• thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    9 hours ago

    I don’t think it’s useful to classify people into good and evil. I think the exercise of power is a vice and some people get addicted to it. Causing other people to suffer (and getting away with it) is an exercise of power, and it’s one of the most accessible ones, because there’s always someone you can hurt if you look around. Children, homeless people, criminals, or anyone else deemed unworthy of protection by the more powerful. I reckon some people may be more susceptible to it the same way some people are more susceptible to alcohol addiction, but it’s complicated and there’s a lot I don’t know about how abuse of power compares to abuse of alcohol. But classifying them as evil is a thought terminating cliche: they do bad things because they’re bad people, simple as that. I think thinking about other people that way lets us self-justify a lot of horrific shit in the name of punishing bad people.