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Articles

Demons of the Self

Tristen Taylor finds problems in meaningfully defining ‘evil’.

On the night of 27th January 2015, in the beautiful but not so tranquil university town of Stellenbosch, South Africa, Henri van Breda killed his parents and brother with an axe. His sister somehow managed to survive her wounds. At his trial, van Breda showed no remorse, and refused to take responsibility for his dreadful crimes.

On the 8th of May 2017, a bright philosophy student at Stellenbosch University, Dean Dart, and his comrades, pasted replicas of Hitler Youth posters from the 1930s all over the campus. Since Stellenbosch University was the intellectual cradle of apartheid, the posters were more sinister than the mere childish rantings of an ignorant alt-right teenager.

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