a warm fuzzy glow to me at the cost
>> of everything I am, everything that my life thus far has made me. The
>> whole of my existence up until this point, rendered irrelevent for a
>> warm fuzzy glow? Blimey, even I'm not that desperate.
>
> I think I might well, but - crucially - I know in my current lucid
> state that I'd be wrong to do so.
I forget who the writer in question was, but there is an oft-cited
philosophical diatribe on the notion that an unpleasant reality is better
than a pleasant fiction. I happen, for the most part, to agree.
> It's the notion of earned happiness, and this underlies Angel's entire
> quest. In S1 we saw him reject the Gem of Amara and the demon-blood
> humanity because they were unearned.
And, as I pointed out way back when season one was first broadcast, why
he's so terribly scathing of Lindsay in 'To Shanshu In LA' after the latter
gave up his chance to do a good deed in the previous episode. So I agree,
and there's far, far more mileage in that analysis of his character than
those two examples you cite (those two being still the pivotal ones, mind
you).
> Here, he takes the same decision
> for the whole world - mightily arrogant, but not fundamentally wrong.
Arrogant? How? He's the only one in a position to do so. He's the only
champion (blech, that word again), in a position to do so. He's the only
one in a position to fight Jasmine, with a choice still intact. It's not
arrogance, it's the fact that he's the only one up to the job.
Tim
Ian Shuttleworth
(pikelet) wrote:
> > Here, he takes the same decision
> > for the whole world - mightily arrogant, but not fundamentally wrong.
>
> Arrogant? How? He's the only one in a position to do so. He's the only
> champion (blech, that word again), in a position to do so. He's the
> only one in a position to fight Jasmine, with a choice still intact.
> It's not arrogance, it's the fact that he's the only one up to the job.
Being in a position to do something - even being the only one -
doesn't confer the right, still less the duty to do it, objectively
speaking. It's still a call dependent either on judgement or on one's own
morality (which is a subjectively adopted set of values which one dresses
up as being objectively privileged).
--
Ian S.
pikelet
> In article <g6ggbvo5rptilng6g...@4ax.com>,
This has stuck in my head, and it's bothering me a bit. What's the
difference, then, between a god and a government?
Tim.
Ian Shuttleworth
tkp...@SMAPTRAP.bham.ac.uk (pikelet) wrote:
> >> >>>>>>>>>> Below are spoilers for episode 21 of season 4 of Angel
[very oblique, but still sort of]
> >> >>>>>>>>>
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
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> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
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> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> :
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
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> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
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> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>> .
> >> >>>>>>>>>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> What's the difference, then, between a god and a government?
Actually, it's a bloody good question. Every factor I can think of
offhand is rapidly rebuttable.
Gods are incorporeal (generally), governments not - well, no, you can't
point to a single body and say, "That is the government". But agents and
representatives of government, who do the interpreting and promulgating,
are corporeal - yeah, just like priests and prophets.
Gods are as it were defined by a consensus belief, backed up when
necessary by brute force: exactly the same with governments.
...and so on.
about the only difference I can think of - and it's really only a cosmetic
one - is that governments sometimes cloak notions of the good of the state
(i.e. of the governors) in phrases about the common weal, whereas
religions speak directly of divine decree, but still are really referring
to the self-interest of the religious governors.
It's fortuitous that you ask when I'm midway through a re-reading of
_Illuminatus!_ :-)
--
Ian S.
pikelet
I've kept all your reply, though it's the 'consensus belief' and 'self-
interest of the religious governors' bits that I'm referring to most when
I say - surely taking a secular perspective here, as you apparently are,
is flawed?
I was confining my thinking to the examples given by, for example, the
existence of Jasmine in 'Angel' or the times in various religious texts
where gods interact with human beings. The corporeal bit hadn't occurred
to me in the least. Nor had the consensus belief bit.
