# Hating Evil People, the Last Prejudice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858 "2006-10-09T23:26:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/1 "2006-10-09T23:26:16Z")
You can’t hate anyone because of their race. You can’t hate anyone because of their religion. Yet if someone is evil, you can hate them with a vengeance. Is hating evil people the last human prejudice? (FYI I am **not** saying evil people shouldn’t be rehabilitated, or if that is not possible, locked away for good.) Thank you in advance to all who reply 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/2 "2006-10-09T23:34:38Z")
From “The Witness” > [@](#): > > Eli Lapp: This gun of the hand is for the taking of human life. We believe it is wrong to take a life. That is only for God. Many times wars have come and people have said to us: you must fight, you must kill, it is the only way to preserve the good. But Samuel, there’s never only one way. Remember that. Would you kill another man? > > Samuel Lapp: I would only kill the bad man. > > Eli Lapp: Only the bad man. I see. And you know these bad men by sight? You are able to look into their hearts and see this badness? > > Samuel Lapp: I can see what they do. I have seen it. > > Eli Lapp: And having seen you become one of them? Don’t you understand? What you take into your hands, you take into your heart. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. Go and finish your chores now. > > Samuel Lapp: Yes Großvater. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/3 "2006-10-09T23:34:50Z")
[QUOTE=Jim B.] You can’t hate anyone because of their race. You can’t hate anyone because of their religion. Yet if someone is evil, you can hate them with a vengeance. Is hating evil people the last human prejudice? (FYI I am **not** saying evil people shouldn’t be rehabilitated, or if that is not possible, locked away for good.) Thank you in advance to all who reply 🙂 [/QUOTE] My first response is – who says you can’t hate people because of their race or religion? You just can’t discriminate based on race or religion. My second response is that it is unclear to me that evil people constitute a class. Can you define ‘evil people’ and give the parameters of the class of evil people, please. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/4 "2006-10-09T23:39:08Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] My second response is that it is unclear to me that evil people constitute a class. Can you define ‘evil people’ and give the parameters of the class of evil people, please. [/QUOTE] By “evil people” I mean someone who has done something that most people would consider to be very wrong. These people are typically, though not always, in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/5 "2006-10-09T23:46:06Z")
[QUOTE=Jim B.] By “evil people” I mean someone who has done something that most people would consider to be very wrong. These people are typically, though not always, in prison. [/QUOTE] If you are asking if you are allowed to hate those people, the answer is yes, you are. Bear in mind that you might be hating people who have a mental disease, or were wrongly convicted, or have been truly rehabilited. But nothing says you cannot hate them. In my personal experience, hate is a pretty usless emotion when applied to a group of people, and ends to have harmful effects on the hater. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2006, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/6 "2006-10-09T23:50:56Z")
In my personal life, I don’t even feel hatred for “my worst enemy” – the person who is causing me the most anguish. In some ways, I still love her and that’s one of the reasons she can cause so much pain. There are public figures – five or six of them – that I resent and intensely dislike. I still would have trouble saying that I “hate” them. If I hated someone, wouldn’t I enjoy seeing her or him in pain? Is that a good way of testing hatred? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/7 "2006-10-10T00:22:56Z")
It’s not prejudice, because you are not **pre** judging them. The problem isn’t hatred of evil people; it’s identifying them. [QUOTE=Jim B.] By “evil people” I mean someone who has done something that most people would consider to be very wrong. These people are typically, though not always, in prison. [/QUOTE] I’d say there are at least as many in positions of wealth and power. ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/8 "2006-10-10T00:27:05Z")
What if people are only half bad? Or quarter bad? Are they the half breeds or quadroons of evil? Is okay to hate them on a part-time basis? ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/9 "2006-10-10T00:31:37Z")
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/10 "2006-10-10T00:33:31Z")
Of course it’s OK to hate evil people, and to actively seek to stop them, even if their destruction is the result. It’s not OK to become consumed by that hatred, and to seek to destroy them when other ways of stopping them are readily available. Something I’m tempted to start up in another thread (GD or the Pit, depending on how much I cut loose) is a counter to the lauding of the Amish for their forgiving response to the murderer, and especially the lauding of their continued pacifism. IF it were possible for the adult women or the older boys in that school to have overpowered the gunman, using non-lethal violence, and they did not do so because of an adherence to their pacifist faith, then they were tragically mistaken, and that tenet of their faith is not to be lauded but roundly condemned. Btw, I am on the other hand, totally filled with admiration as to how they have reached out compassionately to the killer’s family. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/11 "2006-10-10T03:12:36Z")
