Alie Ward
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Discussion thread: Critical Ponerology (WHAT IS EVIL?) is ready to listen to!
🕑 Added 2025-10-23 02:13:37 +0000 UTCThis episode is published and ready to hear wherever you get podcasts!
Okay. So. Evil.
What is it? Does it exist? Says who? How evil do you have to be to BE evil? What can we do about it? In this Spooktober episode with Dr. Kenneth MacKendrick, we dive into it.
Have you listened? What did you think?
Rubbing my palms together over a lowered gaze,
Count Podula Ward
Comments
Ologies with Alie Ward
Cool suggestions! And yes, it's so hard to condense an entire semester class into 70 minutes!
Andrew McVay
Wow! I wasn’t expecting to see such big and opposite opinions on this. Some of the interview’s replies were repetitive. It would have helped to move the conversation along with a different reply re: a definition for evil. But also I appreciate the opportunity to return to a consistent retort. Because perspective completely informs morals! I’m reminded of at least 4 books digging into the periphery of this good/evil topic. Against Empathy by Paul Bloom The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon Awkward by Tye Tashiro
John Buchner
I think I agree with you: he had a definition of evil and then refused to use it over and over again. A discussion something along the lines of let’s take that example, and see how it fits my definition of evil would’ve have been more interesting. At least then you’ve got 4 groups: things some people think are evil and fit the definition, things most people think aren’t evil but do fit the definition, things that don’t fit the definition that people think are evil, and things that don’t fit the definition and people don’t think they are evil. Using the guests own definition of evil, people that self describe as fixated on cleanliness, but do outrageous, human rights violations to others, are evil, even if they see themselves as clean.
Holden A. Goose
I personally hated this episode. I felt that the guest was pedantic and close minded. I was really hoping for dialogue on modern, larger scale concepts rather than splitting hairs on meanings and being overly vague when asked for opinions. I really hope there can be a different episode on this topic because this person clearly isn’t the authority to speak on the concept of evil.
