QUOTE(Jonny Cache @ Mon 29th October 2007, 8:30am)
There is a
discussion in the so-called "Tar Pit and Feather Barrel" of
The Wikipedia Review that touches — off and on, hot and cold — on the Matter of Evil, a thing or two about which I have a thing or three to say, but I can hardly tell the Tarry-Eyed from the Feather Heads in that subversion, er, subforum, so I will leave those animadversions where they lie and resurrect the issue here, in one of the more general contexts where it fits.
Jon Awbrey
There is a maxim that cautions against attributing to evil that which can be exlained by ignorance. Or some say
stupidity, but 6 one way, ½ a wit the other, it's all the same to me. It is a good maxim, variously attributed in modern times, but the gist of it harks back as far as Plato's Socrates, at least.
None of that means that there are not evils in this world. There are actions that most of us do not hesitate to call evil. At barely one remove from the world's active evils there are the systems of belief that excuse and foster the growth of these evils.
For the record, I have to say that I place Wikipedia and its Pushers in both of these classes.
Jon Awbrey