• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Ideology as a source of villainy

Jabrosky

Banned
What I would do is make sure the ideology is not itself entirely "evil." To me, the most interesting ideological villains are probably the ones who not only don't "see themselves as evil" (which few people do), but who actually see themselves as doing good through their ideology–as opposed to simply using it as a reason to commit their self-centered deeds.

Consider the potential for "evil" in an evangelist. Or an imperialist. Or both. You mention Nazism: stack that up against the "White Man's Burden" and tell me which you think caused more damage. And yet, unlike the Nazi power figures–most of whom were psychopaths or kleptocrats–the average European missionary genuinely believed that he was not only doing good, but doing an absolutely essential good: he was saving souls. As well as bringing civilization, education and material advancement, the Euros being "superior" in these. (Anyone who has watched At Play in the Fields of the Lord has a ready visualization for this. Or The Mission… though for present purposes the first is the better example. I highly recommend both movies, even apart from present purposes: both are gorgeous, brilliant films. That both have Aidan Quinn in them is, I assume, largely a coincidence. :p )

Early socialists and communists absolutely believed what they were trying to do was "good"–no matter how many people had to die in order to bring that good about. Some, I imagine, still do. "The greater good" is the also motivation behind many dystopias, Brave New World probably being the paradigm example.

What makes ideological motivations more interesting is if, to at least some extent, the ideology does have some laudable aspects, ones that any reader might recognize and sympathize with… even if the reader can't sympathize with the package as a whole. Communism, for example, sought to free the lower classes from their serfdom (real or effective)… and in some cases it did just that, even if in most cases it merely transferred the lower classes to a different form of serfdom. Nevertheless, it often improved the lot of the affected. The French Revolution may have been (okay, was) one continuous bloodbath, but it resulted in significant gains for the masses in the long term. The early centuries of Islam saw an increase in religious freedom most places it reached–as well as an increase in scholarship, education and social mobility, the latter especially notable amongst ethnic minorities. Introduce some ambiguities in the impact of the ideology, and you have yourself some true, believable real-world depth… and a villain that readers aren't sure whether or not they ought to in fact be rooting for, at least some of the time.
This may be tricky because I want my antagonist's ideology to be unsympathetic. I need something for my audience to root against. I can see it having certain attractive qualities that seduce people of a certain mindset, but it's important to me that it have destructive effects in the end.

Having refined this ideology, I would describe it best as an aggressive brand of monotheism that seeks to supplant the country's polytheistic state religion and then spread across the world, wiping out all other religions. I guess the attractive quality it presents could be the promise of world peace under a single ruling authority.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Nagash

Sage
What about making your evil ideology a mutation of an original neutral/appealing ideology, through the operation of fanaticism and brutal extremism ? Take marxism, for instance - an ideology with a fair share of appeal, especially for the lower class worker in 19th/20th century France or Germany. Intellectually, it even had an unquestionable charisma, for it promoted humanist values, such as equity, fraternity and genuine love of humanity. However, revolutionaries systematically adapted the original ideology, either because of strong and bloodthirsty convictions or circumstantial reasons (cf. Russia and the need to behead the aristocratic elite in order to precipitate a transition towards a "socialist republic", resulting in Trotsky ordering the execution of the Tsar, his wife and offspring). No matter the reason really, the humanist ideology mutated in a abomination, which sacrificed millions of lives in the name of better tomorrow. At this point, it didn't make any sense anymore, did it ?

I strongly support Ravana's point of view regarding this matter - i would therefore suggest that your "original" ideology, would be a relatively laissez-vivre monotheism with its fair share of attractive qualities, from which your "evil" ideology would derive. The same really, only in a harsher, fanaticized version of itself. As for the villain, he would be blinded by faith - ideologues often are... - and thus utterly incapable of seeing the evil nature of his actions. For those who believe, there's no such thing as too big a sacrifice for "the greater good".
 

Ravana

Istar
This may be tricky because I want my antagonist's ideology to be unsympathetic. I need something for my audience to root against. I can see it having certain attractive qualities that seduce people of a certain mindset, but it's important to me that it have destructive effects in the end.

Having refined this ideology, I would describe it best as an aggressive brand of monotheism that seeks to supplant the country's polytheistic state religion and then spread across the world, wiping out all other religions. I guess the attractive quality it presents could be the promise of world peace under a single ruling authority.

It can be overall unappealing–or outright appalling; neither is especially problematic. What is best avoided, in my opinion, is "pure evil." To be credible, the ideology should at least present reasons why anybody would follow it in the first place. And yes, unification is one good possibility.

