Am I evil?

I've been doing a lot of reading about serial killers, Nazis, you know... and with all the bankers and politicians in the news, you could say that I've gotten my fill of evil people for the month. And it's only the 11th...
So this got me thinking, who is the most evil person in the world? Hitler? Ted Bundy? The people who ran over that little Chinese girl a few weeks ago? Or maybe those who saw her bleeding to death, and chose to continue shopping rather than help her?

What is evil? Am I evil?

Well let's start with Uncle Adolf, shall we? Was Hitler a bad, bad man? Why yes, he was, you get 5 points! But he didn't really get up in the morning and said, 'Alright folks, I'll have a bowl of cereal please, and after that I'll do some evil!' I really doubt that. I think in his own mind he was doing humanity a favor, and if he had won the war he would have been a hero; simply because he would have been judged by people who shared his worldview.
But he lost, and was judged by people who had different views- and so now he is considered evil.
Don't get me wrong; I think he was quite the little asshat as well. But this shows that the definition of what is right and what is wrong changes with time. Slavery is a big no-no right now, but the Romans, whom we Westerners generally admire, were really rather fond of it. Does that make all Romans evil? Or was slavery OK for them, in their time?
And does that mean that the Holocaust was then alright from a Nazi point of view?
Was the genocide of American natives alright from a conqueror's point of view?
Yes, it was.
The fact that we no longer agree with the rightness of these historical events seems to show that we create evil- not by our actions, but by our reactions. The action of shooting a Injun was considered normal a hundred years ago; but today we react by saying that it's murder. It is merely our opinion that this is evil, and not an established universal fact. There is no huge stone tablet in the sky that tells us right from wrong. Our opinions and attitudes are products of our time and our society. And therefore, what is evil and what is not changes quite often.

What about Ted Bundy, though? Murdering all those women, and then trying to manipulate the media until the last minute before your execution by trying to blame pornography for your actions instead of apologizing to the victim's families, surely that is evil, right?
Yes, his actions seem evil, but Teddy was psychologically ill. He felt a compulsion. He couldn't help himself. That does not excuse what he did, but it explains it. He too, did not get up in the morning specifically to commit evil. He was simply being himself, as fucked up as that might seem.

So what about the people who failed to help the little girl in China who was run over by two vans on a busy street? Evil, apathetic... if I think about it too long, many unkind words enter my mind. She was only two, and she was crying and screaming and holding her head the whole time, and they just let her die there, in the middle of the street, like roadkill. I wish I could strangle them all, slowly. But would that make me evil? Is some violence justifiable?
Well, is apathy? 

Society, by and large, has always been shaped by religion, or religion-like system. The Chinese system, which devalues girls, seems to be at least partially to blame for the little girl's horrible fate. Nazism and its version of Jesus, Hitler, are most definitely to blame for the Holocaust and World War II. Christianity played a large role in the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the subjugation of Latin America's people to invading Europeans... all of these things were or are considered 'right', and not evil.

So how is one to know what one should and should not do in today's world? How will history judge us and our actions? Will hindsight be kind to us?

I think the only way to ensure that we do more good than harm during our stay on this little planet is to try to separate our thinking from the norm. Forget about religion, forget about society, forget about politics. Base your actions on humanism rather than on the philosophy du jour. Be accountable for your actions, don't hide behind the shield of religion or the excuse of peer pressure.

I'm beginning to sound terribly preachy there, I know. It's been a long day. Just one more thing:
"This above all: to thine own self be true."
-Shakespeare. I think if you keep that in mind, and act accordingly, you'll be alright.
Good night.

OMG

I recently watched an old interview with Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer. He is a bit different from most others like him, in that he tried to express some remorse for what he had done, and stressed that his parents were certainly not to blame for the many murders that he committed. He himself took full responsibility for what he did, and I think that's great. No, really. No 'blaming the voices in my head' for ol' Jeff. Except for one little thing; something he says to the interviewer:

"Evolution just devalues life."

Jeffrey, who had only been minimally exposed to religion throughout his life, had found Jesus in prison. He told the interviewer that if he'd had a more religious upbringing, he wouldn't have become a serial killer. All those boys would still be alive. So he blamed the lack of religion , at least partly, for what he had done.

What bothers me about this assertion is that it's complete bullshit. Science, which we advance by using our (supposedly God-) given brains, devalues us? Is not the opposite true? Does not a belief in a God, who controls every facet of our predetermined lives in a rat's maze he carefully crafted for us, devalue us?
I resent the notion that I am nothing more than a master's plaything, without free will or options as to my fate.

Is not the very concept of a religion dehumanizing? That we should believe that we are worthless little creatures, just graciously being allowed to live by an omnipotent creature whom we must worship, lest he floods the planet and kills us all, is that not dehumanizing?

All religions seem to share one trait, their contempt for humanity and its development. Free and independent thought is something that all churches seek to curb or ban, because they know that once we truly begin to think for ourselves we will no longer have a need for them.

But what about the morality that religion instills in us, you ask? Well, what morality would that be? Would a church that condoned slavery, colonialism, and countless other crimes really have prevented Jeffrey from becoming a monster? And let's not forget that Jeffrey was a homosexual, and that his chosen religion -Catholicism- condemns homosexuality.