I was thinking more along these lines: if a god, in whatever form, were
to appear on Earth, why would it be incapable of compelling people to do
things? The traditional concept of a god (and by 'traditional', I mean
Judeo-Christian since I'm not really intimate with the ins-and-outs of,
say, Hinduism) tends to point towards the omnipotent. Even Classical
mythology, which centred on the flawed personalities and fallibility of
many of its god-figures, still had those gods taking control of people's
destinies.
But I sense that I'm getting ahead of myself. What's our definition of
'compel'? Is it (a) to force somebody's hand unknowingly, to effectively
manipulate a choice from them? Or (b) do you take away even the vestigial
impression that a choice is available, and turn them into, effectively, a
slave with no free will?
(a) is what's been happening in 'Angel' since at least 'Epiphany',
according to Jasmine, and quite possibly earlier. (b), on the other hand,
is what Jasmine's attempting to achieve after her corporeal form as been
attained.
If our definition of 'compel' is restricted to (b), then I think that I
agree that there can be no working difference between a god and
government on this issue. As 'Angel' itself illustrates through use of
magic, even the most widespread consensus opinion will have its
detractors. '1984' also springs to mind, as the 'government' contrast,
since Smith has a choice at the end as to whether or not he betrays his
lover and his humanity. That he makes, in the eyes of the reader, the
wrong choice does not negate the fact that he's still made a choice.
O'Brien may have tortured him to the point when he starts to doubt his
own humanity, but there is no doubt that, should he wish to, Smith could
still insist that two and two makes four.
The Party wishes to create slaves, effectively, without free will and
fully capable of unconscious doublethink. There's a moment in the very
final chapter when Smith has to remind himself that their opponent in the
war has always been Eurasia, and I've never been sure if that's because
Orwell is telling us that Smith now believes that or, alternatively,
giving us an insight into the false conversion of Smith by telling us
that he *does* have to remind himself. Either way, I don't think that (b)
is, really, possible for government, though it may be possible for a god
were that one of the signs of Their divinity.
Now (a) is a far more tricky idea. On the scale in which it is employed
in 'Angel', it's something only a godlike power could do. To manipulate
that many circumstances, that many lives would be impossible were the
power anything else. No one human being is that capable. But, on the
other hand, what we're talking about here is - effectively - making a
person choose a certain path by convincing them that it's the most
desirable or, even the only available, path for them to take. Now, that's
what the propaganda you see released in wartime is for - to make people
choose to believe a certain thing. Similarly, when I was about five years
old, my mother used to tell me that if you ate the same thing twice in a
day it would be poisonous, in an attempt to get me to choose something
else for dinner other than a pizza. That, pretty much, removed my choice
from me since I had no real desire to poison myself. Fact is, I still
*had* a choice, I just didn't realise it had been removed from me quite
insidiously. So humans can do that to each other too, so presumably human
governments wouldn't have a problem doing it.
At this point, I feel the urge to point out that this is making my head
hurt :)
Here's a differentiation that might satisfy us both. My original post
suggested that Jasmine was behaving like a god, despite the fact that she
may deny that she's a deity. You took issue with this on the basis that
Jasmine was attempting to compel people to do things, and a deity cannot
compel. She is, therefore, wanting to be more than a god, and merely
being viewed as a deity is actually insufficient for her.
How's about this, then. I still say she's acting like a god, but what if
the distinction between a god and a government is that gods are not
accountable? Government is, after all, and even a dictator is accountable
to his own mortality. Gods, however, are beholden to nobody. Jasmine's
attempts to be a god are summed up, as much as anything, by her lack of
accountability to anything. Where she falls short, however, is in
underestimating the human need to be governed by accountable sources
rather than by decree and compunction. What proves that she is not a god
is not, in fact, her desire to compel, but rather that she fails to
attain unaccountability. She ends up getting killed instead.
How's that one? I say she's trying to be a god, you say she's not acting
like a god, I say she's acting like a god, but she's just failing to be a
god on grounds of her - ultimately - being accountable to those she seeks
to rule.
