Why Do We Love Evil? | Terry Eagleton, Susan Neiman, Stephen de Wijze

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Are we fascinated by evil, violent characters because they make life more exciting?
We may condemn tyrants and abhor serial killers, but we are obsessed with evil and violence. Our news and our entertainment focus on such material - one survey claimed the average American child has seen 8,000 fictional murders by adulthood. Yet none in real life. Are we fascinated by evil, violent characters because they make life more exciting? Or because they express our real nature? Should we look to end this morbid obsession, or accept it as a feature of humanity?
One of Britain's most influential cultural critics Terry Eagleton, and philosophers Susan Neiman and Stephen de Wijze get to the bottom of Evil's strange allure.
Terry Eagleton: Terry Eagleton is a Marxist literary critic and public intellectual, widely recognized as a mainstay of British academia. He has published over forty books on topics ranging from Samuel Richardson to banality of evil in his On Evil. His latest book, Radical Sacrifice, examines the concept of sacrifice, drawing on biblical sources and modern interpretations alike.
Susan Neiman: Susan Neiman is a moral philosopher, cultural commentator, essayist and is the Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. She has written extensively on the juncture between Enlightenment and moral philosophy, politics and metaphysics. Her forthcoming book Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil builds on her previous work on evil entitled Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy.
Stephen de Wijze: Stephen de Wijze is a philosopher specialising in ethics, who has made substantial contributions to the problems of justice and evil. Based at the University of Manchester, he was co-editor for many years of the esteemed journal Representation, which co-ordinates thinking about representative democracy. He comes to HowTheLightGetsIn as his latest editorial venture, the Routledge Handbook on Evil, is forthcoming for 2019.
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[@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas]

What do you think of this debate? Leave a comment below You can watch this debate, Why Do We Love Evil, in full at iai.tv/video/the-lure-of-lucifer-literature?KZbin&

[@llbean6931]

It could very well be because in the realm where we come from, there is only love and joy. We come down here to experience contrast ( and before our memory wipe) we know it’s for a short period of time. We also may have a renewed appreciation of what “ home” is like after experiencing this (often) wicked, difficult and painful existence.

[@mysticqueen74]

People love it when evil happens to other people. But let it hit home and it’s horrible.

[@diego67hd94]

Do we? I think its more interesting when it can be seen from afar, but do you "love" seeing evil acts occur?

[@lsobrien]

You might be a sociopath.

[@bgilmore62]

Evil backwards is "Live" and EVOL backwards, which is how it is pronounced, is LOVE. This obsession with evil is Western madness.

[@firstnamesurname6550]

Sex is for reproduction ... when/where the primates convert sex in 'entertainment unlinked from its reproduction functionality' ... Family values will tend to disappear and without and educational background nurtured by Family values, there are not incentives for responsibility in the long term of times ... the primates becomes subjugated into hedonistic views that only pursue immediate pleasure ... then, the collective memory only works as a receptacle for narcissistic behavioral patterns ... and the things that come from integrability, long term plans, responsibility and delayed cognitive gratification becomes 'myths' and/or 'dreamer's dreams' ... because the culture only nurtures behaviors that pursue immediate gratification, uncontrolled selfishness, and dissociation from the whole ... Cultures of the Self ... When/where sex is regulated as 'only for reproduction' ... then, the biological systems tend to deploy more complex collective organizations with long term goals based on delayed cognitive gratification, the common interest of the specie as a whole or civilization, education systems based on integrability, family values and responsibility ... and plus, the primates deploy a better control over their instincts toward immediate gratification, behaviors, and emotions, therefore, more selfless and Intelligent ... Cultures of The Intelligence ... It seems pretty obvious that contemporary human 'proto-civilization' took the 'sex as entertainment' path ...There are not 'Cultures of The Intelligence' ... just some primitive pre-proto-forms ... The facts speak by themselves ...

[@marshall170]

well because its fun

[@HouseFairyDIY]

I switched off when the Jewish woman started to talk about 'Christianity's puritanical view on sex'.