Condemns! How does an organization that claims to live by the teachings of Jesus have the gall to condemn another human being? And they don't stop with gays; they also condemn anything and anyone else who fails to live up to the arbitrary and ever-changing standards the church sets.

And why exactly does an organization that is currently being led by an old Nazi who systematically hides child rapists from the police think that it has the moral high ground on any issue?

No, Jeffrey was wrong. Religions change, society's values change, and we change. God is as much or as little as we make of him, and your own personal beliefs -or lack thereof- cannot and should not be used as an excuse for your behavior.


Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Amen.

Saudi Arabia?

People in Germany are all upset now, because Angela Merkel and her cabinet of assorted idiots have decided to sell tanks to the Saudis, which previous administrations had always refused to do.
People are saying that the Saudis will use the tanks against their own people (using them against someone else's people would be so much nicer, right?). They're saying that this move on Merkel's part really surprises them.
Really? It surprises them?
Have they already forgotten the Angela Merkel who, as leader of the opposition, apologized to George W. Bush when then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder decided that he wouldn't help with the Irak invasion? The leader of our opposition apologized for a decision our government made to a foreign head of state?

And then the people went ahead and voted for her. Wow. Retards.

And it's not as if the others in her cabinet are any different: from Guido Westerwelle, who probably qualifies for a spot in the Special Olympics, to Wolfgang Schaeuble, who once famously uttered that "The Irak war was a mistake, but it's better than the United States losing face." Yep, he prefers thousands of people dieing -on both sides- to Bush saying "I was wrong, let's get out of here."

And now you people are surprised to see that Merkel acts like the neo-con puppet that she is? Kissing Washington's ass and doing what the White House tells her to do comes as a surprise to you? What a short memory you have.

The problem of democracies is that in theory, the cream should rise to the top so that the best people may govern society; but the reality is all too often that we are nothing but a giant ocean, in which endless waves of collective amnesia always bring the same excrement back to the top.

The good people have long gone into economics, and only those too stupid for something better get stuck in politics, where these dime-a-dozen bureaucrats masquerade as statesmen and diplomats. And we keep voting for them, for lack of credible alternatives.
And then we act surprised when they act like the unconscionable, morally corrupt embarrassments to the human species that they are.
One can only shake one's head.

Endlich!

Bin endlich mit der deutschen Uebersetzung von 'Methods of Suicide' fertig geworden.
War ein ganzes Stueck Arbeit, hoffentlich wird sich das auch lohnen. Jetzt bin ich dabei, das Marokko Buch zu uebersetzen, aber das wird dauern. Patience, patience....
 Methoden des Suizids

F1

So the Grand Prix took place this weekend here in rainy Montreal... i used to watch F1 religiously, when I was a kid. I'd spend the whole 2 hours glued to our tiny 14" TV, hoping that my hero, Alain Prost, would win. Which he did frequently
Nowadays though, I don't really care. Races are decided solely by pit strategies and tire wear, and driving skill seems to have become meaningless. There is so much aerodynamic downforce and so little mechanical grip that all cars take the exact same line through each corner, and passing or even -gasp- long battles for position have long been a thing of the past. Gone are the days of Prost-Senna battles, never to return. Well, unless the FIA finally get a clue and return to cars that have small wings and wide tires, to give the more importance to driving skill than to a team's aerodynamicist. But I'm not holding my breath...
For those of you who want to see what F1 used to be like, way back when, here's a nice clip featuring Montreal's own Gilles Villeneuve (in the Ferrari), fighting for second place with Rene Arnoux (in the yellow Renault). Enjoy.
Villeneuve vs Arnoux

Idols

I have to admit, as annoying as those "American Idol"-type shows are, I admire the idea behind them.
I do. Stop laughing.
You see, with people like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, a record company must invest enormous amounts of money into the public image that it wants to create for their star, and there's no guarantee -in spite of all the market analysis that they undoubtedly perform- that the public will buy into it.
But with these so-called talent shows (on which only losers compete), the audience itself chooses which tone-deaf retard it prefers. Once the popular phone-in vote has established a winner in this loser contest, the media promote that person as if he or she were the second coming of Buddha, and the population at large embraces him. The producers of the show then quickly throw an album of inoffensive shmaltz together for him to, uh, 'sing' on; and everyone rushes out to buy it. It's brilliant, you make money off of the idiotic masses who cannot decide for themselves what kind of music they like, and you have to make virtually no investment of your own.
And on top of that, you actually get paid to sit in a TV studio and insult your guests. I'd do that for free (well, I already do that now, except I don't sit in a TV studio). The show itself isn't free (there's money from advertisers), the hosts receive a salary... and for what? Exactly, nothing.
It really was and remains a great idea, and the only thing that bugs me about it (aside from the god-awful 'music' and the insufferable 'stars' these shows create) is the fact that I didn't come up with this myself.

Just testing

I'm just testing to see how this works. I used to have two blogs on a site called weebly, but I shut them down after moving to a pay-site for my business. So now I'm experimenting with blogger.

I will mostly be posting random thoughts and ramblings, I don't think my posts will be making all that much sense; but I need an outlet for the bullshit that accumulates in my head.

You can find my books here:
amazon.com
and they are also available on amazon's international sites, directly through Apple's iBookstore, or from your Sony Reader. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.