> It's fortuitous that you ask when I'm midway through a re-reading of
> _Illuminatus!_ :-)
Hah! For you, maybe :-p
Cool - metaphysical discussion. Haven't had one of those outside the pub
for a long time :)
Tim
Ian Shuttleworth
tkp...@SMAPTRAP.bham.ac.uk (pikelet) wrote:
[snip]
> it's the 'consensus belief' and 'self-interest of the religious
> governors' bits that I'm referring to most when I say - surely taking a
> secular perspective here, as you apparently are, is flawed?
I thought at the time, and I suppose still do, that the question implies
such a perspective. Yes, I suppose I was considering religious systems
rather than gods per se, but in the absence of *undisputed* manifestations
of the divine, I'm not sure there's an alternative, short of saying "the
difference is that a god is a gaseous vertebrate of galactic heft" :-)
But thanks for the clarification as to your real point, which I'll now try
to address.
> What's our definition of 'compel'? Is it (a) to force somebody's hand
> unknowingly, to effectively manipulate a choice from them? Or (b) do you
> take away even the vestigial impression that a choice is available, and
> turn them into, effectively, a slave with no free will?
> (a) is what's been happening in 'Angel' since at least 'Epiphany',
> according to Jasmine, and quite possibly earlier.
Not quite - according to Skip, who identifies himself (but is never
confirmed) as an agent of Jasmine. Others hereabouts have had more
problems than me with the audacity of such a retcon, but it's still just
as well to be precise about the limitations of the testimony.
> (b), on the other hand, is what Jasmine's attempting to achieve after
> her corporeal form as been attained.
>
> If our definition of 'compel' is restricted to (b), then I think that I
> agree that there can be no working difference between a god and
> government on this issue. As 'Angel' itself illustrates through use of
> magic, even the most widespread consensus opinion will have its
> detractors.
I also think "consensus opinion" is somewhat euphemistic and
over-dignifying as a description of Jasmine's visual and psychological
glamour (in the magical sense) :-)
I think my philosophical position is somewhat akin to Angel's at the end
of "Peace Out", really: that a god may do your (b) as a government can't,
but in such a case those controlled cease in a crucial way to be true
human beings. In other words, even in religious systems, free will is an
essential part of humanity: we must have the possibility of the wrong
choice in order to give value to the right one... otherwise "right" and
"wrong" "choices" become meaningless.
That pretty much comes down to a point of metaphysical dogma, I freely
admit.
[very interesting though slightly digressive analogy with _Nineteen
Eighty-Four_ snipped]
> Now (a) is a far more tricky idea. On the scale in which it is employed
> in 'Angel', it's something only a godlike power could do. To manipulate
> that many circumstances, that many lives would be impossible were the
> power anything else. No one human being is that capable. But, on the
> other hand, what we're talking about here is - effectively - making a
> person choose a certain path by convincing them that it's the most
> desirable or, even the only available, path for them to take. Now,
> that's what the propaganda you see released in wartime is for - to make
> people choose to believe a certain thing.
This *is* getting crammed with fine distinctions, isn't it? :-)
I don't think the divine and propagandistic examples are identical.
Again, thinking back to your mention of classical gods and their
manipulations, I think the element of free will is also missing there, and
that the only difference between (a) and b) is the length of the divine
arm and its *immediate* visibility. Did Oedipus actually have any choice
about killing Laius and marrying Jocasta, for instance? Or Clytemnestra
about killing Agamemnon, and Orestes about killing her in turn and
provoking his pursuit by the Furies? He's being punished for something he
had no meaningful latitude about doing.
This is why Euripides is, to modern sensibilities, the greatest of the
Greek dramatists: he shows us the full range of human feelings, but
there's still the sense of inevitability - the difference is that with him
it isn't mechanistic and fatalistic but problematic; in some ways he's
fairly openly critical of the gods, which led to his disapproval by the
Athenian state.
But to get back to the more usual characteristics of your mode (a), think
of Ray Harryhausen movies, and the repeated cuts to Olympus and the gods
playing board games with mortals. Does a pawn have any choice about which
square it moves to?
