What do you think?
Rate this book
Sobre el mal
For many enlightened, liberal-minded thinkers today, and for most on the political left, evil is an outmoded concept. It smacks too much of absolute judgments and metaphysical certainties to suit the modern age. In this witty, accessible study, the prominent Marxist thinker Terry Eagleton launches a surprising defense of the reality of evil, drawing on literary, theological, and psychoanalytic sources to suggest that evil, no mere medieval artifact, is a real phenomenon with palpable force in our contemporary world.
In a book that ranges from St. Augustine to alcoholism, Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Mann, Shakespeare to the Holocaust, Eagleton investigates the frightful plight of those doomed souls who apparently destroy for no reason. In the process, he poses a set of intriguing questions. Is evil really a kind of nothingness? Why should it appear so glamorous and seductive? Why does goodness seem so boring? Is it really possible for human beings to delight in destruction for no reason at all?
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
135 people are currently reading
1900 people want to read
About the author
Terry Eagleton
160 books1,282 followersWidely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr. Terry Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and as Visiting Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Thomas Warton Prof. of English Literature at the University of Oxford ('92-01) & John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester 'til '08. He returned to the University of Notre Dame in the Autumn '09 semester as Distinguished Visitor in the English Department.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
January 15, 2021
Interpretive Responsibility
On Evil is largely a literary analysis of the issue of bad behaviour. Eagleton ranges from that expert on the evil psyche, William Golding, and other modern novelists, to Freud and Shakespeare, to the 19th century philosophers of evil, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, to the biblical books of St. Paul and Job. This might all seem a tad academic and disconnected from what most people consider everyday life. But it isn’t. The clue to his intention lies even before the text. Eagleton dedicates this book to Henry Kissinger, certainly a contender for one of the top ten spots as evil leader in the 20th century. This alone proved for me sufficient enticement to read it, and perhaps even to understand it.
Let me make the issue of evil prosaic in the extreme, because it is just that. It annoys me that many of the ‘reviews’ on GR consist of either a synopsis of what an author has to say, or a mere statement of opinion without interesting reasons (‘I just didn’t like the characters’, ‘it wasn’t what I expected,’ ‘it wasn’t as good as his last book’, etc.). For me, the only thing interesting about someone else’s opinion is their reason for holding it. This reason is the interpretive key, not just in their reading of the book, but also of my reading of them.
There are better and worse reasons for not just reading but for doing anything at all (or for that matter doing nothing). Ultimately, what we mean by evil is having an inadequate reason for doing something. Homicide in defence of one’s family is not the same as the murder of a defenceless child. A reason is an interpretive criterion. We see things differently for different reasons. This includes the world of events not just books.
So, in a sense, evil is not just banal, as Hannah Arendt claimed, it is also trivial in the sense that it consists of an act performed for an inadequate, or trivial, reason. This is not to say that power, money, or reputation, for example, are trivial objectives. The consequent status involved in an action may be enormous. It is the reason itself, the standard to be applied to the action and not its result, on which the evaluation of evil must take place.
The assessment of evil and its gradations (or for that matter the good as the opposite of evil), therefore, requires a scale of ‘reasonableness.’ Such a scale can be a complex business. To commit a country to war in order to protect the national honour is pretty trivial to me; but all might not agree. To do the same thing for the purpose of promoting one’s political standing, or to demonstrate one’s ability to ‘take the tough decisions’ I think would be universally considered evil, however. That is, these latter criteria for action are substantially lower down the scale of reasonableness than even that of national honour.
According to my theory, evil exists not just in the actions and decisions influencing the ‘big events’ in the world but also in the most common, routine, and unremarkable events - perhaps like writing a book review. Evil exists most often when reasons don’t even need to be given and therefore are merely assumed to be acceptable. ‘I just thought it was a good idea at the time’ has nil moral content. But so does ‘the book just didn’t come up to my expectations.’ What was the idea at the time? What we’re the kinds of expectations in play? Without knowing these, there is a prima facie case that evil is involved.
I think Eagleton agrees with me (or I with him, I’ve been reading his books for a long time). When he says, “It is not so much the past that shapes us as the past as we (consciously or unconsciously) interpret it,” he is implying personal responsibility for the only thing we really have a choice about in life, namely the reason for doing anything. He goes on to define the meaning of responsibility in a way that makes sense to me: “To be responsible is not to be bereft of social influences, but to relate to such influences in a particular way.”
This mode of relating is really a matter of comparing possible reasons to each other and making a judgment about their relative value public. This is the nature of what is commonly called ethics. Ethics is not some fixed code, like the Ten Commandments (or the other more than 400 mitzvah or divine directives of the Bible). The world is simply too changeable for any code to remain useful, much less credible. Ethics is the consideration and establishment of reasonable behaviour. Ethics define what constitutes a relatively good reason for an action, and inversely a relatively bad reason, that is to say, evil.
So then, the matter of Henry Kissinger: Eagleton points out that “Pure autonomy is a dream of evil.” Autonomy is the freedom to act without reason, to hide reason, to define reason without content, and to insist on this freedom when confronted by opposing reason. This last is the apotheosis of evil. It is a freedom at which Kissinger was a master.
“Moral thought is not an alternative to political thought,” insists Eagleton. I would go further: Political thought is the only meaningful way moral thought can be expressed. To make reason articulate and public is necessarily to make it political. This applies in science as much as it does in national government. The difference is that scientists are expected to argue about what constitutes a good reason while politicians avoid anything that deviates from an established party line.
Kissinger was the incarnation of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, the maniacal presidential advisor whose only authentic reason for acting was revenge on the human race which had failed to recognise his genius. Like Trump, almost everything Kissinger said or did was meant to promote the cause of Kissinger. He took no responsibility for this and continuously pointed to factual necessity for his actions. He called this Realpolitik (others called it expediency) and used it to justify the overthrow of the democratic government of Chile, the genocidal war in Bangladesh, the dirty war in Argentina, and the bombing of Cambodia among many other actions.
Kissinger, like Trump, is an embodiment of the American Dream, the quest for infinite freedom, that is to say an ability to act without ethical constraint. These are what Eagleton calls “overreachers,” people who refuse to acknowledge their finiteness and fallibility. They aspire to be gods. And they can only achieve this by abandoning ethical reason, which involves hiding true intention and ignoring criticism that presents alternative criteria of action.
These aspiring gods are known by a specific behaviour: They never acknowledge guilt. They always claim they acted for the best reasons and that these remain the best reasons. They are, in short, ethically incorrigible. They claim both an absence of psychological neurosis and the lack of theological original sin, as if they were self-made and of different stuff than the rest of humanity. Their egoism is, for them, a cardinal virtue.
Eagleton approves Schopenhauer’s definition of evil as “motivated by a need to obtain relief from the inner torment of what he called the Will; and this relief was to be gained by inflicting that torment on others. In psychoanalytic terms, evil is thus a form of projection.” Evil people ‘get their retaliation in first.’ Trump demonstrates as much on a daily basis; Kissinger was less noisy but employed ruthless projection on a larger scale. Trump, like Eichmann, is stupidly evil; Kissinger is intelligently evil.
It was Noam Chomsky who remarked that it isn’t ethically necessary for intellectuals to speak the truth to power, because power already knows the truth. Power already knows that it lies about its motivations. Power knows that its status depends on keeping its criteria for action secret. And power will reject any interpretation of its reason except its own. Thus it is necessary for the rest of us to needle power continuously by speaking the truth to each other. Even if it’s only about books.
On Evil is largely a literary analysis of the issue of bad behaviour. Eagleton ranges from that expert on the evil psyche, William Golding, and other modern novelists, to Freud and Shakespeare, to the 19th century philosophers of evil, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, to the biblical books of St. Paul and Job. This might all seem a tad academic and disconnected from what most people consider everyday life. But it isn’t. The clue to his intention lies even before the text. Eagleton dedicates this book to Henry Kissinger, certainly a contender for one of the top ten spots as evil leader in the 20th century. This alone proved for me sufficient enticement to read it, and perhaps even to understand it.
Let me make the issue of evil prosaic in the extreme, because it is just that. It annoys me that many of the ‘reviews’ on GR consist of either a synopsis of what an author has to say, or a mere statement of opinion without interesting reasons (‘I just didn’t like the characters’, ‘it wasn’t what I expected,’ ‘it wasn’t as good as his last book’, etc.). For me, the only thing interesting about someone else’s opinion is their reason for holding it. This reason is the interpretive key, not just in their reading of the book, but also of my reading of them.
There are better and worse reasons for not just reading but for doing anything at all (or for that matter doing nothing). Ultimately, what we mean by evil is having an inadequate reason for doing something. Homicide in defence of one’s family is not the same as the murder of a defenceless child. A reason is an interpretive criterion. We see things differently for different reasons. This includes the world of events not just books.
So, in a sense, evil is not just banal, as Hannah Arendt claimed, it is also trivial in the sense that it consists of an act performed for an inadequate, or trivial, reason. This is not to say that power, money, or reputation, for example, are trivial objectives. The consequent status involved in an action may be enormous. It is the reason itself, the standard to be applied to the action and not its result, on which the evaluation of evil must take place.
The assessment of evil and its gradations (or for that matter the good as the opposite of evil), therefore, requires a scale of ‘reasonableness.’ Such a scale can be a complex business. To commit a country to war in order to protect the national honour is pretty trivial to me; but all might not agree. To do the same thing for the purpose of promoting one’s political standing, or to demonstrate one’s ability to ‘take the tough decisions’ I think would be universally considered evil, however. That is, these latter criteria for action are substantially lower down the scale of reasonableness than even that of national honour.
According to my theory, evil exists not just in the actions and decisions influencing the ‘big events’ in the world but also in the most common, routine, and unremarkable events - perhaps like writing a book review. Evil exists most often when reasons don’t even need to be given and therefore are merely assumed to be acceptable. ‘I just thought it was a good idea at the time’ has nil moral content. But so does ‘the book just didn’t come up to my expectations.’ What was the idea at the time? What we’re the kinds of expectations in play? Without knowing these, there is a prima facie case that evil is involved.
I think Eagleton agrees with me (or I with him, I’ve been reading his books for a long time). When he says, “It is not so much the past that shapes us as the past as we (consciously or unconsciously) interpret it,” he is implying personal responsibility for the only thing we really have a choice about in life, namely the reason for doing anything. He goes on to define the meaning of responsibility in a way that makes sense to me: “To be responsible is not to be bereft of social influences, but to relate to such influences in a particular way.”
This mode of relating is really a matter of comparing possible reasons to each other and making a judgment about their relative value public. This is the nature of what is commonly called ethics. Ethics is not some fixed code, like the Ten Commandments (or the other more than 400 mitzvah or divine directives of the Bible). The world is simply too changeable for any code to remain useful, much less credible. Ethics is the consideration and establishment of reasonable behaviour. Ethics define what constitutes a relatively good reason for an action, and inversely a relatively bad reason, that is to say, evil.
So then, the matter of Henry Kissinger: Eagleton points out that “Pure autonomy is a dream of evil.” Autonomy is the freedom to act without reason, to hide reason, to define reason without content, and to insist on this freedom when confronted by opposing reason. This last is the apotheosis of evil. It is a freedom at which Kissinger was a master.
“Moral thought is not an alternative to political thought,” insists Eagleton. I would go further: Political thought is the only meaningful way moral thought can be expressed. To make reason articulate and public is necessarily to make it political. This applies in science as much as it does in national government. The difference is that scientists are expected to argue about what constitutes a good reason while politicians avoid anything that deviates from an established party line.
Kissinger was the incarnation of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, the maniacal presidential advisor whose only authentic reason for acting was revenge on the human race which had failed to recognise his genius. Like Trump, almost everything Kissinger said or did was meant to promote the cause of Kissinger. He took no responsibility for this and continuously pointed to factual necessity for his actions. He called this Realpolitik (others called it expediency) and used it to justify the overthrow of the democratic government of Chile, the genocidal war in Bangladesh, the dirty war in Argentina, and the bombing of Cambodia among many other actions.
Kissinger, like Trump, is an embodiment of the American Dream, the quest for infinite freedom, that is to say an ability to act without ethical constraint. These are what Eagleton calls “overreachers,” people who refuse to acknowledge their finiteness and fallibility. They aspire to be gods. And they can only achieve this by abandoning ethical reason, which involves hiding true intention and ignoring criticism that presents alternative criteria of action.
These aspiring gods are known by a specific behaviour: They never acknowledge guilt. They always claim they acted for the best reasons and that these remain the best reasons. They are, in short, ethically incorrigible. They claim both an absence of psychological neurosis and the lack of theological original sin, as if they were self-made and of different stuff than the rest of humanity. Their egoism is, for them, a cardinal virtue.
