3 thoughts on “Evil”

  1. Show me a human to whom no evil has ever been done.
    Then show me a human who has never done any evil.

    Auden’s observation is true only on the level of tautology, and says nothing valid about cause and effect; it just slyly implies it, in such a way that the gullible may think they are being clued in on a wonderful bit of esoteric wisdom, when they are actually being hornswoggled.

    And it is a hornswoggle. For I can show you some who did evil to others far in excess of anything they ever suffered themselves; and others who suffered the most appalling things at the hands of their fellow man, but never felt, let alone succumbed to, the urge to do likewise to others. To take a particularly blatant example, the people who built Auschwitz had never been put in death camps themselves, and the people who survived Auschwitz never built any death camps of their own.

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