{"id":482,"date":"2005-02-08T18:01:45","date_gmt":"2005-02-08T23:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=482"},"modified":"2005-12-31T10:42:30","modified_gmt":"2005-12-31T15:42:30","slug":"is-it-an-evil-petting-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/is-it-an-evil-petting-zoo","title":{"rendered":"Is it an evil<\/em> petting zoo?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neat article in the Times today about how forensic psychiatrists deal with the term “evil”<\/a> in their diagnoses of some criminals.<\/p>\n

I like to think that you don’t need to quantify a type of behavior to decide whether or not it’s evil, but I guess psychiatrists have to deal with that framework. Even then, it seems there are a bunch who won’t use the term. I have a ton of friends who shy away from calling someone evil, because it implies a moral judgement. Of course<\/span> there’s tons of leeway about what people consider evil. But I believe that there’s also stuff that any honest person would recognize as evil.<\/p>\n

Internet Bonus: When I call up the article, I get a vertical banner ad<\/a> from Victoria’s Secret with a gigantic pair of boobs on display.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neat article in the Times today about how forensic psychiatrists deal with the term “evil” in their diagnoses of some criminals. I like to think that you don’t need to quantify a type of behavior to decide whether or not it’s evil, but I guess psychiatrists have to deal with that framework. Even then, it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Is it an evil<\/em> petting zoo?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-7M","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13753,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-390-kurt-andersen","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":0},"title":"Episode 390 – Kurt Andersen","author":"Gil","date":"August 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 390: Kurt Andersen \"Almost all of the things that I say the evil geniuses did \u2014 discredit the idea of government, discredit the idea of progress, disbelieve science, make short-term profits and stock prices the lodestar of American society \u2014 all of that we see in how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/andersencomp.jpg?fit=1198%2C800&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/andersencomp.jpg?fit=1198%2C800&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/andersencomp.jpg?fit=1198%2C800&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/andersencomp.jpg?fit=1198%2C800&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/andersencomp.jpg?fit=1198%2C800&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1122,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/friend-in-need","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":1},"title":"Friend in Need","author":"Gil","date":"September 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've got a request for you, dear readers. A friend of mine (the Brooding Persian, whom I met in grad school) is suffering through a psychotic breakdown and an undetermined autoimmune disease (the latter seems to be causing the former, as an organic brain disorder). He's living in the Seattle\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/friend-in-need#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2730,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/monday-morning-montaigne-of-evil-means-employed-to-a-good-end","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":2},"title":"Monday Morning Montaigne: Of evil means employed to a good end","author":"Gil","date":"October 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to skip some of the short ones in this segment, such as Of riding post (pp. 626-7) and Of thumbs (pp. 634-5), on the grounds that I couldn't come up with anything funny to write about them. If anything, they bolster the Montaigne-as-blogger argument, because we all have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Monday Morning Montaigne"","block_context":{"text":"Monday Morning Montaigne","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/monday-morning-montaigne"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8070,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-re-explaining-hitler","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":3},"title":"Podcast: Re-Explaining Hitler","author":"Gil","date":"July 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories: Ron Rosenbaum\u00a0- Re-Explaining Hitler \"The choices that an artist makes are not traceable back to a particular set of neurons firing. They're choices made by the complete consciousness of a person. Art, in a way, validates free will, and thereby validates the notion of evil.\" Ron Rosenbaum returns\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0306823187","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3521,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-feb-27-2009","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Feb. 27, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"February 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Get yo' link on and yo' snack on! Just click \"more\"! Secret Agent Man-cave. * * * Sometimes you just gotta call evil evil. * * * You vicious, vicious brute! * * * Cheese fight! * * * Sunny news from Israel. * * * Dr. Strange love. *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":466,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-goes-on","url_meta":{"origin":482,"position":5},"title":"What Goes On","author":"Gil","date":"January 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Nice article by Niall Ferguson about the historical precedent to today's Russia. Check it out.The site was down for about 12 hours on Monday. Evidently, my web-host was doing some sorta New Year's updating of the hardware, and it All Went Awry. Sorry if you didn't get your expected dose\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}