Eagleton approves Schopenhauer’s definition of evil as “motivated by a need to obtain relief from the inner torment of what he called the Will; and this relief was to be gained by inflicting that torment on others. In psychoanalytic terms, evil is thus a form of projection.” Evil people ‘get their retaliation in first.’ Trump demonstrates as much on a daily basis; Kissinger was less noisy but employed ruthless projection on a larger scale. Trump, like Eichmann, is stupidly evil; Kissinger is intelligently evil.
It was Noam Chomsky who remarked that it isn’t ethically necessary for intellectuals to speak the truth to power, because power already knows the truth. Power already knows that it lies about its motivations. Power knows that its status depends on keeping its criteria for action secret. And power will reject any interpretation of its reason except its own. Thus it is necessary for the rest of us to needle power continuously by speaking the truth to each other. Even if it’s only about books.
April 13, 2020
This was an excellent tour of the concept of evil as understood in western literature and philosophy. Eagleton's readings of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, Thomas Mann's Dr Faustus and Shakespeare's Macbeth and Othello were particularly useful (even if, like me, one has not yet read the first two of those works). Rather typically for TE, Wittgenstein makes several appearances, as do Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Arendt, but the philosophical sinews, as it were, of this book belongs to Freud's theory of the death drive, which usefully connects the aforementioned works that form its skeleton. The final chapter is the least fully fleshed out in this reader's opinion, as TE lightly massages the Book of Job, Milton, Augustine and Aquinas before ending with an underwhelming, cursory slap on the face of western and Islamic terrorism. Still the first three chapters are well worth the price of admission alone, and definitely worth a re-read after visiting Greene-land and the Isle of Mann, as I plan to do this year. 5 stars until Ch four, so 4.5, rounding up!
August 8, 2025
Recensão de 08/2025
E a segunda leitura aqui está. Tinha de ser. É uma leitura extraordinária, inteligente, arguta e culta. Não é verdadeiramente um ensaio sobre o mal, é antes uma reflexão de como literatura e filosofia abordaram o tema. É um livro obrigatório, um a que seguramente ainda darei novas “escapadelas”.
E enquanto fiz esta segunda leitura dei por mim a interrogar-me - afinal o que é o mal?
E a primeira ideia que emerge é que é um sentimento, algo que surge como uma linguagem emocional e como todas as expressões vindas dos sentimentos, nunca as conseguimos caracterizar. Todos sabemos o que é o amor, a amizade, a saudade, o bem, mas vacilamos na procura de palavras para os definir.
E assim também é o mal, todos lhe sentimos o conteúdo, mas não temos palavras para o definir.
E se a primeira dificuldade é encontrar palavras, logo advém uma segunda de só o conseguirmos definir pela negativa. O mal só se afirma pela ausência do bem.
E isto pode parecer estranho mas, sendo o “mal” um conceito tão lato, só pode ser definido de forma abrangente na ausência de um bem de cuja presença quanto mais se afasta mais malévolo será. “Que o mal seja o meu bem”, disse John Milton em “Paraíso Perdido”, e esta forma será seguramente o “apoapsis” do que entendemos por bem.
O “Mal” pode sempre ser agrupado de três formas distintas - o mal natural, uma forma de “Mal” que descrevemos sem intervenção humana; o “Mal” enquanto manifestação social; e o “Mal” individual, aquele que emana do indivíduo malévolo.
O primeiro grupo, o “Mal natural” para o definirmos enquanto um evento da natureza temos de admitir que é controlado por uma entidade superior, uma entidade que os crentes tentam compreender numa “teodiceia” impossível porque, nem esse Deus se deixa vislumbrar nem, ainda que o conseguíssemos desvendar, estaríamos capacitados a compreender-Lhe as intenções. Por último, a responsabilização de uma divindade pelos fenómenos naturais a que a ciência de hoje consegue dar explicações, é um exercício que só consegue espaço quando enfadados num encadeado numa sequência de porquês acabamos por desistir e a atribui-los à explicação mais fácil.
A segunda versão do mal depende do tempo em que se insere. Quando um Pai mata um filho, ninguém passa ao lado de uma condenação. Mas quando Abraão se dispôs a sacrificar o seu único filho,a posição da sociedade foi diametralmente oposta. Esta forma de “Mal” está muito mais dependente do espírito do tempo e do conceito nesse tempo que do mal em si.
A última forma de mal, a que emerge do indivíduo, é um “mal” que identificamos pela a ausência de “Bem”. Esta forma é uma característica individual, um comportamento que a biologia permeia com prazer por quem o pratica (recompensa biológica) e que por isso que é um fenómeno universal e tão praticado. A biologia permiou-o de alguma forma e isso teve consequências na seleção natural. Ao ser premiado permitiu-se que o comportamento “altruísta” fosse o dominante pois as sociedades que mais colaboram têm vantagens competitivas. Esta forma de “Bem” tem uma base biológica e repercussão no comportamento individual e da sociedade. Quando este mecanismo falha, há um desvio para outro tipo de comportamentos que classificamos de inveja e que mais não são que a procura de recompensa biologia noutro padrão de comportamento. Quando o afastamento se extrema caímos no domínio do “Mal” que podemos depreender tratar-se da ausência de “Bem”, um mal que fica mais malévolo quanto mais se afasta do bem.
Nesta descrição aproximamos-nos de comportamentos cujo padaria verdadeiramente ninguém domina. Ninguém tem culpa de ser como é. Ora, este aspecto é abordado por Terry Eagleton de forma brilhante, num ensaio lúcido, com retoques de ironia subtil e de uma elegância que dá gosto ler e reler.
XXXXXX
Recensão de 2024
Terry Eagleton - Sobre o Mal
Uma abordagem sobre o mal e a forma como ele é visto pela humanidade. O mal enquanto entidade divina, o mal enquanto entidade externa, o mal que emana de nós e é parte da nossa natureza. O mal reactivo, neurótico, mas também aquele que não se explica porque não tem objectivo. Terry Eagleton faz uma viagem pelos vários conceitos do mal e de que forma ele é reconhecido e escrito. Sobre o Mal, um ensaio e uma viagem fascinante pelo mundo da literatura.
Num mundo determinista e casualístico em que tudo deriva de Deus, é difícil encontrar uma causa para o mal sem ter Deus implicado nela. A “invenção” do Diabo vem assim colmatar esta brecha, ainda que o conceito deste seja um nada que sem materialidade existe apenas na nossa mente. O mal surge assim como um distanciamento da realidade, é um mal que surge inerente à condição humana, é um mal existe para temperar o bem e para lhe dar sentido. Sem o mal não haveria o bem. Este mal é o nosso lado negro, o lado individualista, o lado que nega a equidade e o altruísmo, o lado egoísta, hedonista de procura do prazer. O mal é a vitória do niilismo sobre o idealismo e na sua apresentação enquanto mal absoluto, não tem objectivo. Existe apenas porque existe em oposição ao bem. A sua justificação está na sua existência, é um sem causalidade.
A expressão na língua alemã “Schadenfreud” é muito curiosa. Ela , e o prazer com o mal dos outros. Literalmente traduzido, "Schaden" significa dano ou prejuízo, e "Freude" significa alegria, juntos compõem uma palavra que significa "alegria pelo dano", uma “alegria�� que pode representa o sentimento de prazer ou satisfação resultante do conhecimento ou observação do sofrimento, fracasso ou humilhação de outra pessoa. Mas como é possível alguém sentir “satisfação” perante o sofrimento de terceiros. A resposta mais prosaica a esta questão na arquitetura do nosso sistema nervoso e dos mediadores que são libertados nessas situações e o sistema de recompensa do nosso organismo. Mediadores como dopamina, serotonina, endorfinas, ocitocina e anandamida, e estruturas como núcleo accumbens, área tegmental ventral, córtex pré-frontal, hipotálamo e amígdala, são elementos de um sistema nervoso central que quando activados, são responsáveis por uma sensação de prazer. Então, pode-se perguntar porque não rejubilamos com o sofrimento dos outros. Essencialmente por dois motivos. Primeiro porque somos empáticos e tendemos a importar para dentro de nós o sofrimento dos outros, mas também por uma cultura de arquétipos consolidada no superego por “memes” que nos são transmitidos como herança genética ou adquiridos na construção da nossa personalidade. Quando estas estruturas falham, quando estes mecanismos de regulação não se estabeleceram convenientemente, o resultado pode muito bem ser devastador como reconhecemos em muitos casos de mal puro.
Nesta linha de pensamento poderíamos supor que o mecanicismo de Laplace, poderia ser aplicado ao nosso comportamento. Este princípio é correto, só que por cima destas respostas causais ocorrem mecanismos de controlo impostos por uma herança acumulada ao longo de gerações, e pela formatação da nossa personalidade. Há sempre (quase sempre) uma possibilidade de escolha nos nossos actos. Essa é a herança do pecado original, o assumir que o ser humano tem a possibilidade de escolher, pelo que pode sempre ser responsável pelas escolhas que toma. Foi esse o nosso pecado original, foi esse o caminho que escolhemos.
Dito isto, há que reconhecer que tudo o que deriva da nossa ética e moral, são construções da sociedade, da presente, mas também da passada. O mal, o diabo, o bem, são truques gramaticais. É como o nada. Ninguém consegue por o nada no bolso, mas contudo ele existe na nossa cabeça. A espécie humana não é boa nem má. Numas esferas tem um comportamento, noutras tem outro. Tudo depende dos valores.
Segundo Schopenhauer, foi dos primeiros a reconhecer que os valores da sociedade determinam a forma como o bem e o mal são reconhecidos. O lucro é um bom exemplo disto. Sempre que ocorre evolução há um lastro de miséria que fica pelo chão. Esta forma de mal é justificada na nossa escala de valores, apesar das consequências nefastas como o planeta.
Muitas vezes o mal é inexplicável, o que para os crentes é um factor de conflito entre o que que acreditam e a realidade das coisas. Inventaram assim o conceito de teodiceia para explicar a origem do mal absolvendo Deus. Um mal necessário para se atingir um bem final Depois de acharmos que as coisas não têm sentido podemos atribuir-lhes o sentido mais profícuo que entendermos.
Noutros males da sociedade como no fascismo, o moderno surge misturado com as energias do passado. A adesão ao fascismo vem tão só pelo simples facto de que ao se aderir, de imediato é-se aceite e adquirem-se garantias como segurança. O nazismo é uma encarnação particular do mal porque combina o lado angelical do sacrifício, heroísmo e pureza do sangue com o lado demoníaco de deslumbre pelo sádico, a morte e o sofrimento. O mal é o lado cínico da bondade, o mal é a dissociação da razão do corpo, é a crueldade do cancelamento. Ao dissociar-se do corpo a razão fica sem sentido e quanto mais abstrata fica mais tem de procurar no irracional um farol que a guie e lhe dê sentido.
Sobre o Mal de Terry Eagleton, uma fascinante viagem pelo universo do mal e a sua expressão no mundo da literatura. Um livro denso e que justifica uma segunda leitura.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Terry Eagleton - On Evil
An exploration of evil and how it is perceived by humanity. Evil as a divine entity, evil as an external force, evil that emanates from within us and is part of our nature. Reactive, neurotic evil, but also the kind that defies explanation because it lacks a clear objective. Terry Eagleton embarks on a journey through various concepts of evil and how it is recognized and depicted. On Evil is an essay and a captivating exploration into the world of literature.
In a deterministic and causalistic world where everything stems from God, finding a cause for evil without implicating God is challenging. Thus, the "invention" of the Devil serves to fill this gap, even though this concept represents a nothingness that, lacking materiality, exists only in our minds. Evil, therefore, emerges as a detachment from reality; it is an inherent part of the human condition, existing to temper goodness and give it meaning. Without evil, there would be no good. This evil is our dark side, the individualistic, equity-denying, altruism-rejecting, selfish, hedonistic side in pursuit of pleasure. Evil signifies the triumph of nihilism over idealism, and in its portrayal as absolute evil, it lacks purpose. It exists solely as a counter to goodness, justified by its very existence, devoid of causality.
The term "Schadenfreude" in the German language is intriguing. It encapsulates the concept of taking pleasure in others' misfortunes. Literally, "Schaden" means damage or harm, and "Freude" translates to joy, together forming a word that denotes "joy from harm," a kind of "joy" representing the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction derived from witnessing another's suffering, failure, or humiliation. But how can one find "satisfaction" in the suffering of others? The most straightforward answer lies in the architecture of our nervous system and the mediators released in such situations, along with our organism's reward system. Mediators like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, and anandamide, along with structures like the nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area, prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, and amygdala, are components of a central nervous system that, when activated, are responsible for a sensation of pleasure. Thus, one might wonder why we do not rejoice at others' suffering. Essentially, for two reasons: firstly, because we are empathetic and tend to internalize others' suffering, and secondly, due to a culture of archetypes solidified in the superego through "memes" transmitted to us as genetic inheritance or acquired in our personality development. When these structures fail, when these regulatory mechanisms are not properly established, the outcome can be as devastating as we recognize in many instances of pure evil.
