(Untitled)

[cassiusdrow]

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes it is necessary to become the evil that one fights in order to conquer it and move beyond it.

Comments

[wench18]

Doesn't one lose the fight by becoming that which one fights? Even if victorious in the battle with that monster, then you are left standing as a monster...and the monster still exists - in you.

[cassiusdrow]

The monster already exists in all of us.

[wench18]

I guess it depends then. Are you just fighting to defeat another monster, so that you are the undisputed monster in residence...or are you struggling to defeat monsterisms in general? If the success depends on defeating the monster...then you cannot become that monster or the battle is lost before it's begun.

[cassiusdrow]

I'm speaking internally here, psychologically or spiritually, not physically.
In anathemad's example below, a criminal profiler must understand the behavior of a serial killer in order to catch him. In essence, the profiler must become the evil that he wishes to destroy, at least on a psychological level. It is then the profiler's responsibility to contain the evil within himself. He must recognizes the monster in himself, learn to control it and contain it, and ultimately move beyond it. The monster can still exist, but it has no power.

[wench18]

It's the word "bcomes" that is confusing me, then. To become one thing, is to lose what was before. To 'understand', 'assimilate', those mean more what I think you are saying.