A spin-off of this thread wherein the moral character of Christopher Columbus is discussed, I put Adolf Hitler as the ‘most evil’ comparison in the poll as the individual I thought had the most reprehensible personal morality, but it was asked why I didn’t put a ‘worse than Hitler’ option.
So, do you think there are any individuals (not whole movements or regimes) who are more evil, are more of a moral cesspit, than the Austrian corporal?
I’ve made the poll multiple choice, so if there are more than one on the list of potential Hitler-beaters that you think are worse you can pick both. I’ve put most of history’s most notorious arseholes on there largely based on their death toll, no doubt I’ve forgotten some though so you’ll have to tell us in the post.
It’s an interesting question because it also comes down to the ability to do harm. If for example Hitler’s inevitable failure at the Beer-Hall Putsch had been catastrophic for him as it should’ve been and he never progressed from being the leader of a violent fringe party would he have been any of the less evil? How does the capacity to do harm enter into it?
I know of individuals who are truly evil and have done some truly evil things, but (luckily) never had the opportunity or the qualities to do these things on a larger scale.
I’d favor Genghis Khan and/or Attila the Hun. Compared to the population of their known world at the time they did more damage than any 20th century pipsqueak.
But …
As **Asympotically Fat **said back in post #5, “Who is most evil?” is a question of character. “Who did the most harm?” which is how I and several others are taking it, is a different question. But certainly an easier one to catalog. The OP himself says his roster was a laundry list of the super-stars of greatest harm, not the super-stars of evil character.
Issuing the orders to invade a country or persecute an ethnic or religious group is a different and more nebulous kind of evil from the bad guy in Saw.
Actions do count. The people you know are slackers. In their heads they may be eviler, but really, starting a world war should really count for something.
I’d put Mao up there number 3 behind Stalin, but like Pol Pot and many others, their evil was mainly confined to their own country or region. If Cheney was on the list, maybe…no, Hitler is still worse.
Vlad Tepes. Without him, I never would have had to sit through those God-awful Twilight movies.
But seriously, folks…to answer this question, I have to decide whether sending numerous people off to die at the hands of others is more evil than torturing and killing fewer people, but doing it personally. In terms of sheer volume and representation of members from all walks of life, I’d have to choose Stalin, and in terms of cruelty inflicted personally, I really do have to choose Vlad.
I chose Pol Pot, Stalin, and Leopold II. I think the connecting truth about them is that what they did was not for political or military goals, but simply because they could and that those deaths did not lead to some greater good, it only led to more death. I also picked Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), simply for the absolute wreckage he made of civilizations that he contacted. At least the Mongols tried to keep the best of their conquests; Tamerlane was more a destructive tornado to Chinese, Indian, and Muslim civilization (and heaven wouldn’t have helped Europe if it had been close enough for his hordes to invade.