Following this line of thought, one might suppose that Laplace's mechanistic principle could apply to our behavior. This principle is accurate, but atop these causal responses, there are control mechanisms imposed by a heritage accumulated over generations and by the shaping of our personality. There is always (almost always) a choice in our actions. This is the legacy of original sin, acknowledging that humans have the ability to choose, hence can always be responsible for their choices. That was our original sin, the path we chose.
With this in mind, it's important to acknowledge that all derivatives of our ethics and morals are societal constructs, from both the present and the past. Evil, the devil, good - these are grammatical tricks. It's like nothingness. No one can put nothing into their pocket, yet it exists in our minds. The human species is neither good nor bad. It behaves one way in some contexts and another in different ones. Everything depends on the values.
According to Schopenhauer, one of the first to acknowledge that societal values determine how good and evil are recognized. Profit is a prime example. Whenever there's progress, there's a trail of misery left behind. This form of evil is justified on our scale of values, despite its disastrous consequences for the planet.
Often, evil is inexplicable, which for believers creates a conflict between their faith and the reality of things. Thus, the concept of theodicy was invented to explain the origin of evil while absolving God. A necessary evil to achieve a final good. After deeming things meaningless, we can assign them the most fruitful meaning we choose.
Other societal evils, like fascism, blend modernity with energies from the past. Adherence to fascism comes simply from the fact that by joining, one is immediately accepted and gains assurances like security. Nazism is a particular incarnation of evil because it combines the angelic aspects of sacrifice, heroism, and blood purity with the demonic allure of sadism, death, and suffering. Evil is the cynical side of goodness, the dissociation of reason from the body, the cruelty of annihilation. When reason detaches from the body, it becomes senseless, and themore abstract it becomes, the more it must seek guidance in the irrational to find meaning and direction.
On Evil by Terry Eagleton is a fascinating journey through the universe of evil and its manifestation in the world of literature. It's a dense book that warrants a second reading.
E a segunda leitura aqui está. Tinha de ser. É uma leitura extraordinária, inteligente, arguta e culta. Não é verdadeiramente um ensaio sobre o mal, é antes uma reflexão de como literatura e filosofia abordaram o tema. É um livro obrigatório, um a que seguramente ainda darei novas “escapadelas”.
E enquanto fiz esta segunda leitura dei por mim a interrogar-me - afinal o que é o mal?
E a primeira ideia que emerge é que é um sentimento, algo que surge como uma linguagem emocional e como todas as expressões vindas dos sentimentos, nunca as conseguimos caracterizar. Todos sabemos o que é o amor, a amizade, a saudade, o bem, mas vacilamos na procura de palavras para os definir.
E assim também é o mal, todos lhe sentimos o conteúdo, mas não temos palavras para o definir.
E se a primeira dificuldade é encontrar palavras, logo advém uma segunda de só o conseguirmos definir pela negativa. O mal só se afirma pela ausência do bem.
E isto pode parecer estranho mas, sendo o “mal” um conceito tão lato, só pode ser definido de forma abrangente na ausência de um bem de cuja presença quanto mais se afasta mais malévolo será. “Que o mal seja o meu bem”, disse John Milton em “Paraíso Perdido”, e esta forma será seguramente o “apoapsis” do que entendemos por bem.
O “Mal” pode sempre ser agrupado de três formas distintas - o mal natural, uma forma de “Mal” que descrevemos sem intervenção humana; o “Mal” enquanto manifestação social; e o “Mal” individual, aquele que emana do indivíduo malévolo.
O primeiro grupo, o “Mal natural” para o definirmos enquanto um evento da natureza temos de admitir que é controlado por uma entidade superior, uma entidade que os crentes tentam compreender numa “teodiceia” impossível porque, nem esse Deus se deixa vislumbrar nem, ainda que o conseguíssemos desvendar, estaríamos capacitados a compreender-Lhe as intenções. Por último, a responsabilização de uma divindade pelos fenómenos naturais a que a ciência de hoje consegue dar explicações, é um exercício que só consegue espaço quando enfadados num encadeado numa sequência de porquês acabamos por desistir e a atribui-los à explicação mais fácil.
A segunda versão do mal depende do tempo em que se insere. Quando um Pai mata um filho, ninguém passa ao lado de uma condenação. Mas quando Abraão se dispôs a sacrificar o seu único filho,a posição da sociedade foi diametralmente oposta. Esta forma de “Mal” está muito mais dependente do espírito do tempo e do conceito nesse tempo que do mal em si.
A última forma de mal, a que emerge do indivíduo, é um “mal” que identificamos pela a ausência de “Bem”. Esta forma é uma característica individual, um comportamento que a biologia permeia com prazer por quem o pratica (recompensa biológica) e que por isso que é um fenómeno universal e tão praticado. A biologia permiou-o de alguma forma e isso teve consequências na seleção natural. Ao ser premiado permitiu-se que o comportamento “altruísta” fosse o dominante pois as sociedades que mais colaboram têm vantagens competitivas. Esta forma de “Bem” tem uma base biológica e repercussão no comportamento individual e da sociedade. Quando este mecanismo falha, há um desvio para outro tipo de comportamentos que classificamos de inveja e que mais não são que a procura de recompensa biologia noutro padrão de comportamento. Quando o afastamento se extrema caímos no domínio do “Mal” que podemos depreender tratar-se da ausência de “Bem”, um mal que fica mais malévolo quanto mais se afasta do bem.
Nesta descrição aproximamos-nos de comportamentos cujo padaria verdadeiramente ninguém domina. Ninguém tem culpa de ser como é. Ora, este aspecto é abordado por Terry Eagleton de forma brilhante, num ensaio lúcido, com retoques de ironia subtil e de uma elegância que dá gosto ler e reler.
XXXXXX
Recensão de 2024
Terry Eagleton - Sobre o Mal
Uma abordagem sobre o mal e a forma como ele é visto pela humanidade. O mal enquanto entidade divina, o mal enquanto entidade externa, o mal que emana de nós e é parte da nossa natureza. O mal reactivo, neurótico, mas também aquele que não se explica porque não tem objectivo. Terry Eagleton faz uma viagem pelos vários conceitos do mal e de que forma ele é reconhecido e escrito. Sobre o Mal, um ensaio e uma viagem fascinante pelo mundo da literatura.
Num mundo determinista e casualístico em que tudo deriva de Deus, é difícil encontrar uma causa para o mal sem ter Deus implicado nela. A “invenção” do Diabo vem assim colmatar esta brecha, ainda que o conceito deste seja um nada que sem materialidade existe apenas na nossa mente. O mal surge assim como um distanciamento da realidade, é um mal que surge inerente à condição humana, é um mal existe para temperar o bem e para lhe dar sentido. Sem o mal não haveria o bem. Este mal é o nosso lado negro, o lado individualista, o lado que nega a equidade e o altruísmo, o lado egoísta, hedonista de procura do prazer. O mal é a vitória do niilismo sobre o idealismo e na sua apresentação enquanto mal absoluto, não tem objectivo. Existe apenas porque existe em oposição ao bem. A sua justificação está na sua existência, é um sem causalidade.
A expressão na língua alemã “Schadenfreud” é muito curiosa. Ela , e o prazer com o mal dos outros. Literalmente traduzido, "Schaden" significa dano ou prejuízo, e "Freude" significa alegria, juntos compõem uma palavra que significa "alegria pelo dano", uma “alegria�� que pode representa o sentimento de prazer ou satisfação resultante do conhecimento ou observação do sofrimento, fracasso ou humilhação de outra pessoa. Mas como é possível alguém sentir “satisfação” perante o sofrimento de terceiros. A resposta mais prosaica a esta questão na arquitetura do nosso sistema nervoso e dos mediadores que são libertados nessas situações e o sistema de recompensa do nosso organismo. Mediadores como dopamina, serotonina, endorfinas, ocitocina e anandamida, e estruturas como núcleo accumbens, área tegmental ventral, córtex pré-frontal, hipotálamo e amígdala, são elementos de um sistema nervoso central que quando activados, são responsáveis por uma sensação de prazer. Então, pode-se perguntar porque não rejubilamos com o sofrimento dos outros. Essencialmente por dois motivos. Primeiro porque somos empáticos e tendemos a importar para dentro de nós o sofrimento dos outros, mas também por uma cultura de arquétipos consolidada no superego por “memes” que nos são transmitidos como herança genética ou adquiridos na construção da nossa personalidade. Quando estas estruturas falham, quando estes mecanismos de regulação não se estabeleceram convenientemente, o resultado pode muito bem ser devastador como reconhecemos em muitos casos de mal puro.
Nesta linha de pensamento poderíamos supor que o mecanicismo de Laplace, poderia ser aplicado ao nosso comportamento. Este princípio é correto, só que por cima destas respostas causais ocorrem mecanismos de controlo impostos por uma herança acumulada ao longo de gerações, e pela formatação da nossa personalidade. Há sempre (quase sempre) uma possibilidade de escolha nos nossos actos. Essa é a herança do pecado original, o assumir que o ser humano tem a possibilidade de escolher, pelo que pode sempre ser responsável pelas escolhas que toma. Foi esse o nosso pecado original, foi esse o caminho que escolhemos.
Dito isto, há que reconhecer que tudo o que deriva da nossa ética e moral, são construções da sociedade, da presente, mas também da passada. O mal, o diabo, o bem, são truques gramaticais. É como o nada. Ninguém consegue por o nada no bolso, mas contudo ele existe na nossa cabeça. A espécie humana não é boa nem má. Numas esferas tem um comportamento, noutras tem outro. Tudo depende dos valores.
Segundo Schopenhauer, foi dos primeiros a reconhecer que os valores da sociedade determinam a forma como o bem e o mal são reconhecidos. O lucro é um bom exemplo disto. Sempre que ocorre evolução há um lastro de miséria que fica pelo chão. Esta forma de mal é justificada na nossa escala de valores, apesar das consequências nefastas como o planeta.
Muitas vezes o mal é inexplicável, o que para os crentes é um factor de conflito entre o que que acreditam e a realidade das coisas. Inventaram assim o conceito de teodiceia para explicar a origem do mal absolvendo Deus. Um mal necessário para se atingir um bem final Depois de acharmos que as coisas não têm sentido podemos atribuir-lhes o sentido mais profícuo que entendermos.
Noutros males da sociedade como no fascismo, o moderno surge misturado com as energias do passado. A adesão ao fascismo vem tão só pelo simples facto de que ao se aderir, de imediato é-se aceite e adquirem-se garantias como segurança. O nazismo é uma encarnação particular do mal porque combina o lado angelical do sacrifício, heroísmo e pureza do sangue com o lado demoníaco de deslumbre pelo sádico, a morte e o sofrimento. O mal é o lado cínico da bondade, o mal é a dissociação da razão do corpo, é a crueldade do cancelamento. Ao dissociar-se do corpo a razão fica sem sentido e quanto mais abstrata fica mais tem de procurar no irracional um farol que a guie e lhe dê sentido.
Sobre o Mal de Terry Eagleton, uma fascinante viagem pelo universo do mal e a sua expressão no mundo da literatura. Um livro denso e que justifica uma segunda leitura.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Terry Eagleton - On Evil
An exploration of evil and how it is perceived by humanity. Evil as a divine entity, evil as an external force, evil that emanates from within us and is part of our nature. Reactive, neurotic evil, but also the kind that defies explanation because it lacks a clear objective. Terry Eagleton embarks on a journey through various concepts of evil and how it is recognized and depicted. On Evil is an essay and a captivating exploration into the world of literature.
In a deterministic and causalistic world where everything stems from God, finding a cause for evil without implicating God is challenging. Thus, the "invention" of the Devil serves to fill this gap, even though this concept represents a nothingness that, lacking materiality, exists only in our minds. Evil, therefore, emerges as a detachment from reality; it is an inherent part of the human condition, existing to temper goodness and give it meaning. Without evil, there would be no good. This evil is our dark side, the individualistic, equity-denying, altruism-rejecting, selfish, hedonistic side in pursuit of pleasure. Evil signifies the triumph of nihilism over idealism, and in its portrayal as absolute evil, it lacks purpose. It exists solely as a counter to goodness, justified by its very existence, devoid of causality.