What about John Couey. the guy who raped and murdered a little girl named Jessica Lunsford down in Florida? What a waste of protoplasm. I believe I could lock that sucker in a room, hand the girl’s father one of those nice aluminum baseball bats that don’t break or anything, and open the door for him, whistling merrily as I did so. I dunno if I hate Couey, but I’m SUPREMELY indifferent to any suffering he may experience prior to shuffling off this mortal coil. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/12 "2006-10-10T16:13:51Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] Of course it’s OK to hate evil people, and to actively seek to stop them [/QUOTE] But these are two very different things. > [@](#): > > IF it were possible for the adult women or the older boys in that school to have overpowered the gunman, using non-lethal violence, and they did not do so because of an adherence to their pacifist faith, then they were tragically mistaken, and that tenet of their faith is not to be lauded but roundly condemned. Again, pacifism and non-hatred are two different things. It’s possible to try to thwart someone, even by killing them if necessary, without hating them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/13 "2006-10-10T16:28:44Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] Again, pacifism and non-hatred are two different things. It’s possible to try to thwart someone, even by killing them if necessary, without hating them. [/QUOTE] For that matter, it’s possible to rob, lie, cheat, rape, torture and murder someone without hating them. It’s also possible to do absolutely nothing to someone and hate them. Hate is neither good nor bad IMHO. Oh, and far as the OP is concerned, there’s plenty of accepted prejudices still around, even if you restrict yourself to America ( much less “human prejudice” ). You’ll get little condemnation for hating atheists; hating the poor is nearly a religion; hatred of gays is still dominant; it’s OK to hate the members of minor religions in general, etc. America is less prejudiced than it was, but it’s still quite bigoted. It looks better because it was so bad before. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/14 "2006-10-12T16:52:56Z")
[QUOTE=Jim B.] These people are typically, though not always, in prison. [/QUOTE] Good Lord, you actually believe that? Haven’t you been paying attention? Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/15 "2006-10-12T17:05:12Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Hate is neither good nor bad IMHO. [/QUOTE] Leaving aside the question of hatred “corroding the soul,” I’d say that, from a strictly practical standpoint, hatred corrodes good judgment, self control, and the ability to limit one’s response to what is appropriate for one’s own functioning. I wouldn’t be surprised if it does physiological damage over the long term, either. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/16 "2006-10-12T17:27:41Z")
I can’t believe I’m saying this. What Would Jesus Do? And it is not the last. We’ll always hate ugly people more than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@Sweet\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/17 "2006-10-13T20:04:18Z")
[QUOTE=Jim B.] You can’t hate anyone because of their race. You can’t hate anyone because of their religion. Yet if someone is evil, you can hate them with a vengeance. Is hating evil people the last human prejudice? (FYI I am **not** saying evil people shouldn’t be rehabilitated, or if that is not possible, locked away for good.) Thank you in advance to all who reply 🙂 [/QUOTE] Well, I think whether or not you hate someone often has to do with religion. Christians, as far as I know, aren’t really supposed to have hatred in their hearts for anyone—which is different from disliking (or being unfond of) them. Now, I wouldn’t say that hating evil people is predjudice necessarily, because generally, unlike race or sexual preference or something along that vein, whether or not someone is good or evil is determined by their freely-willed choices. Meaning, we say that a person is evil because they _chose_ to do evil deeds. So, the judgement isn’t necessarily “prejudice,” because it’s based on the merit that person chose to establish for themselves. On a personal level, I would say that harboring hate for “evil” individuals is general human failing. It’s almost as if when someone does something extraordinarily heinous, they become a convenient whipping boy for us—taking the focus off of our own faults. “Well, I know I shouldn’t have cheated on my wife, or stolen from work, but at least I didn’t kill people—I’m not _evil_.” I’m not saying that we should find someone’s evil deeds contemptable or that we should seek due course of justice, but harboring hate inside just kind of rots the soul a little bit, no? ---
**Author:** ![Sweet\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@Sweet\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweet_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/18 "2006-10-13T20:05:35Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn [/QUOTE] Awesome. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/19 "2006-10-13T20:11:23Z")
[QUOTE=Jim B.] Is hating evil people the last human prejudice? [/QUOTE] **Liberal**? Is that you? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858/20 "2006-10-14T00:30:33Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] Leaving aside the question of hatred “corroding the soul,” I’d say that, from a strictly practical standpoint, hatred corrodes good judgment, self control, and the ability to limit one’s response to what is appropriate for one’s own functioning. [/quote] Hatred also gives people the drive to fight back against tyrants long after fully rational people would give up. It gives people the drive to spend years fighting against an evil group, or a disease, or an evil custom, or any number of things. I’d call hatred a useful human emotion, poorly implemented. We should sue the designer, if there was one. [QUOTE=Sailboat] I wouldn’t be surprised if it does physiological damage over the long term, either. [/QUOTE] Oh, I’m certain it does; any emotional stress will do that if it lasts long enough. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hating-evil-people-the-last-prejudice/375858.md?page=2)