Time to put my metal on
Whose blood to spill?
I don't know
Whose side I'm on?
Whose blood to spill?
I don't know
Whose side I'm on?
Two armies are coming at me
Their flags and weapons look the same
One tells the truth, the other's lying
And they're both calling my name
Their flags and weapons look the same
One tells the truth, the other's lying
And they're both calling my name
This is how villains are made
This is how villains are made
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oooh
No one ever starts that way
But this is how villains are made
This is how villains are made
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oooh
No one ever starts that way
But this is how villains are made
Time to put my metal on
Whose neck to cut?
I don't know
Whose side I'm on?
Whose neck to cut?
I don't know
Whose side I'm on?
There lies my sanity
There goes my mind, I could not save
I don't trust, but I see right in front of me
I don't know who to betray
There goes my mind, I could not save
I don't trust, but I see right in front of me
I don't know who to betray
Ah, aah, aah, aah
Ah, ah
Ah, aah, aah, aah
Ah, ah
Ooh, ooh, oooh
Ah, ah
Ooh, ooh, oooh
Ah, ah
Ah, aah, aah, aah
Ah, ah
Ooh, ooh, oooh
Ah, ah
Ooh, ooh, oooh
This is how villains are made
This is how villains are made
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oooh
This is how villains are made
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oooh
So easily we're persuaded
When the lines are blurred and faded
No one ever starts that way
But this is how villains are made
When the lines are blurred and faded
No one ever starts that way
But this is how villains are made
This is how villains are made
???
ReplyDeleteWhen armies were slaughtered by other armies in the course of history, we might be appalled by the carnage and turn pacifist; but our horror acquires a new dimension when we read about children, or for that matter grown-up men and women, whom the Nazis loaded into trains bound for gas chambers, telling them that they were going to emigrate to some happier place. Why does this deception, which may in fact have diminished the anguish of the victims, arouse a really unutterable kind of horror in us? The spectacle, I mean, of the victims marching off in happy ignorance of their doom amid the smiling faces of their tormentors? Surely because we cannot bear the thought of human beings denied their last rights--of knowing the truth, of acting with at least the freedom of the condemned, of being able to face their destruction with fear or courage, according to their temperaments, but at least as human beings, armed with the power of choice. It is the denial to human beings of the possibility of choice, the getting them into one's power, the twisting them this way and that in accordance with one's whim, the destruction of their personality by creating unequal moral terms between the gaoler and the victim, whereby the gaoler knows what he is doing, and why, and plays upon the victim, i.e. treats him as a mere object and not as a subject whose motives, views, intentions have any intrinsic weight whatever--by destroying the very possibility of his having views, notions of a relevant kind--that is what cannot be borne at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat else horrifies us about unscrupulousness if not this? Why is the thought of someone twisting someone else round his little finger, even in innocent contexts, so beastly (for instance in Dostoevsky's Dyadyushkin son [Uncle's Dream, a novella published in 1859], which the Moscow Arts Theatre used to act so well and so cruelly)? After all, the victim may prefer to have no responsibility; the slave be happier in his slavery. Certainly we do not detest this kind of destruction of liberty merely because it denies liberty of action; there is a far greater horror in depriving men of the very capacity for freedom--that is the real sin against the Holy Ghost. Everything else is bearable so long as the possibility of goodness--of a state of affairs in which men freely choose, disinterestedly seek ends for their own sake--is still open, however much suffering they may have gone through. Their souls are destroyed only when this is no longer possible. It is when the desire for choice is broken that what men do thereby loses all moral value, and actions lose all significance (in terms of good and evil) in their own eyes; that is what is meant by destroying people's self-respect, by turning them, in your words, into rags. This is the ultimate horror because in such a situation there are no worthwhile motives left: nothing is worth doing or avoiding, the reasons for existing are gone. We admire Don Quixote, if we do, because he has a pure-hearted desire to do what is good, and he is pathetic because he is mad and his attempts are ludicrous.
-Isaiah Berlin, Letter to George Kennan (2/13/51)
Putin needs to get to the front lines lol
ReplyDeleteApparently Putin has cancer, though he is receiving treatment and will likely not die soon. Which seriously is a shame. The sooner this a-hole dies the better - for the entire world.
ReplyDelete...so someone worse can come to power...
ReplyDeleteConservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
- Ambrose Bierce
Ah, but you don't adhere to Kakistocratic Dystopianism. The "someone worse" that comes after Putin will be a vodka-addicted 7 year old that can be placated with video games.
ReplyDeleteAt least you admit Putin is evil.
ReplyDeleteNo, I admit that there are worse people than Putin.
ReplyDeletebtw - Do you even know what the difference between "bad" and "evil" is?
ReplyDeleteBad is unnecessary ;)
ReplyDeleteNo, 'evil' is merely a "class distinction" that the "bad" classes make.
ReplyDeleteSince the weak cannot spontaneously satisfy all their impulses under the restrictions of the nobles, they turn their attention inwards. They learn to introspect; they become contemplative, “clever” and “interesting” according to Nietzsche. They devise ways of demonizing the strong in ways that the strong cannot refute since they are not as “clever”. They blame the strong for exercising their strength by developing the concept of free will. They separate subject from action and say the strong could choose to be weak if they so willed. Through this process of active, malicious demonization the concept of “evil” is born.
ReplyDeleteFor the nobles “bad” is an afterthought, it is defined only in relation to “good”. For the weak on the other hand, bad is the focus; it is consciously developed and refined with hatred. As a result, their concept of bad is more intense than the nobles’ concept of “bad”. In fact, the idea of bad held by the weak is so much more intense that the word “bad” does not do justice to it. A new word, “evil” has to be introduced to adequately describe how bad their idea of bad really is.
Szaszian ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm not crazy...