Q&A: Analyticity as the Source of Evil
Analyticity as the Source of Evil
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In your book "Man Is as the Grass," you compared evil to analyticity, and explained that evil is a real entity—namely, the thought (the analytic one) that there is no such thing as good.
How can this thesis explain the Nazis and radical Islam (and many other examples of evil), which at their core believe in real values (but evil ones)?
It reminded me a bit of "Harry Potter," where Voldemort says that "there is no such thing as good and evil, only power and those too weak to seek it," but even then I thought that the evil that very often exists in reality really does believe in "evil" values, and it is not analytic.
Answer
I did not understand the question. What are you saying that I claim, and what difficulty are you raising against it? Please clarify more clearly.
Discussion on Answer
I think you did not understand. Of course there are people who believe in evil values. It cannot be that someone believes in value x and at the same time also thinks that x is evil. That almost does not exist. (And about that too, if I remember correctly, I wrote that in principle it is possible, but very very unlikely.) Read it again.
You claim that evil does not stem from evil values but from a failure to recognize the existence of values. I am arguing that the Nazis did recognize the existence of values; it is just that the values they acted according to were evil.