I must confess, I start feeling a bit creepy when I have watched a certain number of forensic files or documentaries about serial killers and have to force myself to put in a nice, tame costume drama to compensate 
... those who persue monsters...
The quote is about fighting monsters.
This is the quote, I am guessing, by Friedrich Nietzsche?
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
Yeah that's what I was getting at. You must take care that you don't begin to sympathise with the evil you fight. It happens often enough.
Always thought it was more about people taking extremes which go against their own moral code, in the course of fighting something they believe to be wrong.
*phew* now I've got all the different interpretations onto the same page (i think)
Actually i don't see that those interpretations are mutually exclusive, nor even contradictory. It could be that Niezsche had both in mind. I mean, if you stare into the abyss and absorb something of it's quality, or empathise too much with your enemy, it seems fairly logical that you'll wind up breaking your own moral code, or alltering it somewhat ( does it really
have to be inflexible?)
But I prefer to take a more psychological view. Or a Jungian view, specifically.
According to my view of it, the abyss and the enemy clearly represent what Jung called the "shadow" ; which you could say represents the whole of your unconscious mind: everything that your Ego refuses to acknowledge as part of yourself. Now, this isn't just sinister stuff. It could be things you've judged to be "evil" or "unworthy" or equally things you think are far above your humble little self; anything you'er uncomfortable with, in any way. Here, angels and demons are born. And here your annoying next door neighbour who reminds you too much of yourself is born; or rather your unflattering image of the next door neighbour is born here. You've never met the guy in reality, cos the moment you get a whiff of him, you're spitting nails at your own unconscious projection.
So, when we engage in a fight with some evil enemy, we're really engaged in a fight with ourself , a fight with all the nasty habits that we'd rather not acknowledge. It's a cop-out, really. Someone who's interested in self-awareness fights the devil within instead...and eventually winds up calling a truce, because there's only so much beating-yourself-up that body can take. And besides , the devil isn't such a bad guy, once you let him out of that dark dismal prison cell and listen to his grouch against you. You wind up as a much more rounded, sympathetic, likeable human being, who can see both sides of the coin. And who occasionally notices that his neighbour is actually human, after all.
..well, eventually (that might take about a zillion lifetimes, ofc, depending how stubborn your Ego is).
The thing is: when you stare into the abyss, you are staring at your own reflection, whether you know it or not, so of course the abyss stares back. And you put a bit of work into self-analysis, you might start to twig that.
Is that a bad thing? actually no, not at all. If you start to bend your own principles on account of that encounter, it will be because you started out as inflexible son-of-bitch who caused misery to everyone around you, or something like that.
The bad things happen if you fail to realise what's going on, and carry on thinking that the devil is always "out there" and so you have to keep jumping on your white charger and thrashing him. Then you hurt the people you're close to. You go on jihad. You plant bombs. You go nuts with the strain of keeping all that evil under control. Then you act like the devil you were seeking to vnquish; and the harder you try to vanquish him, the more you act like him. You might not know it, but everybody else is gonna know it.
Well, that what I think to myself, when I read those words.
-Walkie)
(does that get one of us off the hook, Graelwyn?
)