The term "Schadenfreude" in the German language is intriguing. It encapsulates the concept of taking pleasure in others' misfortunes. Literally, "Schaden" means damage or harm, and "Freude" translates to joy, together forming a word that denotes "joy from harm," a kind of "joy" representing the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction derived from witnessing another's suffering, failure, or humiliation. But how can one find "satisfaction" in the suffering of others? The most straightforward answer lies in the architecture of our nervous system and the mediators released in such situations, along with our organism's reward system. Mediators like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, and anandamide, along with structures like the nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area, prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, and amygdala, are components of a central nervous system that, when activated, are responsible for a sensation of pleasure. Thus, one might wonder why we do not rejoice at others' suffering. Essentially, for two reasons: firstly, because we are empathetic and tend to internalize others' suffering, and secondly, due to a culture of archetypes solidified in the superego through "memes" transmitted to us as genetic inheritance or acquired in our personality development. When these structures fail, when these regulatory mechanisms are not properly established, the outcome can be as devastating as we recognize in many instances of pure evil.
Following this line of thought, one might suppose that Laplace's mechanistic principle could apply to our behavior. This principle is accurate, but atop these causal responses, there are control mechanisms imposed by a heritage accumulated over generations and by the shaping of our personality. There is always (almost always) a choice in our actions. This is the legacy of original sin, acknowledging that humans have the ability to choose, hence can always be responsible for their choices. That was our original sin, the path we chose.
With this in mind, it's important to acknowledge that all derivatives of our ethics and morals are societal constructs, from both the present and the past. Evil, the devil, good - these are grammatical tricks. It's like nothingness. No one can put nothing into their pocket, yet it exists in our minds. The human species is neither good nor bad. It behaves one way in some contexts and another in different ones. Everything depends on the values.
According to Schopenhauer, one of the first to acknowledge that societal values determine how good and evil are recognized. Profit is a prime example. Whenever there's progress, there's a trail of misery left behind. This form of evil is justified on our scale of values, despite its disastrous consequences for the planet.
Often, evil is inexplicable, which for believers creates a conflict between their faith and the reality of things. Thus, the concept of theodicy was invented to explain the origin of evil while absolving God. A necessary evil to achieve a final good. After deeming things meaningless, we can assign them the most fruitful meaning we choose.
Other societal evils, like fascism, blend modernity with energies from the past. Adherence to fascism comes simply from the fact that by joining, one is immediately accepted and gains assurances like security. Nazism is a particular incarnation of evil because it combines the angelic aspects of sacrifice, heroism, and blood purity with the demonic allure of sadism, death, and suffering. Evil is the cynical side of goodness, the dissociation of reason from the body, the cruelty of annihilation. When reason detaches from the body, it becomes senseless, and themore abstract it becomes, the more it must seek guidance in the irrational to find meaning and direction.
On Evil by Terry Eagleton is a fascinating journey through the universe of evil and its manifestation in the world of literature. It's a dense book that warrants a second reading.
January 9, 2020
Yorum gireceğim..
October 31, 2011
I recently went to hear a lecture by the author--sometimes described as one of the pre-eminent literary theorists of recent years--and bought a copy of this book so he could sign it. We joked briefly about the fact that he had dedicated it to Henry Kissinger. Given how much Eagleton has read, how much he knows, and how witty he is, I was a little disappointed in the book. He distinguishes between evil (what many might call radical evil) and mere wickedness, which is the kind of behavior that results from things like pride, envy, anger, lust, etc. True evil, he says, is the result of an insatiable emptiness--a desire to destroy simply because creation is offensive--a desire closely related to Freud's death drive. He is hard put to find it in the real world, however. Even Nazis, he suggests, had mixed motives, with the possible exception of Hitler himself. His best examples all come from literature--Iago, the witches in Macbeth, and Pincher Martin from William Golding's novel. He becomes very strident about political wickedness, which he blames on every political philosophy except Marxism, which he endorses. His political ideas seem naive and off-the-cuff compared to those of, say, Reinhold Niebuhr. In fact large portions of the book seem to be off-the-cuff. An example of the way he writes: "If evil is nothing in itself, then not even an all-powerful God could have created it. Contrary to the popular prejudice that the Almighty can do whatever takes his fancy, there are actually all sorts of activities that are beyond his reach. He cannot join the Girl Guides, comb his hair, tie his shoelaces, or pare his fingernails. He cannot square a triangle. He cannot literally be the father of Jesus Christ, since he does not have testicles. And he cannot create nothingness, since nothingness is not something you can either create or destroy. Only a trick of grammar makes us think otherwise. The fact that evil is nothing positive does not of course mean that it has no positive effects...Darkness and hunger are nothing positive either, but nobody would deny that they have real effects....A hole is not something you can put in your pocket, but a hole in the head is real enough."
December 4, 2021
هل يستطيع المرء أن يفعل الشر دون أن يكون شريراً؟ كان هذا هو السؤال المحير الذي تصدت له الفيلسوفة حنة أرنت عندما كتبت لصحيفة The New Yorker في عام 1961 عن محاكمة جرائم الحرب لأدولف أيخمان " مهندس الإبادة الجماعية"؛ النازي المسؤول عن تنظيم نقل ملايين اليهود وغيرهم إلى معسكرات الاعتقال النازية المختلفة .
وجدت أرنت أن أيخمان بيروقراطي عادي ، لطيف نوعًا ما ، والذي لم يكن على حد تعبيرها "منحرفًا ولا ساديًا" ، ولكنه "طبيعي بشكل مرعب". لقد تصرف دون أي دافع سوى التقدم بجد في مسيرته المهنية في البيروقراطية النازية. لم يكن أيخمان وحشًا لا أخلاقيًا ، كما اختتمت في دراستها للقضية ، أيخمان في القدس: تقرير عن تفاهة الشر (1963). بدلاً من ذلك ، قام بأعمال شريرة بدون نوايا شريرة ، وهي حقيقة مرتبطة بـ "عدم تفكيره" ، وفك ارتباطه بحقيقة أفعاله الشريرة. أيخمان "لم يدرك أبدًا ما كان يفعله" بسبب "عدم القدرة على التفكير من وجهة نظر شخص آخر". نظرًا لافتقاره إلى هذه القدرة المعرفية الخاصة ، "يرتكب جرائم في ظل ظروف جعلت من شبه المستحيل عليه أن يعرف أو يشعر أنه كان يرتكب خطأ".
كان استخدامها لعبارة "تفاهة الشر" في سياق أيخمان والمحرقة مثيرًا للجدل إلى حد كبير.
بالنسبة إلى منتقدي أرنت ، بدا أنه من غير الممكن تمامًا تفسير أن أيخمان كان من الممكن أن يلعب دورًا رئيسيًا في الإبادة الجماعية النازية مع عدم وجود نوايا شريرة. كتب غيرشوم شوليم ، فيلسوف (وعالم لاهوت) ، إلى أرنت في عام 1963 أن أطروحتها عن تفاهة الشر كانت مجرد شعار "لا يثير إعجابي بالتأكيد ، كنتيجة لتحليل عميق". أعربت ماري مكارثي ، وهي روائية وصديقة جيدة لأرندت ، عن عدم فهمها المطلق: "يبدو لي أن ما تقوله هو أن أيخمان يفتقر إلى الصفة البشرية المتأصلة: القدرة على التفكير والوعي والضمير. ولكن أليس بعد ذلك وحشًا ببساطة؟
يستمر الجدل حتى يومنا هذا. كما يبقى المفهوم محل نزاع. انتقد الفيلسوف آلان وولف ، في كتابه "الشر السياسي: ما هو وكيفية مكافحته" (2011) ، أطروحة أرنت " تفاهة الشر"، جادل وولف بأن أرنت ركزت كثيرًا على من هو أيخمان ، وليس على ما فعله أيخمان. بالنسبة إلى منتقدي أرنت ، بدا هذا التركيز على حياة أيخمان التافهة والمبتذلة بمثابة "انحراف سخيف" عن أفعاله الشريرة.
،…..الشر هو حالة انتقالية للوجود- المجال المنحشر بين الحياة والموت، وهذا هو السبب في أننا نربط مع الأشباح والمومياوات ومصاصي الدماء. أي أنه شيء ليس ميتاً ولا على قيد الحياة تماماً بحيث يمكن أن يصبح صورة له. إنه ممل لأنه يستمر في فعل الشيء الكئيب نفسه، محصورًا كما هو بين الحياة والموت. (ص 140)
يجادل أوغسطين بأن الشر ليس شيئاً أو قوة على الإطلاق. إن التفكير في ذلك عمل عقيم كما هو الحال في أفلام الرعب، بحيث إن الشر ينبع منا وليس من قوة غريبة خارجنا. وهو ينبع منا لأنه مؤثر في حرية الإنسان. وكما يعلق فهو " ميل ما هو أكثر إلى ما هو أقل." ( ص142)
…..في "يوميات كاتب " 1887، كتب دوستويفسكي " إن الشر قابع ومخفي في الإنسان، على نحو أعمق مما يتصوره."
يقول كانط أن البشر لديهم ميل طبيعي لأن يكونوا أشرارًا.……يوضح تفسير كانط للشر الراديكالي كيف يمكن للشر أن يكون بديلاً أخلاقياً حقيقياً مع كونه حالة فطرية. بالنظر إلى التفاؤل العام في ذلك الوقت ، كانت وجهة نظر كانط ثورية. لم يقتصر الأمر على العودة إلى سرد أوغسطيني أقدم عن الطبيعة البشرية ، بل أكد أيضًا على الميل إلى الشر داخل الطبيعة البشرية باستخدام جهازه العقلاني.
يقول مُصطفى النشار:" أن كانط يَرى أنَّ الخير والشَّر يسكُنَان بجوار بعضهُما داخل الطبِيعة الأنسَانِية فهُما إذن النزوع الطبِيعي للبشر . لذا فإن الشَّر ليسَ خُبثاً مُطلقاً وإنما هُو إمكانية دَاخِل الإنسَان رُبمَا تكُون باعثاً ودَافعاً للاختِيَار الحُر والمسؤولية الأخلاقِية."
يشير الفيلسوف كولين ماكجين في دراسته " للأخلاق والشر والخيال." إلى أن الشخص السادي يسعى إلى الألم من أجل الألم نفسه، وهذا هو السبب في أنه يخترع أكبر قدر ممكن منه من خلال إلحاقه بالآخرين . (ص120)
…."إن الشر من ناحية التحليل النفسي هو شكل من أشكال الإسقاط." ص(122)
وبالنسبة لفرويد، الحضارة البشرية ليست سوى قشرة رقيقة تغلّف العواطف والشهوات والأنانية البشرية والرغبة في العنف.
،….…"و في سياقات دينية معينة ، يوصف الشر بأنه قوة خارقة للطبيعة. تختلف تعريفات الشر ، وكذلك تحليل دوافعه. ومع ذلك ، فإن العناصر التي ترتبط عادة بالشر تتضمن سلوكًا غير متوازن يتضمن النفعية أو الأنانية أو الجهل أو الإهمال."
….”Since World War II, moral, political, and legal philosophers have become increasingly interested in the concept of evil. This interest has been partly motivated by ascriptions of ‘evil’ by laymen, social scientists, journalists, and politicians as they try to understand and respond to various atrocities and horrors, such as genocides, terrorist attacks, mass murders, and tortures and killing sprees by psychopathic serial killers. It seems that we cannot capture the moral significance of these actions and their perpetrators by calling them ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or even ‘very very wrong’ or ‘very very bad.’ We need the concept of evil.
To avoid confusion, it is important to note that there are at least two concepts of evil: a broad concept and a narrow concept. The broad concept picks out any bad state of affairs, wrongful action, or character flaw. The suffering of a toothache is evil in the broad sense as is a white lie. Evil in the broad sense has been divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Hurricanes and toothaches are examples of natural evils. By contrast, moral evils do result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Murder and lying are examples of moral evils.
Evil in the broad sense, which includes all natural and moral evils, tends to be the sort of evil referenced in theological contexts, such as in discussions of the problem of evil. The problem of evil is the problem of accounting for evil in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God. It seems that if the creator has these attributes, there would be no evil in the world. But there is evil in the world. Thus, there is reason to believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good creator does not exist.
In contrast to the broad concept of evil, the narrow concept of evil picks out only the most morally despicable sorts of actions, characters, events, etc. As Marcus Singer puts it “‘evil’ [in this sense] … is the worst possible term of opprobrium imaginable” (Singer 2004, 185). Since the narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, it is appropriately ascribed only to moral agents and their actions. For example, if only human beings are moral agents, then only human beings can perform evil actions. Evil in this narrower sense is more often meant when the term ‘evil’ is used in contemporary moral, political, and legal contexts. This entry will focus on evil in this narrower sense. The entry will not discuss evil in the broad sense or the problem of evil to any significant degree (these topics will be discussed briefly only in section 2).
