evil versus stupidity

When you perceive that the actions of some person are causing harm and they are clearly shown this is the case and yet they keep on doing it, there are two ways to view this person/this action: either they're stupid or they just really don't care that they're causing harm (IOW "evil").

It is of course true that thinking people are just ignorant is always preferable but I'm referring to the case where that's unfortunately been ruled out.

So what is the most positive way of viewing such harmful acts? Is the person stupid or "evil"? Which way would they be more likely to change? Viewing such acts in which way is a better way of going through life?

If you think them "evil", then you can be filled with anger at them. And going through life like that is just no good. Anger is much like stress and it will slowly eat at you. It will literally destroy your body among other things.

If you think them stupid, and if you end up viewing a lot of what goes in this world that way, then people will label you an arrogant elitist; someone who thinks they're better than others.

It wouldn't necessarily be true at all but people who find themselves in this position a lot may so much not want to be seen that way, that they may often simply refuse to see stupidity for what it is.

This refusal to recognize it, leaves only evil. They are left to seeth with anger whenever the results of a harmful act are on their mind.

They'd be far better off recognizing stupidity for what it is. Even though (unless very very carefully hidden) it will mean people will dislike them; they will think them an "arrogant elitist", someone who thinks he's better than everyone else.

Still, they're far better off being able to sleep at night. And recognizing obvious stupidity does not mean being arrogant at all.

The choice for some of us, who for whatever reason just think way too damm much, is very often to hate, or to just dismiss people as stupid.

I think the correct choice is to always see such acts as stupid. For two reasons:
1. Ultimately what we call "evil" is really just a profound stupidity anyway, where the person isn't smart enough to see why causing harm to others is something to avoid. In fact I'd just replace the word "evil" with "profound stupidity".

2. More importantly, as far as being disliked for thinking you're smarter than others, the very fact that you're more motivated to think, more motivated to question the status quo, and as a result just end up different than others, means people are going to dislike you. Going out of your way to convince yourself all this stupidity around you doesn't really exist, that it's just "evil", is to try to pretend that you're a lot more like everyone else than you actually are. It's just a lie.