Eric Newhill
New
I thought this was a great interview. Having been confronted with and been the target of evil, I have considered everything that was discussed. So none of it was new to me, generally, but I found some of Kevin's nuances to be interesting. I really liked Alex's challenging questions. I could tell where/what they pointed and appreciated them even more for what was left un-said, yet that provoked thought.
IMO, being the target of evil is like being raped. In fact, it is being raped. Not necessarily physical/sexual rape; something deeper. It involves a profoundly deep recognition that you - and I mean the real you and all it contains, but especially the good - represent nothing to some people/some entity. They/it will destroy you for sport. Chew you up and crap you out and not even remember your name five minutes later. Makes you realize that you don't count for anything. Worse, when they're done with you, if you are, literally, still alive, you have had any vestiges of the belief that humans/life are basically good and trustworthy taken from you for good. Still worse, IMO, the goal is to make you think that there is no god that cares about you. That someone/something can rob you of your sense of worth and your peace of mind and trust in god is something you can't intellectually understand and can't emotionally understand unless it has happened to you and happened in a big way. This is magnified when deception is involved. You didn't even see it coming. Deception is almost always a factor. You were stalked and preyed on.
I'm not talking about the mundane and careless evil that people do every day; the ambitious person at work that sees you as competition on the career ladder and who then damages your reputation to get you out of the way. That's kind of expected and understandable (though I neither condone nor appreciate it). It has a sort of logic to it unsavory as it may be. Nor am I talking about the spouse that cheats with the other's best friend. Again, not nice, but there is a certain underlying understandable aspect to it. Nor the robber the breaks into your house or mugs you on the street. We can rationalize these events and thus protect our sense of things. What I'm talking about is evil that cannot be understood. That goes beyond human foibles and weakness. Evil that is deliberate and persistent; deadly at times, but always seeks to kill the target's very soul.
I have a hard time with Kevin's notion that such evil makes us stronger. I mean it could, for some, in a way, but to the extent that is true, it does so at great cost. Kevin made an analogy about a soldier going into battle and coming out without a leg. I don't think Kevin fully appreciates the damage that combat can do to a person and even more so to a naturally sensitive person. There are wounds deeper than the loss of a limb. I only agree with Kevin to the extent that having survived an episode with true evil, one will have hopefully learned lessons and will likely not be victimized by it again. However, one aspect of true evil is that it seeks to crush survivors such that they feel helpless and do become permanent victims to be used at will. It always seeks to break the spirit. So Kevin isn't speaking for all victims by any means.
Which leads me to the idea Kevin seems to support that, by fighting evil, one must become aligned with the same dark forces as the evil. I disagree. Intent is everything. I do not believe that in slaying monsters one becomes a monster as long as one is self aware and has accurately identified a true monster. I also believe that in slaying true monsters, one serves as an example of hope to those whose spirit the monster has damaged.
Finally, in similar vein, I get what Kevin means about the yin/yang of the thing, but, again, disagree. If the monsters job is to destroy our souls, then our job is to kill the monster first. That's the dharma of the thing. To do otherwise is to shrink from life and thus kill your own soul.
Otherwise, I thought Kevin had some pretty good ideas about all of this. Evil persists because it is very deceptive/sneaky. It hides until ready to strike and then it strikes selectively under the cover of lies.
IMO, being the target of evil is like being raped. In fact, it is being raped. Not necessarily physical/sexual rape; something deeper. It involves a profoundly deep recognition that you - and I mean the real you and all it contains, but especially the good - represent nothing to some people/some entity. They/it will destroy you for sport. Chew you up and crap you out and not even remember your name five minutes later. Makes you realize that you don't count for anything. Worse, when they're done with you, if you are, literally, still alive, you have had any vestiges of the belief that humans/life are basically good and trustworthy taken from you for good. Still worse, IMO, the goal is to make you think that there is no god that cares about you. That someone/something can rob you of your sense of worth and your peace of mind and trust in god is something you can't intellectually understand and can't emotionally understand unless it has happened to you and happened in a big way. This is magnified when deception is involved. You didn't even see it coming. Deception is almost always a factor. You were stalked and preyed on.
I'm not talking about the mundane and careless evil that people do every day; the ambitious person at work that sees you as competition on the career ladder and who then damages your reputation to get you out of the way. That's kind of expected and understandable (though I neither condone nor appreciate it). It has a sort of logic to it unsavory as it may be. Nor am I talking about the spouse that cheats with the other's best friend. Again, not nice, but there is a certain underlying understandable aspect to it. Nor the robber the breaks into your house or mugs you on the street. We can rationalize these events and thus protect our sense of things. What I'm talking about is evil that cannot be understood. That goes beyond human foibles and weakness. Evil that is deliberate and persistent; deadly at times, but always seeks to kill the target's very soul.
I have a hard time with Kevin's notion that such evil makes us stronger. I mean it could, for some, in a way, but to the extent that is true, it does so at great cost. Kevin made an analogy about a soldier going into battle and coming out without a leg. I don't think Kevin fully appreciates the damage that combat can do to a person and even more so to a naturally sensitive person. There are wounds deeper than the loss of a limb. I only agree with Kevin to the extent that having survived an episode with true evil, one will have hopefully learned lessons and will likely not be victimized by it again. However, one aspect of true evil is that it seeks to crush survivors such that they feel helpless and do become permanent victims to be used at will. It always seeks to break the spirit. So Kevin isn't speaking for all victims by any means.
Which leads me to the idea Kevin seems to support that, by fighting evil, one must become aligned with the same dark forces as the evil. I disagree. Intent is everything. I do not believe that in slaying monsters one becomes a monster as long as one is self aware and has accurately identified a true monster. I also believe that in slaying true monsters, one serves as an example of hope to those whose spirit the monster has damaged.
Finally, in similar vein, I get what Kevin means about the yin/yang of the thing, but, again, disagree. If the monsters job is to destroy our souls, then our job is to kill the monster first. That's the dharma of the thing. To do otherwise is to shrink from life and thus kill your own soul.
Otherwise, I thought Kevin had some pretty good ideas about all of this. Evil persists because it is very deceptive/sneaky. It hides until ready to strike and then it strikes selectively under the cover of lies.
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