The main issues discussed by philosophers on the topic of evil have been: Should we use the term ‘evil’ in our moral, political, and legal discourse and thinking, or is evil an out-dated or empty concept which should be abandoned? What is the relationship between evil and other moral concepts such as badness and wrongdoing? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for evil action? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for evil character? What is the relationship between evil action and evil character? What types of evil actions and characters can exist? What is the proper analysis of derivative concepts such as evil institution?.” — “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”
في هذا الكتاب يقدم إيغلتون نظرة فاحصة على الشر بالاتكاء على النماذج الموجودة في الأدبيات المختلفة، السرد ، والأعمال الفنية؛ يستشهد بروايات عديدة في شرح وتفسير مفهومه وفلسفته عن الشر، ك (بنتشر مارتن) ل ويليام جولدينغ، ( بينكي) في رواية غراهام غرين، و ( القضية الغريبة للدكتور جيكل والسيد هايد) في رواية روبرت لويس ستيفنسون، ( كتاب الضحك والنسيان) ل ميلان كونديرا، ( جيفري فيرمن) في رواية تحت البركان لمالكوم لوري، (زوسيما الراهب ، وإيفان) في رواية الأخوة كارامازوف لدوستويفسكي، و من المسرح ، عطيل ، ماكبث، لشكسبير ، وآخرون. ومفهوم الشر لعدد من المفكرين والفلاسفة؛ ك فرويد ( بالأخص ناقش مفهوم فرويد لدافع الموت.)، حنة آرنت، كانط، نيتشه، كيركيجارد، إضافة إلى قراءة مفهوم الشر من وجهة نطر اللاهوت ( السرديات الدينية) وعلم النفس. و النظر كذلك في السياسة - الافكار والممارسات المرتبطة بالحزب النازي. "عبادة العنف الفكري."
حاول ايغلتون من خلال مادة الكتاب التفصيل في ماهو فعل شرير وماهو فعل غير شرير . ماهو الفرق بين الخطيئة والشر؟ ودور التربية الاخلاقية والسلوك البشري في الظرفية الزمانية للفعل. إضافة إلى ثيمة شرور الوعي، وهل الشر فطري؛ جزء من شخصية البشر أم يأتيها من الخارج؟ وهل الشر نسيج من الديناميكا النفسية لبنية الإنسان؟
مع عناية بالغة بالجانب النفسي الفلسفي -النقدي في الطرح.
يبقى الشر من أكثر المواضيع فتنة و إثارة في الفكر والمخيال البشري في وعاء الوجود المشترك والعفوي.
تيري إيغلتون يتميز بأسلوب سردي ونقدي رفيع.
وجدت أرنت أن أيخمان بيروقراطي عادي ، لطيف نوعًا ما ، والذي لم يكن على حد تعبيرها "منحرفًا ولا ساديًا" ، ولكنه "طبيعي بشكل مرعب". لقد تصرف دون أي دافع سوى التقدم بجد في مسيرته المهنية في البيروقراطية النازية. لم يكن أيخمان وحشًا لا أخلاقيًا ، كما اختتمت في دراستها للقضية ، أيخمان في القدس: تقرير عن تفاهة الشر (1963). بدلاً من ذلك ، قام بأعمال شريرة بدون نوايا شريرة ، وهي حقيقة مرتبطة بـ "عدم تفكيره" ، وفك ارتباطه بحقيقة أفعاله الشريرة. أيخمان "لم يدرك أبدًا ما كان يفعله" بسبب "عدم القدرة على التفكير من وجهة نظر شخص آخر". نظرًا لافتقاره إلى هذه القدرة المعرفية الخاصة ، "يرتكب جرائم في ظل ظروف جعلت من شبه المستحيل عليه أن يعرف أو يشعر أنه كان يرتكب خطأ".
كان استخدامها لعبارة "تفاهة الشر" في سياق أيخمان والمحرقة مثيرًا للجدل إلى حد كبير.
بالنسبة إلى منتقدي أرنت ، بدا أنه من غير الممكن تمامًا تفسير أن أيخمان كان من الممكن أن يلعب دورًا رئيسيًا في الإبادة الجماعية النازية مع عدم وجود نوايا شريرة. كتب غيرشوم شوليم ، فيلسوف (وعالم لاهوت) ، إلى أرنت في عام 1963 أن أطروحتها عن تفاهة الشر كانت مجرد شعار "لا يثير إعجابي بالتأكيد ، كنتيجة لتحليل عميق". أعربت ماري مكارثي ، وهي روائية وصديقة جيدة لأرندت ، عن عدم فهمها المطلق: "يبدو لي أن ما تقوله هو أن أيخمان يفتقر إلى الصفة البشرية المتأصلة: القدرة على التفكير والوعي والضمير. ولكن أليس بعد ذلك وحشًا ببساطة؟
يستمر الجدل حتى يومنا هذا. كما يبقى المفهوم محل نزاع. انتقد الفيلسوف آلان وولف ، في كتابه "الشر السياسي: ما هو وكيفية مكافحته" (2011) ، أطروحة أرنت " تفاهة الشر"، جادل وولف بأن أرنت ركزت كثيرًا على من هو أيخمان ، وليس على ما فعله أيخمان. بالنسبة إلى منتقدي أرنت ، بدا هذا التركيز على حياة أيخمان التافهة والمبتذلة بمثابة "انحراف سخيف" عن أفعاله الشريرة.
،…..الشر هو حالة انتقالية للوجود- المجال المنحشر بين الحياة والموت، وهذا هو السبب في أننا نربط مع الأشباح والمومياوات ومصاصي الدماء. أي أنه شيء ليس ميتاً ولا على قيد الحياة تماماً بحيث يمكن أن يصبح صورة له. إنه ممل لأنه يستمر في فعل الشيء الكئيب نفسه، محصورًا كما هو بين الحياة والموت. (ص 140)
يجادل أوغسطين بأن الشر ليس شيئاً أو قوة على الإطلاق. إن التفكير في ذلك عمل عقيم كما هو الحال في أفلام الرعب، بحيث إن الشر ينبع منا وليس من قوة غريبة خارجنا. وهو ينبع منا لأنه مؤثر في حرية الإنسان. وكما يعلق فهو " ميل ما هو أكثر إلى ما هو أقل." ( ص142)
…..في "يوميات كاتب " 1887، كتب دوستويفسكي " إن الشر قابع ومخفي في الإنسان، على نحو أعمق مما يتصوره."
يقول كانط أن البشر لديهم ميل طبيعي لأن يكونوا أشرارًا.……يوضح تفسير كانط للشر الراديكالي كيف يمكن للشر أن يكون بديلاً أخلاقياً حقيقياً مع كونه حالة فطرية. بالنظر إلى التفاؤل العام في ذلك الوقت ، كانت وجهة نظر كانط ثورية. لم يقتصر الأمر على العودة إلى سرد أوغسطيني أقدم عن الطبيعة البشرية ، بل أكد أيضًا على الميل إلى الشر داخل الطبيعة البشرية باستخدام جهازه العقلاني.
يقول مُصطفى النشار:" أن كانط يَرى أنَّ الخير والشَّر يسكُنَان بجوار بعضهُما داخل الطبِيعة الأنسَانِية فهُما إذن النزوع الطبِيعي للبشر . لذا فإن الشَّر ليسَ خُبثاً مُطلقاً وإنما هُو إمكانية دَاخِل الإنسَان رُبمَا تكُون باعثاً ودَافعاً للاختِيَار الحُر والمسؤولية الأخلاقِية."
يشير الفيلسوف كولين ماكجين في دراسته " للأخلاق والشر والخيال." إلى أن الشخص السادي يسعى إلى الألم من أجل الألم نفسه، وهذا هو السبب في أنه يخترع أكبر قدر ممكن منه من خلال إلحاقه بالآخرين . (ص120)
…."إن الشر من ناحية التحليل النفسي هو شكل من أشكال الإسقاط." ص(122)
وبالنسبة لفرويد، الحضارة البشرية ليست سوى قشرة رقيقة تغلّف العواطف والشهوات والأنانية البشرية والرغبة في العنف.
،….…"و في سياقات دينية معينة ، يوصف الشر بأنه قوة خارقة للطبيعة. تختلف تعريفات الشر ، وكذلك تحليل دوافعه. ومع ذلك ، فإن العناصر التي ترتبط عادة بالشر تتضمن سلوكًا غير متوازن يتضمن النفعية أو الأنانية أو الجهل أو الإهمال."
….”Since World War II, moral, political, and legal philosophers have become increasingly interested in the concept of evil. This interest has been partly motivated by ascriptions of ‘evil’ by laymen, social scientists, journalists, and politicians as they try to understand and respond to various atrocities and horrors, such as genocides, terrorist attacks, mass murders, and tortures and killing sprees by psychopathic serial killers. It seems that we cannot capture the moral significance of these actions and their perpetrators by calling them ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or even ‘very very wrong’ or ‘very very bad.’ We need the concept of evil.
To avoid confusion, it is important to note that there are at least two concepts of evil: a broad concept and a narrow concept. The broad concept picks out any bad state of affairs, wrongful action, or character flaw. The suffering of a toothache is evil in the broad sense as is a white lie. Evil in the broad sense has been divided into two categories: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evils are bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Hurricanes and toothaches are examples of natural evils. By contrast, moral evils do result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents. Murder and lying are examples of moral evils.
Evil in the broad sense, which includes all natural and moral evils, tends to be the sort of evil referenced in theological contexts, such as in discussions of the problem of evil. The problem of evil is the problem of accounting for evil in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God. It seems that if the creator has these attributes, there would be no evil in the world. But there is evil in the world. Thus, there is reason to believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good creator does not exist.
In contrast to the broad concept of evil, the narrow concept of evil picks out only the most morally despicable sorts of actions, characters, events, etc. As Marcus Singer puts it “‘evil’ [in this sense] … is the worst possible term of opprobrium imaginable” (Singer 2004, 185). Since the narrow concept of evil involves moral condemnation, it is appropriately ascribed only to moral agents and their actions. For example, if only human beings are moral agents, then only human beings can perform evil actions. Evil in this narrower sense is more often meant when the term ‘evil’ is used in contemporary moral, political, and legal contexts. This entry will focus on evil in this narrower sense. The entry will not discuss evil in the broad sense or the problem of evil to any significant degree (these topics will be discussed briefly only in section 2).
The main issues discussed by philosophers on the topic of evil have been: Should we use the term ‘evil’ in our moral, political, and legal discourse and thinking, or is evil an out-dated or empty concept which should be abandoned? What is the relationship between evil and other moral concepts such as badness and wrongdoing? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for evil action? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for evil character? What is the relationship between evil action and evil character? What types of evil actions and characters can exist? What is the proper analysis of derivative concepts such as evil institution?.” — “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”
في هذا الكتاب يقدم إيغلتون نظرة فاحصة على الشر بالاتكاء على النماذج الموجودة في الأدبيات المختلفة، السرد ، والأعمال الفنية؛ يستشهد بروايات عديدة في شرح وتفسير مفهومه وفلسفته عن الشر، ك (بنتشر مارتن) ل ويليام جولدينغ، ( بينكي) في رواية غراهام غرين، و ( القضية الغريبة للدكتور جيكل والسيد هايد) في رواية روبرت لويس ستيفنسون، ( كتاب الضحك والنسيان) ل ميلان كونديرا، ( جيفري فيرمن) في رواية تحت البركان لمالكوم لوري، (زوسيما الراهب ، وإيفان) في رواية الأخوة كارامازوف لدوستويفسكي، و من المسرح ، عطيل ، ماكبث، لشكسبير ، وآخرون. ومفهوم الشر لعدد من المفكرين والفلاسفة؛ ك فرويد ( بالأخص ناقش مفهوم فرويد لدافع الموت.)، حنة آرنت، كانط، نيتشه، كيركيجارد، إضافة إلى قراءة مفهوم الشر من وجهة نطر اللاهوت ( السرديات الدينية) وعلم النفس. و النظر كذلك في السياسة - الافكار والممارسات المرتبطة بالحزب النازي. "عبادة العنف الفكري."
حاول ايغلتون من خلال مادة الكتاب التفصيل في ماهو فعل شرير وماهو فعل غير شرير . ماهو الفرق بين الخطيئة والشر؟ ودور التربية الاخلاقية والسلوك البشري في الظرفية الزمانية للفعل. إضافة إلى ثيمة شرور الوعي، وهل الشر فطري؛ جزء من شخصية البشر أم يأتيها من الخارج؟ وهل الشر نسيج من الديناميكا النفسية لبنية الإنسان؟
مع عناية بالغة بالجانب النفسي الفلسفي -النقدي في الطرح.
يبقى الشر من أكثر المواضيع فتنة و إثارة في الفكر والمخيال البشري في وعاء الوجود المشترك والعفوي.
تيري إيغلتون يتميز بأسلوب سردي ونقدي رفيع.
