Monday, June 23, 2008

Infinite Evil from Finite Games?

I've blogged about this elsewhere, and since then I've read the book, and just the other day I grabbed it off the shelf to see exactly what it said about the origin of evil. From section 31:

Evil is never intended as evil. Indeed, the contradiction inherent in all evil is that it originates in the desire to eliminate evil. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
....
Infinite players understand the inescapable likelihood of evil. They therefore do not attempt to eliminate evil in others, for to do so is the very impulse of evil itself, and therefore a contradiction. They only attempt paradoxically to recognize in themselves the evil that takes the form of attempting to eliminate evil elsewhere.

Evil is not the inclusion of finite games in an infinite game, but the restriction of all play to one or another finite game.

The refusal to join a crusade to eliminate evil is shirq.