Is evil doing what hurts other people? Is evil doing what is a violation of all human rules? If so, no wrong can be done during war. But there are atrocities of war, right?
So what’s evil? Walt Whitman says that he is just as much evil as good, and that it is “just as important to you, to the land or to me, as any thing else.” What the hell does that mean? Except the insight that we can all be capable of evil.
Two sentences ago I said, “what the hell.” Let’s not get into hell. Except that about 6000 people saw what it looked like (or a close approximation of it, as close as you can get on Earth) on September 11.
According to Milton, the Serpent said that we shouldn’t be forbidden from the knowledge of good and evil: “Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil / Be real, why not known, since easier shunnd?” Why shouldn’t we know what evil is, if it will help us avoid it? But what if it doesn’t?
Ask John Ashcroft (as reported on Slashdot), he’s seen evil and it’s computer crimes. Or that’s what the new Anti-Terrorism Act says: no statute of limitations on computer crimes, retroactive DNA database of hackers, and life in prison for computer intrusion. Harboring or providing advice would be terrorism as well.
What did I write the other day? I don’t want other people to blame. I don’t want “terrorism” to become such an overloaded word that those with the power can do anything they want….