November 9, 2017
Eagleton wants to demystify evil; he argues that evil is both real and explicable, and he sets out to give an account of it in these terms. His basic premise is that evil transcends social conditioning and that, metaphysically, it takes an attitude towards being as such, namely that of annihilation. Evil seeks to destroy all being. Yet this does not mean that it is supernatural, for Eagleton links the idea of the annihilation of being with Freud's death drive:
Too often, then, Eagleton ends up paying simple lip service to thinkers—without necessarily being wrong about their positions, it must be said, but also without including enough of substance. Another major and related problem is that Eagleton promises more than he delivers. He mentions Freud's death drive as pivotal to his account in the introduction, and he refers to it now and then throughout the rest of the work. However, he never really gives a satisfactory account of it. Nor does his scholarship as such deserve any praise; he mentions Freud repeatedly without offering references, and he even goes so far as to quote him directly without citing a source, thereby flouting the basic standards of academic rigor.
Eagleton is at his best analyzing fiction; I appreciated his accounts of William Golding's Pincher Martin and Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, while his reflections on Macbeth were rather repetitive and overdone (after a certain number of spiffy adjectives to describe the witches, things begin to look silly). His haphazard musings on Islamic terrorism, which conclude On Evil without returning to its premises and feel like they were simply thrown in to increase the work's relevancy, also fail to do him any favors.
Ironically, Eagleton writes, "Othello's language is too stuffed with mouth-filling rhetoric, too extravagant and hyperbolic" (88). He must realize that, at some level, this assessment applies just as readily to some of his own writing.
Those who fall under the sway of the death drive feel that ecstatic sense of liberation that springs from the though that nothing really matters. The delight of the damned is not to give a damn. Even self-interest is set aside—for the damned are in their own twisted way entirely disinterested, eager as they are to bring themselves low along with the rest of creation. The death drive is a deliriously orgiastic revolt against interest, value, meaning, and rationality. It is an insane urge to shatter the lot of them in the name of nothing whatsoever." (109)Sounds good—but who are the damned? And how is the urge insane? This is where On Evil falls short: it fails to define and clarify so many of its ideas, claims, and connections, which inevitable renders much of it superficial. Eagleton's style, conversationally pleasant as it is at times, doesn't help. A characteristic example:
"Thomas Aquinas thoroughly agreed. Like his great predecessor Saint Augustine, but also like some Ancient Greek and Judaic thought…" (125)Like some Ancient Greek and Judaic thought? Can you be more vague? If you go through Ancient Greek thought alone you'll find examples of pretty much every view you fancy. Also, Saint Thomas is dead—he cannot agree with what the particular views you are arguing for, Terry.
Too often, then, Eagleton ends up paying simple lip service to thinkers—without necessarily being wrong about their positions, it must be said, but also without including enough of substance. Another major and related problem is that Eagleton promises more than he delivers. He mentions Freud's death drive as pivotal to his account in the introduction, and he refers to it now and then throughout the rest of the work. However, he never really gives a satisfactory account of it. Nor does his scholarship as such deserve any praise; he mentions Freud repeatedly without offering references, and he even goes so far as to quote him directly without citing a source, thereby flouting the basic standards of academic rigor.
Eagleton is at his best analyzing fiction; I appreciated his accounts of William Golding's Pincher Martin and Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, while his reflections on Macbeth were rather repetitive and overdone (after a certain number of spiffy adjectives to describe the witches, things begin to look silly). His haphazard musings on Islamic terrorism, which conclude On Evil without returning to its premises and feel like they were simply thrown in to increase the work's relevancy, also fail to do him any favors.
Ironically, Eagleton writes, "Othello's language is too stuffed with mouth-filling rhetoric, too extravagant and hyperbolic" (88). He must realize that, at some level, this assessment applies just as readily to some of his own writing.
October 6, 2014
This is my first experience with Eagleton, so maybe I'm just not accustomed to his style, but if all of his work is like "On Evil," I don't think I'll be getting back to his work any time soon. He tries to take on a broad, difficult topic, a philosophical obstruction that has been an obsession of philosophy and literature since people started making words, but nothing profound or illuminating emerges from the exercise. The only thing deep about On Evil is the topic itself, and Eagleton only manages to skim its surface.
The lack of structure in the book is its first weakness, and perhaps this is the bottleneck that kept anything else from really flowering in this conceptual garden. Eagleton organizes a 150-page intellectual treatise into three chapters, and within these chapters, there is no signposting, no logical trail to follow, no central theme to link the various diversions. Halfway through each section, I was struck by the feeling that this book is, in fact, ONLY diversions, without any real claim to make.
Eagleton's ideologies -- Western literature, continental theory, and a preoccupation with Catholic doctrine and classical Marxism -- are clearly on display here. One of his central tenets is that evil, by definition, isn't the product of circumstance, nor motivated by objectives outside itself... to truly be evil, it has to hate purely for the sake of hate. This gives him some material to wrestle with -- whether evil is derived from good, whether the universe is actually manichean, whether evil can be neutralized by sublimating it or rationalizing it away -- but the central principle is a premise, not an argument, and all the resulting discussion is just a reflection on the obvious consequences of that premise.
At the very least, the book gave me some ideas for more books to read, and it massages some of my long-neglected cognitive constructions: Freudianism, moral theory, political economy. But I'll never cite it, never refer to any argument or perspective it contained, never bring it up to add something to a conversation... its problem is that it just talked at me for three weeks, waxing poetic about well-worn ideas, but stubbornly refusing to give me anything new.
The lack of structure in the book is its first weakness, and perhaps this is the bottleneck that kept anything else from really flowering in this conceptual garden. Eagleton organizes a 150-page intellectual treatise into three chapters, and within these chapters, there is no signposting, no logical trail to follow, no central theme to link the various diversions. Halfway through each section, I was struck by the feeling that this book is, in fact, ONLY diversions, without any real claim to make.
Eagleton's ideologies -- Western literature, continental theory, and a preoccupation with Catholic doctrine and classical Marxism -- are clearly on display here. One of his central tenets is that evil, by definition, isn't the product of circumstance, nor motivated by objectives outside itself... to truly be evil, it has to hate purely for the sake of hate. This gives him some material to wrestle with -- whether evil is derived from good, whether the universe is actually manichean, whether evil can be neutralized by sublimating it or rationalizing it away -- but the central principle is a premise, not an argument, and all the resulting discussion is just a reflection on the obvious consequences of that premise.
At the very least, the book gave me some ideas for more books to read, and it massages some of my long-neglected cognitive constructions: Freudianism, moral theory, political economy. But I'll never cite it, never refer to any argument or perspective it contained, never bring it up to add something to a conversation... its problem is that it just talked at me for three weeks, waxing poetic about well-worn ideas, but stubbornly refusing to give me anything new.
February 14, 2021
قد يكون الجوكر من أكثر الشخصيات الشريرة تفردًا، فلا يسعى إلا إلى التدمير الخالص، ويرى في ذلك متعة عظيمة، لا يسعى في شره إلى مال أو سلطة أو غير ذلك، وهذا ما يجعله مدمرًا حقًا.
على النقيض الآخر، فإن الرجل الوطواط، شخصية بطل خارق إنسانية بحتة، فهو يحارب الشر في داخله أولًا ومن ثم يسعى إلى محاربته في غوثام (مدينة باتمان)، ولذلك يغلب عليه طابع السوداوية، فهو يحارب الشر ظاهرًا وباطنًا.
هناك بعض الكتب التي لا نستطيع الحديث عنها وهذا مثال هنا، لذلك كان المثال السابق ضروريًا.
ماهية الشر شائكة حقًا، يحاول إيغلتون أن يحفر بعمق بغية الوصول إلى تفكيك هذه الكلمة.
فلو قلنا بأن طفلًا ضرب طفلًا آخر، هل يكون هذا الفعل شريرًا؟ ماذا لو سرق الطفل؟ أهكذا يكون شريرًا؟ وماذا لو قتل الطفل طفلًا آخرًا؟ هل نقول بأنه شرير؟ أم نقول بأن فطرة الإنسان شيطانية شريرة بتكوينها؟
هل يعتمد الشر على الدمار الناجم؟ أم يعتمد على الغرض من وراءه؟ متى يكون الشر شرًا واضحًا لا جدال فيه؟
لايرضى إيغلتون بتعريف الشر تعريفًا فضفاضًا، فيبحث عنه في الأدب وعلم النفس والتاريخ، ويطرح أسئلة فذة.
ميزة إضافية لإيغلتون: لأنه كاتب موسوعي، يرى العالم من خلال الكتب، فإن عددًا كبيرًا منها سيضاف إلى لائحة القراءة.
على النقيض الآخر، فإن الرجل الوطواط، شخصية بطل خارق إنسانية بحتة، فهو يحارب الشر في داخله أولًا ومن ثم يسعى إلى محاربته في غوثام (مدينة باتمان)، ولذلك يغلب عليه طابع السوداوية، فهو يحارب الشر ظاهرًا وباطنًا.
هناك بعض الكتب التي لا نستطيع الحديث عنها وهذا مثال هنا، لذلك كان المثال السابق ضروريًا.
ماهية الشر شائكة حقًا، يحاول إيغلتون أن يحفر بعمق بغية الوصول إلى تفكيك هذه الكلمة.
فلو قلنا بأن طفلًا ضرب طفلًا آخر، هل يكون هذا الفعل شريرًا؟ ماذا لو سرق الطفل؟ أهكذا يكون شريرًا؟ وماذا لو قتل الطفل طفلًا آخرًا؟ هل نقول بأنه شرير؟ أم نقول بأن فطرة الإنسان شيطانية شريرة بتكوينها؟
هل يعتمد الشر على الدمار الناجم؟ أم يعتمد على الغرض من وراءه؟ متى يكون الشر شرًا واضحًا لا جدال فيه؟
لايرضى إيغلتون بتعريف الشر تعريفًا فضفاضًا، فيبحث عنه في الأدب وعلم النفس والتاريخ، ويطرح أسئلة فذة.
ميزة إضافية لإيغلتون: لأنه كاتب موسوعي، يرى العالم من خلال الكتب، فإن عددًا كبيرًا منها سيضاف إلى لائحة القراءة.
March 19, 2015
Mixing theology, political history, modern philosophy and contemporary literary criticism, this is a readable and entertaining treatise on the concept of evil. It's short - actually more like a long-form essay - and although its conclusions are arguably vague, it's very interesting, and you will come away with a long list of further reading.
March 30, 2020
كتاب هام ويتكلم عن الشر وفلسفته وانعكاساته في الاعمال الأدبية, وهل الشر شرا أم أنه مفهوم نسبي, وان كان مفهوم نسبي هل سيبقى شرا؟
December 12, 2015
The tale of On Evil by Terry Eagleton is a short book as intellectual treatises go, logging in at 192 pages. Especially short because it attempts to encircle the whole of evil known to man.
On Evil by Terry Eagleton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The tale of On Evil by Terry Eagleton is a short book as intellectual treatises go, logging in at 192 pages. Especially short because it attempts to encircle the whole of evil known to man. Professor Eagleton is the man for the job as his intellectual credentials present a rich diversity of the British polymath. He is a prominent British literary theorist and critic having authored forty books on the state of literature in the English language and including a running feud with Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland and Distinguished Visiting Professor of English Literature at The University of Notre Dame.
Eagleton certainly uses his knowledge of literature to say that there is a distinction between evil and wickedness, but Rousseau has claimed that difference to be slight. Evil is a condition of being as well as a quality of behavior. According to Eagleton, Hitler’s evil lay in his ‘fantasies of annihilation’ but Stalin and Mao were merely wicked, massacring for a reason with a brutal kind of rationality behind their murders. The professor fails to explain the seeming similarity between Hitler’s idealism and Stalin and Mao rationality. The bulk of the book is an extended criticism of good evil and bad evil in literature. There is an in depth reflection on William Golding’s Pincher Martin where the protagonist dies on the first page of the novel but comes alive again 200 pages later only to die again and leaving the reader with the question of “who was that man”. It does not give you any clue as to whether this character was evil or only wicked. In other examples we are given opinions on Freud, philosophy, science fiction fables and 20th century evil wars for democracy and evil dictators who exterminate their foes. I almost forgot that Eagleton in his explication of Macbeth claims the three witches as the bad guys. In summary I give this book two stars for failure to encircle evil, instead only placing a circle around a torus.
the 'evil' before wars of democracy is for my emphasis only
View all my reviews
Professor Eagleton is the man for the job as his intellectual credentials present a rich diversity of the British polymath. He is a prominent British literary theorist and critic having authored forty books on the state of literature in the English language and including a running feud with Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland and Distinguished Visiting Professor of English Literature at The University of Notre Dame.
