evil vs. crazy

I think people can have patterns of behaviour, especially situation-specific behaviour. I still wouldn't use "evil" or "crazy" to describe those patterns.

I also think that understanding what causes or drives a pattern of behaviour is a lot more helpful than labelling either the behaviour or the person as "evil" or "crazy".

I don't use either term - it was more the idea that people are x when is more likely that people are doing x this minute

Yeah, there is definitely a case for "describe the behaviour, not the person" (this is really helpful when dealing with prejudiced behaviour - "You are sexist" is easily countered by "How can I be sexist; I have a wife and two daughters!" while "this specific thing you did is sexist" is much more helpful for changing behaviour).

But my point is, it's much more helpful, when discussing behaviour to say "this is greedy, selfish, short-sighted behaviour" than it is to say "this is evil behaviour" or "this is crazy behaviour."

(Also, when you are saying someone is, e.g. "selfish", are you describing the person, or are you describing their long-term pattern of behaviour? Some behaviours are intensely context-dependent: e.g. if a person feels under attack, they will respond with hostility. First question is, "is this person hostile" or "is this person defensive" and the second question is "what are the situations that provoke the behaviour (and how can we/they avoid them)?". Other behaviours are indicative of propensities, like, how many countries does a politician have to sanction the invasion of, before you can describe them or their politics as "aggressive" rather than just saying "invading countries X, and Y, and Z were aggressive acts"? How many banks does a person have to rob before you can call them "A Bank Robber"?)

(I know that the problem with calling someone "A Bank Robber" is that it erases and diminishes all of the other things they might be. It also doesn't look at what drove them to rob banks - was it economic deprivation, or thrill-seeking, or something else? But at the same time, it's "describing a person" vs "describing a pattern of behaviour" and that's not even getting into whether it makes a difference to describe someone as "a bank robber" or "a person who robs banks" though in other areas, this does make a huge difference.)

You shag *one* sheep

I say we should let them fight a no-holds-barred match to the death to decide the winner. Then we should kill the winner.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8520/8492038786_a8f8886598_o.jpg

'nuff said

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