This still allows an immense amount of leeway. Some examples:

I said "why anybody would follow it": once you have a few such anybodies, the reasons others might follow it is because those anybodies happen to be in power and/or offer the potential for obtaining it. To some extent, this is what happened in Germany during the '30s: the National Socialists convinced many intermediate power brokers that the party was the pathway to greater power… and, as time went on, it became the only path to power. Beyond that first handful, the majority of those who joined the party weren't attracted to its ideology, but because it was the only game in town. Too, it doesn't always matter what the ideology endorses: those at the top may not believe one word of it, making use of it solely for the sake of convenience. And in most cases, few will practice what they preach in any event, since what they preach is generally crafted to keep the masses loyal but subservient. That's why I characterized the Nazi leadership as "psychopaths or kleptocrats"… there were easily as many of the latter, who were merely in it for what they could get and didn't give a fig about the ideology, as there were of the former.

You could, potentially, have an entirely laudable ideology which the main villain is using for his own nefarious purposes–as has happened with Christianity (as preached) more times than is worth trying to enumerate. More likely, of course, you'll end up with an ideology leavened with a fair amount of nastiness, which sounds good on paper but whose "followers" play fast and loose with its ideals… especially where it comes to dealing with those who don't follow it. Again, see the history of Christianity. Amongst other religions.

To take an example which carries a marginally lower emotional charge–for some–in the modern day, consider the Reformation, especially in what was then the Holy [sic] Roman [siccer] Empire [totally sic]. Some of the nobles converted because they believed in the philosophies being espoused; far more converted because it was politically expedient at that moment… and converted again when things shifted once more. As for everyone who wasn't a noble: most nominally ended up "converting" based on what the ruler preferred at the moment, whether they believed the new (or restored old) ways or not.

There is always an appeal to following the "old" ways, and to resist change and its attendant uncertainties. Jefferson pointed this out, in his usual eloquent but involved syntax, of which I am clearly a student :rolleyes:, in the Declaration:

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed."

This is probably why the French ended up returning to monarchies three times following their Revolution–restoring some greater or lesser semblance of a form "to which they were accustomed," rather than retaining the Republic. While it doesn't match what you have in mind here, it would be possible to write a story in which the "heroes" are supporters of society as it is now, and the "villains" being those seeking change… but have the new ideas be overall more appealing than the old ones. Thus even if the heroes "win," it's also a loss of sorts. In fact, there are notable examples of this already: the hero of The Scarlet Pimpernel works against the French Revolution… it's easy enough to root against the Terror, but doing so implicitly suggests supporting the regime. Arguably, The Three Musketeers falls into this category as well, as its heroes are supporters of the monarchy against the Huguenots: they're more clearly "heroes" by anyone's definition, but depending on how you feel about religious freedom, you may not be entirely sympathetic to their actions. Alternately, if you are an admirer of the historical Richelieu (and there are reasons to be, even if there are equally good reasons not to be), the Musketeers may not be quite as appealing.

The situation you describe might find a (limited) analogue in what happened with the Islamic conquest of the Subcontinent: a militant monotheism subjugating a long-established–and itself reasonably militant–polytheism. It only worked to a certain extent… and its ramifications are still being felt daily in India, Pakistan and neighboring areas. Who were the good guys, who the bad ones? From a storytelling standpoint, it will depend on who you are, what you stand to gain or lose… and what those around you stand to gain or lose.

Absolutes are exceedingly rare in human interactions. Which is the main point I'm after, I guess. The more "evil" an ideology is, the greater the concentration of power needed for it to succeed, since it will be that much harder for it to attract followers on its own merits. A sufficiently charismatic leader can pull off things which would be total non-starters for an average one. If his personal magnetism isn't as great, he'll need that much more power, in order to substitute compulsion for inspiration. So that might be a factor that shapes your vision of what your villain needs to be in order to make him work.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi,

If you want a corrosive ideology to motivate your MC you probably can't go past Nietzsche. This has been done before of course - most noteable in Andromeda - which got it messed up.

But purely put Freddy espoused the following. First that it was the responsibility of the individual man to take command of his own destiny. And that applied to more than just proactive career searching etc. It espoused making up his own morality. Byong Good and Evil was the title of one of his works. In essence the strong make their own decisions as to what is right and what is wrong. The weak become or are essentially slaves. He hated and espoused the tearing down of organised religions because it encouraged the slave mentality. Christianity was particularly reviled. People in his vision should not spend their lives bowing to others, enduring mediocrity, being modest and basically allowing themseves to be shackled to the needs of others. God is dead as he said, and man killed him.