Eagleton certainly uses his knowledge of literature to say that there is a distinction between evil and wickedness, but Rousseau has claimed that difference to be slight. Evil is a condition of being as well as a quality of behavior. According to Eagleton, Hitler’s evil lay in his ‘fantasies of annihilation’ but Stalin and Mao were merely wicked, massacring for a reason with a brutal kind of rationality behind their murders. The professor fails to explain the seeming similarity between Hitler’s idealism and Stalin and Mao rationality. The bulk of the book is an extended criticism of good evil and bad evil in literature. There is an in depth reflection on William Golding’s Pincher Martin where the protagonist dies on the first page of the novel but comes alive again 200 pages later only to die again and leaving the reader with the question of “who was that man”. It does not give you any clue as to whether this character was evil or only wicked. In other examples we are given opinions on Freud, philosophy, science fiction fables and 20th century evil wars for democracy and evil dictators who exterminate their foes. I almost forgot that Eagleton in his explication of Macbeth claims the three witches as the bad guys. In summary I give this book two stars for failure to encircle evil, instead only placing a circle around a torus.
the 'evil' before wars of democracy is for my emphasis only
On Evil by Terry EagletonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
The tale of On Evil by Terry Eagleton is a short book as intellectual treatises go, logging in at 192 pages. Especially short because it attempts to encircle the whole of evil known to man. Professor Eagleton is the man for the job as his intellectual credentials present a rich diversity of the British polymath. He is a prominent British literary theorist and critic having authored forty books on the state of literature in the English language and including a running feud with Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland and Distinguished Visiting Professor of English Literature at The University of Notre Dame.
Eagleton certainly uses his knowledge of literature to say that there is a distinction between evil and wickedness, but Rousseau has claimed that difference to be slight. Evil is a condition of being as well as a quality of behavior. According to Eagleton, Hitler’s evil lay in his ‘fantasies of annihilation’ but Stalin and Mao were merely wicked, massacring for a reason with a brutal kind of rationality behind their murders. The professor fails to explain the seeming similarity between Hitler’s idealism and Stalin and Mao rationality. The bulk of the book is an extended criticism of good evil and bad evil in literature. There is an in depth reflection on William Golding’s Pincher Martin where the protagonist dies on the first page of the novel but comes alive again 200 pages later only to die again and leaving the reader with the question of “who was that man”. It does not give you any clue as to whether this character was evil or only wicked. In other examples we are given opinions on Freud, philosophy, science fiction fables and 20th century evil wars for democracy and evil dictators who exterminate their foes. I almost forgot that Eagleton in his explication of Macbeth claims the three witches as the bad guys. In summary I give this book two stars for failure to encircle evil, instead only placing a circle around a torus.
the 'evil' before wars of democracy is for my emphasis only
View all my reviews
Professor Eagleton is the man for the job as his intellectual credentials present a rich diversity of the British polymath. He is a prominent British literary theorist and critic having authored forty books on the state of literature in the English language and including a running feud with Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, Professor of Cultural Theory at the National University of Ireland and Distinguished Visiting Professor of English Literature at The University of Notre Dame.
Eagleton certainly uses his knowledge of literature to say that there is a distinction between evil and wickedness, but Rousseau has claimed that difference to be slight. Evil is a condition of being as well as a quality of behavior. According to Eagleton, Hitler’s evil lay in his ‘fantasies of annihilation’ but Stalin and Mao were merely wicked, massacring for a reason with a brutal kind of rationality behind their murders. The professor fails to explain the seeming similarity between Hitler’s idealism and Stalin and Mao rationality. The bulk of the book is an extended criticism of good evil and bad evil in literature. There is an in depth reflection on William Golding’s Pincher Martin where the protagonist dies on the first page of the novel but comes alive again 200 pages later only to die again and leaving the reader with the question of “who was that man”. It does not give you any clue as to whether this character was evil or only wicked. In other examples we are given opinions on Freud, philosophy, science fiction fables and 20th century evil wars for democracy and evil dictators who exterminate their foes. I almost forgot that Eagleton in his explication of Macbeth claims the three witches as the bad guys. In summary I give this book two stars for failure to encircle evil, instead only placing a circle around a torus.
the 'evil' before wars of democracy is for my emphasis only
May 31, 2020
كتاب يتحدث عن طبيعة الشر من خلال تحليل بعض الأعمال الأدبية واستعراض آراء الفلاسفة وعلماء النفس. يتجول الكتاب بين الآراء والمواضيع والتحليلات دون أي تبويب أو ترتيب، وبشكل تائه يجعل المتابعة مزعجة في بعض الأحوال. برغم وجود بعض العبارات التي استوقفتني هنا وهناك، وبرغم أن التحليلات الأدبية كانت تبدو جيدة (لم أقرأ الأعمال التي يحللها لذا لا أستطيع الحكم بشكل كامل)، ولكني في النهاية لم أشعر أن الكتاب وصل لأي أفكار عميقة أو مثيرة للتأمل بخصوص المسألة التي خاض فيها، على الأقل بالنسبة لي. إنه كتاب لن أتذكر منه أكثر ثلاث أو أربع أسطر على الأكثر.
Read
December 2, 2025هر قدر بیش تر
در اطرافم شاهد سعادت و خوشبختی می شوم
بیش تر دستخوش درد و رنج و شکنجه می گردم
درست مانند آن که مقر نفرت بار تضادها باشم
هر خیر و نیکی ای برایم به زهر مهلک مبدل می شود
و در آسمان وضعیتم باز بدتر از این خواهد بود!
…بدین سان نیز امید ندارم با آن چه می جویم کمتر نگون بخت باشم
تنها خواهان اینم که دیگران را بسان حالتی که خود در آن به سر می برم مبدل می سازم.
حتی اگر لازم باشد بر میزان دردها و رنج های خویش بیفزایم…
زیرا تنها در نابودی و انهدام است که می توانم
وسیله ی آرامش بخشی برای اندیشه های ناهنجار و آشفته ام بیابم…
در اطرافم شاهد سعادت و خوشبختی می شوم
بیش تر دستخوش درد و رنج و شکنجه می گردم
درست مانند آن که مقر نفرت بار تضادها باشم
هر خیر و نیکی ای برایم به زهر مهلک مبدل می شود
و در آسمان وضعیتم باز بدتر از این خواهد بود!
…بدین سان نیز امید ندارم با آن چه می جویم کمتر نگون بخت باشم
تنها خواهان اینم که دیگران را بسان حالتی که خود در آن به سر می برم مبدل می سازم.
حتی اگر لازم باشد بر میزان دردها و رنج های خویش بیفزایم…
زیرا تنها در نابودی و انهدام است که می توانم
وسیله ی آرامش بخشی برای اندیشه های ناهنجار و آشفته ام بیابم…
December 30, 2021
كتاب مُهم ومُمتع .
July 23, 2022
"There is good reason to believe that the devil is a Frenchman."
July 26, 2023
Sometimes Mr Eagleton is simply phoning it in
July 9, 2013
Fun, short book (or long essay?) on "evil" in theology and literature and a little bit on "evil" in history.
You don't have to agree with Eagleton's conclusions to enjoy this (in fact, I disagree with most of them - I think "evil" doesn't even exist). Eagleton is a literary theorist and a Marxist and it clearly shows. For him, evil is caused by institutions that make normally "ok" people do evil things. He doesn't really support this with studies or any numbers, he rather shows characters from literature as examples for his conclusions, or points to the Nazis. Whether you like that or not is up to you, I think "hard" scientists will be annoyed[1]. His writing, however, is beautiful and so British:
(p. 4)
or wisely on p. 117, the last page:
[1] I personally would have at least included the case-study of the murdering necrophiliac homosexual duck to show that "evil" in the form of senseless violence exists in nature too: C.W. Moeliker (2001). "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the Anas platyrhynchos (Aves:Anatidae)". Deinsea - Annual of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam 8: 243–247.
You don't have to agree with Eagleton's conclusions to enjoy this (in fact, I disagree with most of them - I think "evil" doesn't even exist). Eagleton is a literary theorist and a Marxist and it clearly shows. For him, evil is caused by institutions that make normally "ok" people do evil things. He doesn't really support this with studies or any numbers, he rather shows characters from literature as examples for his conclusions, or points to the Nazis. Whether you like that or not is up to you, I think "hard" scientists will be annoyed[1]. His writing, however, is beautiful and so British:
Perhaps children murder each other all the time and are simply keeping quiet about it [...]. Perhaps this is because we are ready to believe all kinds of sinister things about children, since they seem like a halfalien race in our midst. Since they do not work, it is not clear what they are for.
(p. 4)
or wisely on p. 117, the last page:
But there is a difference between regretting this tragically lost opportunity, and treating one's enemies as mindless beasts whom no rational action could ever conceivably sway. For champions of this viewpoint, the only solution to terrorist violence is more violence. More violence then breeds more terror, which in turn puts more blameless lives at risk. The result of defining terrorism as evil is to exacerbate the problem; and to make the problem worse is to be complicit, however unwittingly, in the very barbarism you condemn.
[1] I personally would have at least included the case-study of the murdering necrophiliac homosexual duck to show that "evil" in the form of senseless violence exists in nature too: C.W. Moeliker (2001). "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the Anas platyrhynchos (Aves:Anatidae)". Deinsea - Annual of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam 8: 243–247.
April 15, 2017
I quite enjoyed this discussion on evil and different perspectives on it, and there were quite a lot of things that I will definitely revisit at a later date. I also appreciated the inclusion of liberal and conservative perspectives on evil, and the weaknesses of each. I think my favorite part of the book was the analysis of Irish literature, which was fascinating and gave me plenty of other books I would like to read. His grasp and understanding of philosophy and its applications and pitfalls in regards to the topic was also excellent. I had only two quibbles with the books, the first being that I felt Evil in Modern Thought by Neiman was a much deeper analysis, more scholarly, and more thorough, and second, that, like Neiman's work, it came from a wholly Western perspective; you won't find any thinkers or products of non-Euopean thinkers in either volume.
May 27, 2017
Bir edebiyat kuramcısı olan Eagleton'dan beklenecek kadar çok edebiyat metnine gönderme içeriyor kitap. Görece olarak küçük hacmine rağmen İngiliz, Fransız, Amerikan hatta İrlanda edebiyatına göndermeler ile dolu.
Batı felsefesi, Hristiyan teolojisi ve edebiyat üzerine analizler ile kötülük kavramı etrafından dolaşan kitap, bu metinlere aşina olmayanlar için takip etmesi oldukça zor bir metin aslında.
Kitabın ağırlıklı olarak üçüncü bölümü kötülük kavramı üzerine aforizmik yorumlar içeriyor ki, kötülük nedir, neden kötülük diye bir şey vardır sorularına yanıt vermek yerine özellikle felsefik derinliği olan bir tanrı/kötü yorumlaması var metinde.
Batı felsefesi, Hristiyan teolojisi ve edebiyat üzerine analizler ile kötülük kavramı etrafından dolaşan kitap, bu metinlere aşina olmayanlar için takip etmesi oldukça zor bir metin aslında.
Kitabın ağırlıklı olarak üçüncü bölümü kötülük kavramı üzerine aforizmik yorumlar içeriyor ki, kötülük nedir, neden kötülük diye bir şey vardır sorularına yanıt vermek yerine özellikle felsefik derinliği olan bir tanrı/kötü yorumlaması var metinde.
February 23, 2023
Those who fall under the sway of the death drive feel that ecstatic sense of liberation that springs from the though that nothing really matters. The delight of the damned is not to give a damn (...) he death drive is a deliriously orgiastic revolt against interest, value, meaning, and rationality. It is an insane urge to shatter the lot of them in the name of nothing whatsoever." (p. 109)
"Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs." (P. Larkin- "Wants"/1951)
Terry Eagleton is one of the most esteemed and influential literary critics of the western canon and some of his books are still considered to be cornerstones for the field with Literary Theory: An Introduction and After Theory being his leading works which have sold over a million copies all over the world. In one of his most recent publications, the English intellectual attempted to shed light on a subject that is as old as the original sin, the nature of evil. Eagleton is often characterized as a Marxist, however he is always careful to avoid the dogmatic interpretations provided by any closed system of thought, combining elements from diverse theories and philosophies and remaining humane in his approaches throughout the way. Apart from Marxism, Eagleton is heavily inveigled by Christianism and his name has been frequently involved in heated debates with the representatives of the so-called "New Atheist" movement such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. His main thesis in Literary Theory: An Introduction, published in 1983, was that any form of literary theory is unavoidably political, arguing that there is no such thing as a fully independent, wholly autonomous theory lacking political aspects and then proceeding to introduce his own position on the matter using a mix of traditional Marxism, structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis and deconstructionism. Eagleton remained suspicious toward postmodernism as the latter has affected cultural theory with the result being the devaluation of both objectivity and ethics. His assessment of postmodernism is summarized in his 2003 treatise, After Theory where he sums up the pros and cons of the theories presented by the major figures of the movement such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Despite his negative views on postmodernism as a whole, Eagleton discerns its positive effects too, exhibiting his intellectual strength which forbids him from being categorical, especially when evaluating the work of major thinkers of the twentieth century.
