Beschreibung
Uwe Petersen
The Evil in us
Phenomenology and Genealogy of Evil
ISBN 978-3-99038-445-9
2014 Novum publishing gmbh
The Evil in us Phenomenology and Genealogy of Evil
Contents
Introduction
The criteria of evil
1 Evil destroys or tends to destroy
2 The relationship of evil to the subject
3 Evil injures the norms
4 The relativity of evil
Phenomenology and genealogy of evil
1 Natural cosmological life
2 Birth of the human mind
2.1 The splitting of natural cosmic life
in intellect and sensuality.
2.2 The development of the intellect of man
– The birth of thinking and willing –
2.2.1 Fall of man by thinking
2.2.2 Fall of man by willing
2.2.3 The one-in-another of thinking and willing
2.3 The development of sensuality
2.3.1 Demarcation from the life of animals
2.3.2 Essence of sensuality
2.4 Interrelationship of reason and sensuality
2.4.1 Sensuality as a danger to
reason or as a joy of living
2.4.2 Bad individualisation as a
betrayal of the community
2.4.3 Autism and vandalism
2.5 Morbid forms of individuation .
2.5.1 Problems of individuation in the family,
according to Bert Hellinger
2.5.2 Sadism and masochism
2.5.3 Externally controlled will:
fundamentalism and opportunism.
3 The completion of the spirit
3.1 Individuation causes internal tensions
3.2 Overcoming evil
3.3 Regret and forgiveness
Beyond good and evil
1 Relativisation of the criteria of good and evil
1.1 that it destroys
1.2 destroying must be related to a subject,
1.3 The relationship to standards
1.4 Point of relatedness of good and evil
2 Imperfect forms of personality
2.1 The narcissist
2.2 The work ethicist
3 Personality and society
Bibliography
The Evil in us.Phenomenology and Genealogy of Evil.
Summery
By learning to think men became men. Thinking we define conceptual entities out of sensual impressions and we recognize our selves as those, who look at these entities.
You can only have entities when you distinct them from others. So thinking is connected with distinction.
Necessarily you define in a way that the defined entity is of some importance for you, that it is not senseless. That means distinction is connected with valuation and the basic valuation is the distinction of good and bad. The distinction of good and bad can therefore be called the fundamental distinction of which all others are derived. That’s why in Bible mythologically becoming man as godlike being is
equal with learning to distinct between good and bad.
Good is related with rational timeless being and conservatism. From this point of view bad is related with the power which destroys the existing order. But as this power is the source of development it also might be called „good“ and conservatism as „bad“.
As „bad” is always connected with destruction of something, man is called bad because he has destroyed his unity with God by starting to think. Therefore the fall of man is called the original sin.
In nature and in instinctive reacting of animals distinction does not exist. Impulses immediately are answered by reactions. And as there is in nature no distinction there is also no good and bad. An earth break destroying a city, a wolf killing a sheep are not bad. Valuing thinking as bad is not restricted to the Bible. It is shared by all civilisations. But only in Europe the other side of the fall of man the fascination of becoming like God overruled the fear of committing a sin. That’s why only in Europe modern sciences, technology, economics and modern societies could develop.
Animals never plan their life. They always feel, what to do. This is to a certain degree also true for traditional societies. Developing their intellectual power men lose their instinctive steering and become individuals. This might not only create problems with other persons, but also for themselves. They might feel isolated and that can cause psychic crises.
Becoming individuals man splist himself in intellect and sensuality and this is the reason for a wide range of behaviors which may be called evil. We discuss and illustrate them with examples mainly of Nazi-Germany and the Apartheid-Regime in South-Africa. Finally will be described how to overcome the distinction of good and evil.