He advocated the development of a new man - some call him the superman, a more literal translation is the overman. A person who lives for himself, does what he wants, and considers only his own needs and wants. The overman is of course a monster. There is a reason that this ideology was the one assumed by the nazis and Hitler. If adhered to and believed in it allows them to do anything. In their case the overman was another name for the ayrian race - their ideal - and the Jews were essentially slavers, trying to limit the development of man through their religious doctrines etc.

Cheers, Greg.
 

monyo

Scribe
But purely put Freddy espoused the following. First that it was the responsibility of the individual man to take command of his own destiny. And that applied to more than just proactive career searching etc. It espoused making up his own morality. Byong Good and Evil was the title of one of his works. In essence the strong make their own decisions as to what is right and what is wrong. The weak become or are essentially slaves. He hated and espoused the tearing down of organised religions because it encouraged the slave mentality. Christianity was particularly reviled. People in his vision should not spend their lives bowing to others, enduring mediocrity, being modest and basically allowing themseves to be shackled to the needs of others. God is dead as he said, and man killed him.

He advocated the development of a new man - some call him the superman, a more literal translation is the overman. A person who lives for himself, does what he wants, and considers only his own needs and wants. The overman is of course a monster. There is a reason that this ideology was the one assumed by the nazis and Hitler. If adhered to and believed in it allows them to do anything. In their case the overman was another name for the ayrian race - their ideal - and the Jews were essentially slavers, trying to limit the development of man through their religious doctrines etc.

No particular offense intended, but this summary seems a lot more of a biased take on the guy than you'd normally get hearing about him in any intro. philosophy course. In particular, Nietzschean philosophy wasn't really "the one assumed by the Nazis and Hitler" so much as they stole some of his ideas and quotes (e.g. the ubermensch and "will to power") to market their own Aryan race thing. Taken from wikipedia (Nietzsche and fascism):

During the interbellum years, certain Nazis had employed a highly selective reading of Nietzsche's work to advance their ideology, notably Alfred Baeumler, whose exegesis was admittedly decent excepting his glaring omission of the fact of Nietzsche's anti-socialism and ant-nationalism (for Nietzsche, both equally contemptible mass herd movements of modernity) in his reading of The Will to Power. The era of Nazi rule (1933—1945) saw Nietzsche's writings widely studied in German (and, after 1938, Austrian) schools and universities. Despite the fact that Nietzsche expressed his disgust with plebeian-volkist anti-Semitism and supremacist German nationalism in the most forthright terms possible (e.g. he resolved "to have nothing to do with anyone involved in the perfidious race-fraud"), phrases like "the will to power" became common in Nazi circles. The wide popularity of Nietzsche among Nazis stemmed in part from the endeavors of his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, the editor of Nietzsche's work after his 1889 breakdown, and an eventual Nazi sympathizer. Mazzino Montinari, while editing Nietzsche's posthumous works in the 1960s, found that Förster-Nietzsche, while editing the posthumous fragments making up The Will to Power, had cut extracts, changed their order, added titles of her own invention, included passages of others authors copied by Nietzsche as if they had been written by Nietzsche himself, etc.[39]

As it says, a selective reading of Nietzschean philosophy could interpret it that way, but ideas like nationalism and the kind of obedience to authority seen in Nazism don't really fit well with the concept of self-directed morality. The same page says Hitler had never even actually read Nietzsche. Another thing is the statement that "In essence the strong make their own decisions as to what is right and what is wrong. The weak become or are essentially slaves." It wasn't that everyone else is meant to be slaves such as he described two different kinds of moralities: slave morality and master morality. The weak and poor have a different morality (according to this theory) than the strong and the powerful, one based on ideas like altruism and equality, and the other tending to reject that as oppressive to themselves, and who can determine their own morality for themselves. See the "slave revolt" in morals. I don't think "master morality" even necessarily has to involve something that hurts other people, so much as not letting it be determined by obligation to the "weak."

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about Nietzsche, but this seems a particularly bad description of a philosopher and philosophy that is way more nuanced and complicated, and that is still studied regularly by almost everyone who touches the subject. You can see a lot of the same ideas around in different form today, the master morality stuff in Ayn Rand's philosophy (a lot may hate her but she does have a following), and the ubermensch concept in ideas of personal responsibility and the transhumanist movement. I'm sure there are plenty of flaws in his ideas and interpretations have been going around for 150 years, he was certainly anti-Christianity, etc., I just mean to point out that even cursory research will show the subject is a lot more grey and less simplistic than that. Hating his stuff is one thing, but this seems to misrepresent his ideas. It's hardly something that's been universally supported by only Bad People since its inception.
 