To read my full review, please visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/on-evil
"Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs." (P. Larkin- "Wants"/1951)
Terry Eagleton is one of the most esteemed and influential literary critics of the western canon and some of his books are still considered to be cornerstones for the field with Literary Theory: An Introduction and After Theory being his leading works which have sold over a million copies all over the world. In one of his most recent publications, the English intellectual attempted to shed light on a subject that is as old as the original sin, the nature of evil. Eagleton is often characterized as a Marxist, however he is always careful to avoid the dogmatic interpretations provided by any closed system of thought, combining elements from diverse theories and philosophies and remaining humane in his approaches throughout the way. Apart from Marxism, Eagleton is heavily inveigled by Christianism and his name has been frequently involved in heated debates with the representatives of the so-called "New Atheist" movement such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. His main thesis in Literary Theory: An Introduction, published in 1983, was that any form of literary theory is unavoidably political, arguing that there is no such thing as a fully independent, wholly autonomous theory lacking political aspects and then proceeding to introduce his own position on the matter using a mix of traditional Marxism, structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis and deconstructionism. Eagleton remained suspicious toward postmodernism as the latter has affected cultural theory with the result being the devaluation of both objectivity and ethics. His assessment of postmodernism is summarized in his 2003 treatise, After Theory where he sums up the pros and cons of the theories presented by the major figures of the movement such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Despite his negative views on postmodernism as a whole, Eagleton discerns its positive effects too, exhibiting his intellectual strength which forbids him from being categorical, especially when evaluating the work of major thinkers of the twentieth century.
To read my full review, please visit https://tapthelinemag.com/post/on-evil
September 4, 2021
A rambling, readable short work on evil (in the Western tradition).
I liked how he framed his thoughts around explorations in literature: lots of William Golding (Pincher Martin rather than the stacked experiment in Lord of the Flies); Brighton Rock; Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus; Othello*; less concentrated references to Milton, William Blake, Dostoyevsky.
Readers had better be on the political left as is the author, for he makes human political projects a necessary part of the discussion. Eagleton is also nonreligious, but a believer in evil -- Evil, that can be discarded as a concept both by the left and atheists. All that suited me. He is not a pessimist, he is not a liberal who sees progression in history or today; he's more hopepunk, in the internet slang:
Amen. His Marxism comes in handy for emphasising the material conditions behind a great deal of human suffering, and how much of human wickedness in practice issues out of systems.
Written in the War on Terror: 'The result of defining terrorism as evil is to exacerbate the problem...', he ends as a case study.
Cogent, humorous (one or two bad jokes, several good). Not earthshaking, but a useful read.
* leave my Othello out of it, you beast
I liked how he framed his thoughts around explorations in literature: lots of William Golding (Pincher Martin rather than the stacked experiment in Lord of the Flies); Brighton Rock; Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus; Othello*; less concentrated references to Milton, William Blake, Dostoyevsky.
Readers had better be on the political left as is the author, for he makes human political projects a necessary part of the discussion. Eagleton is also nonreligious, but a believer in evil -- Evil, that can be discarded as a concept both by the left and atheists. All that suited me. He is not a pessimist, he is not a liberal who sees progression in history or today; he's more hopepunk, in the internet slang:
The true antirealists are those like the scientist Richard Dawkins, with his staggeringly complacent belief that we are all becoming kinder and more civilised... Reading the likes of Dawkins, one realises why the doctrine of evil or original sin can be a radical kind of belief. It suggests that things are so dire with us that only a deep-seated transformation could hope to put them right.
Amen. His Marxism comes in handy for emphasising the material conditions behind a great deal of human suffering, and how much of human wickedness in practice issues out of systems.
Written in the War on Terror: 'The result of defining terrorism as evil is to exacerbate the problem...', he ends as a case study.
Cogent, humorous (one or two bad jokes, several good). Not earthshaking, but a useful read.
* leave my Othello out of it, you beast
August 6, 2018
Terry Eagleton's little book On Evil is a tough read. It is primarily a survey of literature regarding the philosophical and religious context of what we call evil and it seems to draw no real conclusions of its own, although it does attempt to fuse together some of the varied ideas. Chapter One is a deep exploration of the Christian view of evil, which posits both a God and a Devil. The argument runs a bit circular in that Evil opposes itself to goodness, but since God created everything, he is responsible for evil, not those who actually commit evil deeds. As an atheist, I found this section to be completely useless. Defining evil only in terms of a omnipotent being relegates it to the realm of fantasy.
The second and third chapters are quite a bit better, but still provide no answers.
It is a tough slog considering that it doesn't ever really enlighten the reader. Not recommended.
The second and third chapters are quite a bit better, but still provide no answers.
It is a tough slog considering that it doesn't ever really enlighten the reader. Not recommended.
August 5, 2018
Los ejemplos literarios de Eagleton son el panorama de la consideración del mal como una forma de la individualidad. Es una reflexión que se sitúa en el sujeto, a pesar de terminar hablando sobre el terrorismo y las implicaciones políticas necesarias. Sin duda, no podría ser de otra manera. Su visión materialista le da carácter de un ensayo contemporáneo, razonable; es decir, propio de un tiempo como el nuestro, pero que deja la maldad más terrible a las instituciones, como si de un programa computacional limitado se tratara.
Me llama la atención un par de reflexiones que, desde mi lectura (Eagleton no las hace explícitas ni las sugiere) aluden a Mainländer y a Cioran, como representantes de la caricatura del mal como formas efectivas del nihilismo o coqueteos con él. Cosa para algo mayor por discutir y que en este ensayo ( El mal<\i> )quedan pendientes.
Me llama la atención un par de reflexiones que, desde mi lectura (Eagleton no las hace explícitas ni las sugiere) aluden a Mainländer y a Cioran, como representantes de la caricatura del mal como formas efectivas del nihilismo o coqueteos con él. Cosa para algo mayor por discutir y que en este ensayo ( El mal<\i> )quedan pendientes.
February 27, 2018
Though clearly a talented literary critic, this unfocused and over-familiar attempt to define and prove the existence of evil was unconvincing, meandering, and ultimately pointless. We were doomed from the start when the book purported to use literary, theological, and psychoanalytic (read: one Freudian concept) lenses to focus its point. You don't prove things by these means, you posit them. And that's a fine thing to do provided you go somewhere with it. Here, Eagleton just places his definition there and fucks off without bringing it to any use.
I was going to sit down for half an hour or so and really dig into this, but now that I'm here I realize I'm flat out disengaged from this text. So I'm just going to move on.
I was going to sit down for half an hour or so and really dig into this, but now that I'm here I realize I'm flat out disengaged from this text. So I'm just going to move on.
Read
July 4, 2010The author says the same thing over and over, and then at the very end writes that America deserved 9/11 because we have done so many bad things. What a waste of time. Total crap. I give in zero stars.
December 26, 2015
'it was ok'
some interesting conclusions but very roundabout arguing that only lines up for brief instances.
some interesting conclusions but very roundabout arguing that only lines up for brief instances.
September 21, 2021
يتناول فكرة الشر بمعناها الاوّلى، ويضع له تفسيرا ربما يبدوا انه مخالف للمنطق فى الوهلة الاولى ، ويقول أن الشر إضلال خالص ، هو نوع من التضخم الكونى ، يدعى فيه الشخص بإنه عمل أنجاز ما ، ويرى ان الشر يكون بلا دافع ولا رغبة فى الاصل ، وتعرض لبعض الاعمال الفنية الادبية لكونديرا وديستوفسكى ،وغيرهم من الادب العالمى وتناول فكرة الشر فى رواياتهم وابطالهم مثل رواية الفردوس المفقود ، راقنى فى الكتاب هو طرح الشرانية من مدخل إيمانى فالكاتب على ما يبدوا غير ملحد إنما اعتمد اللاهوتية مدخل فى بحثه عن فكرة الشر ، ولكن يؤخذ عليه هو طرحه لقضية الهولوكوست وترويجه للمحرقة دون دليل كعمل من أعمال تبدوا على الشر وأستدل على ذلك بمنطوق الذى أُخِذ على الألمان حيث يرى أن اليهود بالنسبة للنازيين نوعا من العدم الموحل أو الاشياء الزائدة ، وتناول الانتحار على أنه شكل من أشكال الشر المطلق فالانسان مدمر ذاته وهذا هو الاصل ويؤيد دارون على ان الانسان مخلوق مازوخى ، فهو يستلذ بتعذيب نفسه ويرى فى ذلك متعة الى أن تحثه الأنا العليا على الانتحار ففى عدمية وجوده وجود فى ذاته فكأنه يحتج على الوجود بعدميته وان كانت جثة عفنة ، الحقيقة الكتاب يحتاج قراءة أكثر من مرة بالنسبة لى ، لأنه غنى بفلسفة ربما غريبة على لأننى قارئة للفلسفة الاسلامية فى العادة ، وما فاجئنى رؤيته لما سماه بالأرهاب الاسلامى وأخذه صف المحايد وفى طيات كلماته يرفض ان يسميه بالشر وإنما لابد كى نتجنب ذلك الارهاب بإن نسمع لمطالبهم بالتأكيد وذكر أيضا لان أمريكا حين قال اعظم كتابها على هجوم سبتمبر بإننا نرى الشر المطلق الان ردا على ذلك بإنه إنحاز الى وطنه ولم ينظر ماذا فعلت أمريكا ذاتها من قتل وضحايا عددهم يفوق بالاف ضحايا سبتمبر ، الحقيقة الكتاب ممتع بداية من الفصل الثانى ... وإخيرا يقول أنه لا يُمكننا إنهاء الشر فى ذلك العالم ، ولكننا يُمكننا ان نمنع مزيدا من الشر بالتسامح ...
إقتباسات من الكتاب
الموت له وجهان، احدهما عدم الوجود والاخرى هو المادة المرعبة الموجودة فى الجثة (كونديرا )
يمكنك ان تنظر الى عدم الطهارة قذارة سلبية مثيرة تثير الاشمئزاز ...
يشعر اولئك الذين يقعون تحت رحمة دافع الموت بنشوة التحررالتى تنبع من الفكر الذى يقول ان العدم ذو أهمية حقا ..
الملعونين هم متلهفين بطرائقهم الملتوية وغير المغرضة تماما لجعل أنفسهم إضافة لبقية الخلق فى مستوى منخفض ...
إقتباسات من الكتاب
الموت له وجهان، احدهما عدم الوجود والاخرى هو المادة المرعبة الموجودة فى الجثة (كونديرا )
يمكنك ان تنظر الى عدم الطهارة قذارة سلبية مثيرة تثير الاشمئزاز ...
يشعر اولئك الذين يقعون تحت رحمة دافع الموت بنشوة التحررالتى تنبع من الفكر الذى يقول ان العدم ذو أهمية حقا ..
الملعونين هم متلهفين بطرائقهم الملتوية وغير المغرضة تماما لجعل أنفسهم إضافة لبقية الخلق فى مستوى منخفض ...
November 19, 2022
Um dos livros que mais me ensinaram na vida foi o Uma Teoria da Literatura, de Terry Eagleton, então, para mim, o autor sempre foi sinônimo de muita "iluminação mental". Foi assim com outros livros de Eagleton que pude der. Este aqui, Sobre o Mal, é a exceção que confirma a regra. Não me capturou sua leitura diferente dos outros e pouco consegui tirar de ensinamentos ou de novos insights nesse livro. Fora que a capa brasileira é a mais feia de todas as edições ao redor do mundo. Contudo, um dos pouco insights que gostei do livro é quando Terry Eagleton compara o mal do nazismo com o gozo obceno, um regozijo que acontece quando alguém massacra outra pessoa, a aniquila, extingue sua vontade de viver. Isso, sem dúvida, é o mal. Nos outros capítulos, o autor examina o mal na ficção (anglófona, é claro) e o mal divino, ou seja, aquele relacionado com Deus e a Bíblia, e que tem em Jó o principal personagem desse descaso divino.
May 11, 2018
Todos os livros que eu li do Eagleton tem sempre a mesma falha: as ideias são apresentadas e logo depois ou são abandonadas ou não são desenvolvidas o bastante. A distinção que ele faz entre o mau e o perverso, por exemplo, é interessante, mas ela simplesmente aparece em certo momento do livro, com poucos esforços tendo sido feitos pra definir o que é o perverso (o perverso tem propósitos, o mau não; mas não é que a maldade do mau tem pelo menos o propósito de se preservar, ou de justificar sua existência em relação ao bem? Não é essa a leitura que ele fez do impulso de morte do Freud?). Apesar desse defeito, gosto muito do que ele escreve, da sua clareza e da sua consciência política. Ele podia ser só um pouco mais preciso.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews