The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. ---- Merchant of Venice (right?)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing — Edmund Burke (yeah, I had to look it up)
I can’t remember if I wrote about the second quote here or somewhere else, and since my head has been re-wired I haven’t the whatever to go back and look (fill in the blank, time, energy, chutzpah, spleen, cheek, all might be true except time; I have a lot of time).
There is something inherently wrong with that quote, potentially very very wrong. Have you, for instance, read Mein Kampf? You don’t have to and if you are asking my opinion, don’t read it. If you have, however, or do, you’ll notice that no where in that does the author, a young Adolph Hitler arrogant enough to write a premature auto-biography, refer to himself as a Bad Man.
My point should be obvious, though, technically not referring to oneself as a bad man does not mean you consider yourself a good man. In Hindsight most people would consider Evil as having lost some ground were Hitler to have done nothing.
So instead of a rant about good and evil, things which I know very little about, I’m just pointing out how very subjective a Good Man is and how empirical doing nothing is. One could say something similar about war in general, as long as I’m talking about a particular guy who’s moment in history that skirts the shadow of good and evil relates to war, that for War to occur both good men and bad men have to do something. Ultimately the who is whom or which is which is decided by the victory or failure.
I certainly have been in the position to have an opinion on good and evil, I have met many people whose actions resulted in objectively good and objectively evil events. They all look just like people. Often we associate murder with evil or, you know, good in the case of war when our side killed someone. In a war we don’t call it murder, well, not until the war is over and then some people get tried for war crimes and some don’t, but, let’s just say that when there is a body we suspect evil is lurking about.
There are things a lot worse than murder. We can think of good reasons for killing someone and this fragile existence can end with an accident, we can die without any ill intent on the part of those involved. Abusing a child or an animal, however, there are no good reasons, no accident, no temporary insanity. I can’t say with surety that the act is evil, but I can almost guarantee it isn’t isolated (I could guarantee completely if I knew ho long the perp would live with access to children and animals, and I’m pretty damn sure by the time the perp is “caught” for the “first incident” several incidents have already been perpetrated by the perp).
Let’s forget for a moment that the perp, like Hitler, doesn’t think himself a bad man (though some do and some aren’t male) I still insist evil would not triumph is this fellow (or dame) were to have done nothing. However, it takes a whole village doing nothing for this to contimue. The victim often blames to do-nothings more than the doer. Granted this is most frequent in cases where it’s all in the family, say, the father is the doer and the mother the do nothing. Whether the child blames the mother most or not, how do you apply, all gender language aside, the quote of what it takes for evil to triumph?
If this act is evil, and I am suggesting it is closer to said definition of absolute morality than murder which has several qualifiers, I would suggest evil triumphs when evil men do something, it triumphs repeatedly when no one capable of standing up to it does. That’s a shitty quote and you’d need a Hummer to fit that on the bumper. And, if evil exists outside of the damage of the act, outside of how injuring the act is to humanity, than the kid who ties a kitten in a sack and drops the sack in the river is a pretty evil motherfucker and the good men who do nothing include everyone not patrolling rivers for just such events. I mean sure, one could argue the death of a man is some greater tragedy, but surely you can’t argue a kitten in a sack isn’t pre-meditated or a gross injustice and slap in the face of morality. I don’t even like cats all that much.
Ok, I’ve typed until my typing elbow hurts. I hope I managed to say something.
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