A lot of very bad things are done by people with screwed up versions of their religion. I think you should run with it.

That's actually something I've been thinking about lately--not with religion in particular, but with rule-based morality in general. My experiences of living people who did bad things have mostly been with folks who were following rule-based morality, such that not hurting people would mean breaking their personal rules. I occasionally see folks like that as villains in stories, but it's much more common to have villains who either hurt people because they find it fun, or hurt people for ends-based morality. (As the latter tend to put it: "What is one man's life in comparison to [whatever noble cause the villain is killing people for this time]?") As someone whose morality is ends-based, and who doesn't go around killing people, I'd love to see more villains who're less Ted Kaczynski and more Osama bin Laden. I think there's a lot of potential there that's gone untapped.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I agree with monyo re:Nietzsche. A lot of what came after, such as from the NAZI party, really twisted what he was saying. Nietzsche was not a fan of anti-Semitism or German nationalism, and the ubermann idea, in current popular understanding, bears little relationship to how Nietzsche was using it as a foil to what he thought were destructive conventional Christian moralities.
 
Hi Monyo,

With respect it is a cursary overview of Freddie, but it is actually fair. People tend to try and forgive him a lot of what he wrote, but it is actually vile in places - especially his rants against Christianity. And yes his overman does make up his own mind about what is moral and what isn't. That as you say does not inherently oppose him to altruism etc. But to all practical intents it actually does. If the overman's only purpose is self than what is the purpose of such things as altruism, charity, kindness? None whatsoever. Essentially the overman is a sociopath, and while not all sociopaths become psycho killers as the media would have you believe (in fact almost none of them) nearly all have problems fitting into society. One of the most common examples of sociopathy is bullying - everything from school yard to workplace - the point being that the activity is gratifying to the bully for whatever reason, and he doesn't care about the victim.

However, what we see in those who support Freddie is that they see only one part of the message (which is why this can work for the OP). Most who support him see his work as espousing the self development of the man as he attempts to become what he is. And that can be seen as a positive. After all we all want to improve ourselves - and that is no bad thing.

But even Freddie realised that this was a goal only a few could obtain (from memory he claimed that only three people had ever attained the status of overmen in all of human history in his view) and that achieving this goal would create problems. For example he himself said at one point that morality (by which he meant slave morality) should not be discarded. It had its purposes in controlling the masses. This despite arguing that this sort of morality arose from a the slave mentality where the slaves wanted to essentially feel better about their lot in life by pretending that their lives were rosy, while at the same time tearing down all those values he deemed truly worthy - the achievement of strength, power, success etc.

Now while it may be considered unfair to play the nazi card, (and I am always mindful of Godwins law), my point was not that Nietzsche was essentially of that mind set, but purely to show that people of that mind set and others, will find his writings fit their own personal ethos. In essence for them it becomes their rationale for what they do. Their justification and excuse for their lack of guilt too often. (after all guilt is slave morality which for Freddie is a crime.) For Freddie however I believe his view of the overman was something more in line with the ancient Greek / Roman ideals. He saw Hercules and the Olympian gods, not sociopaths.

As you point out Rand essentially uses his understanding of sefishness as the basis for her naked capitalism / monetarist beliefs. In fact she referred to the virtue of selfishness - which is fairly much pure Nietzsche. And hers is an ideology that resonates with anarcho capitalists - even I suspect in the corridors of power. It is the basis of neo-liberalism.

Anyway, getting off topic here. My point is that Freddie's world view is one of pure self interest, and that while that can be good for the individual it's a disaster for society. Greed is not actually good.

Cheers, Greg.
 

monyo

Scribe
Hi Gregg,

A lot of this though is simply a matter of opinion. It's fine to have personal disagreements with his philosophy, but I'd point out that it's still a subject of rather healthy debate. For example, plenty of people question the ideas of altruism, charity and kindness as being inherently good - the entire philosophical branch of egoism pretty much rejects that. Plus there are so many other philosophies that go in similar directions, if someone is going to consider Nietzsche immediately wrong for embracing ideas like strength, power, nobility, etc. over ideas like selflessness, humility, sacrifice, etc. then they're basically shutting down entire branches of ethical debate. Egoism itself gets discussed in a lot of other tangentially related ideologies, too, e.g. certain forms of anarchism and libertarianism, even economics and game theory. It's hard to just say "egoism is bad, end of story" when there are so many different ideological forms of it being argued for in different contexts. Any given person might hate the ideas, but there is serious academic debate as to the merits, implications, consistency, etc. of all those philosophies. There are certainly enough people out there who have read and found some value in Nietzsche (wikipedia again lists a bunch of them), or any other egoist philosophy, who aren't complete sociopaths hurting others for their own benefit.