So, yeah, if we consider gods as active entities (not unlike Jasmine)
rather than as merely dictating religious codes, yes, there is that
essential difference between their powers and those of governments. But,
as I say, governments can only work with people with free will, and the
gods make their moves, however oblique, by rendering that will nugatory.
> Here's a differentiation that might satisfy us both. My original post
> suggested that Jasmine was behaving like a god, despite the fact that
> she may deny that she's a deity. You took issue with this on the basis
> that Jasmine was attempting to compel people to do things, and a deity
> cannot compel. She is, therefore, wanting to be more than a god, and
> merely being viewed as a deity is actually insufficient for her.
Except that I think you've now persuaded me away from that position :-) I
now grant that Jasmine *is* trying to be a god in the sense I now
understand you as meaning.
I'd then go on to modify your current proposition by saying that a god
cannot compel a human being without rendering them unworthy of that
description "human being". Which, again I admit, is a kind of
circularity. Yup, my head now hurting too :-)
> what if the distinction between a god and a government is that gods are
> not accountable? Government is, after all
Surely governments, like gods, are accountable to a greater force. In
liberal democracies (and a community of same), that force may be deemed to
be vested in a domestic electorate or freely entered into international
agreements; but in despotisms, it comes down to external force, and we're
into might-makes-right and a rather tendentious notion of
"accountability".
Compare the divine aspect of the story of the Trojan War, its origins and
aftermath, which is a whole tangle of individual gods' whims and schemes
being "accountable" to their coevals or superiors. Gods aren't
necessarily omnipotent as between themselves, only as compared to mortals.
> and even a dictator is accountable to his own mortality.
It's a beautiful phrase, but I'm not sure what if any practical meaning it
has :-) To take a couple of examples from the past half-century, the
Duvaliers in Haiti and the Kims in Korea, a dictatorship can be made so
entrenched that dynasticism to all practical intents and purposes
overcomes the mortality of an individual. (Iraq was plainly intended to
go the same way with the Hussein family, if events hadn't supervened.)
The more this goes on, the further we get from any firm conclusions on
where Jasmine fits into this.
> Jasmine's attempts to be a god are summed up, as much as anything, by
> her lack of accountability to anything. Where she falls short, however,
> is in underestimating the human need to be governed by accountable
> sources rather than by decree and compunction. What proves that she is
> not a god is not, in fact, her desire to compel, but rather that she
> fails to attain unaccountability. She ends up getting killed instead.
It strikes me that, if you can say that dictators are accountable to their
mortality, then Jasmine was likewise accountable to a greater impersonal
force composed of a combination of circumstance and the will of her
opponents, simply because those were the factors in the process by which
she was brought to account.
> How's that one? I say she's trying to be a god, you say she's not
> acting like a god, I say she's acting like a god, but she's just
> failing to be a god on grounds of her - ultimately - being accountable
> to those she seeks to rule.
I own up that it's my shift of position that banjaxes this one. Sorry.
OH! OH! WAIT! I think I've got an eleventh-hour formulation that allows
everything we've said, and at the same time allows me to maintain my
original position that Jasmine wanted to be more than a god:
With both Judaeo-Christian and Greco-Roman gods, we can grant their
omnipotence in human terms, BUT can note that that omnipotence is
relatively seldom exercised... OK, you've got a fair clutch of Biblical
examples and virtually the entire corpus of classical legend, but in terms
of everyday life, gods don't intervene. Jasmine's excess is that she
intended that the glamorised adoration of her would have informed and
directed really every aspect of mortal life, bar none. That's her excess:
the totality of removal of free will. And that's what makes her ambitions
greater than godhead, and her innate character less.
Phew! How's that?
Still and all, as you say, fun. In a temple-throbbing way, if you'll
permit the (at first accidental) pun.
> > It's fortuitous that you ask when I'm midway through a re-reading of
> > _Illuminatus!_ :-)
>
> Hah! For you, maybe :-p
Hail Eris :-)
--
Ian S.