In the grand scheme of things his ideas aren't even that unique or extreme - see the Church of Satan people who have a similar philosophy of being pro-hedonism and pro-self, but also don't actually condone violence, hurting other people, or actually believe in Satan as a real thing. Iirc they actively work with the FBI to report the occasional violent crazies who start sending them fan mail and asking to join. Or see the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Even if you disagree with both of them (as I expect most do), they're still at least valuable for calling into question basic assumptions about our worldview (e.g. is altruism beneficial? is human extinction bad? why?). Some people would say that communism/socialism/capitalism/globalization/environmentalism are hugely destructive forces that have claimed millions of lives, or that some particular religion (or lack of religion) is the worst thing in the world, and as mentioned Ayn Rand is pretty polarizing on both sides. Take any of those examples and you can find cases of people who have done really horrible things in their name, or millions of people who have died as a result of movements based around them. It seems hard to pick Nietzsche's stuff out as being a particularly destructive ideology when there are so many other equally controversial issues that people feel strongly about. Nietzsche was doing mostly the same thing, finding perceived flaws in moralities associated with the big monotheistic religions and condemning them as being destructive to the world. It was just his own opinion about what philosophies have undesirable consequences.

I don't know if we want to keep going back and forth about it until reaching some consensus, so I'll clarify my reasons for commenting:
1) The guy's writings are nuanced and the short summaries often give the wrong impression (e.g. slave morality = slavery, overman = master race), confusing one person's extrapolation of why they don't like his ideas with the stuff he actually wrote and thought himself. For anyone unfamiliar with him, I'd recommend wikipedia or a philosophy book over this conversation.
2) Disagreeing with him or not is mostly a matter of opinion. You could just as easily side with him and decide that any other given philosophy that disagrees with his is bad. There's no objective conclusion to be found there - it'll just be another opinionated debate, and I think religious debates are frowned upon on this forum.
 
Agree (and disagree) with a lot here. For me the greatest evils throughout history have been perpetrated in the name of ideology. Because what is ideology in a politically meaningful sense? It is a blueprint for political power within a system PLUS a justification for who gets a share of finite resources (an in what measure).

The other critical part of the evil equation is the individual types - there are basically two: type A (ambitious) and type B (just want a quiet life). It is always the type A individuals who come to dominate any ideology (for obvious reasons) and they will always eventually corrupt the ideology with political actions and rule-making which support their own power bases and entitlements (especially in times of resource or environmental pressure).

In other words, it doesn't matter how purely altruistic any ideology starts out, it will always evolve into a platform for evil due to the inevitable rise of the type As. I could probably come up with an equation that says E(evil) occurs when the proportion of type A's in the top half of a hierarchy reaches N, divided by A and X (where A is the objective altruistic index and X is a resources/environment variable).
 

Nagash

Sage
The general over line here being that no matter how good is an ideology, it often breaks down into a rampaging doctrine when it is reduced to being a mere tool for power by a handful of men eaten away by greed or what have you...

Seriously; humans ruin everything...
 

Jabrosky

Banned
The general over line here being that no matter how good is an ideology, it often breaks down into a rampaging doctrine when it is reduced to being a mere tool for power by a handful of men eaten away by greed or what have you...

Seriously; humans ruin everything...
I was just having a conversation about this earlier. My correspondent said that distorted philosophies made for better villains than the original principles they're descended from anyway.
 
Hi Monyo,

Since we're heading into an offshoot here about Freddie, I will add only this - read the Antichrist.

However, my point as said about him previously is not that it's wrong to go for self improvement and selfishness. I have not argued that there is no merit in these things. Nor have I said that ideas like strength, power and nobility have no place. These things are often qualities to be admired, as they were long before Freddie lived. He did after all not invent them. The problem comes when you laud these values above all others, and then indeed decry all others as he did.

Apologists for Freddy often come out with calling him nuanced and passionate. He was neither of those things and these words do him discredit. He was vitriolic in his extolling of these "virtues" as he regarded them, and scathing in his repudiation of all the Christian values like piety, altruism, modesty etc. For Freddie these virtues were actually evils that had to be wiped out. There is no compromise of any sort in his position.

This is why it can work for the OP. If the villain is follower of these values, and has an inherent belief that all other values are essentially evil, that they destroy the human spirit etc, then he can do terrible things in the name of his ideology and see it as the right and noble thing to do.

Cheers, Greg.
 
Top