Bad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Bad (disambiguation).
Bad is a word used to describe undesirable circumstances, objects, feelings, or events.
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[edit] Definition
Though bad often is used to imply moral turpitude of a person, the term more specifically refers to an unfortunate circumstance. While bad is often used as a synonym for evil, bad can also refer to something flawed or unusable. Bad is also not good.
[edit] Nietzsche
In works such as On the Genealogy of Morals, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made much of a distinction he drew in German between the böse, ("evil"), which he was prepared to admire, and the schlecht ("bad"), which he disdained; in Nietzsche's thought, evil was powerful, menacing, and dangerous; bad was weak and ineffective.
[edit] Street Culture
In African American vernacular English, and varieties of American English that have been influenced by it, bad or badass are frequently used as compliments, an example of rhetorical irony. In sociological terms, in urban culture where violence and territorial bragging rights are often seen as parts of everyday affairs, the term bad is often reinterpreted as impressive, following that model of masculine posturing. To be dangerous in a street culture is often considered good, and by the same token urban youths often use bad to mean something positive, in all the ways that cultural expression can refer to a baseline of aggression and territorial posturing. With urban music now accepted by many mainstream Americans, these reinterpretations of the language are no longer limited to a neighborhood or social class, but have been passed along through an open-minded youth culture. In sum, bad can mean impressive.
- In modern African-American Vernacular English, the term "my bad" is used frequently in place of "my fault".
- The Michael Jackson album Bad is perhaps the most famous example of this usage.
[edit] Bad as the Opposite of Good
Bad as the opposite of good is an ideal. Evil is an ideal that rejects societal constraints, and most often refers to a future course of action. Average people practicing good judgment tend to avoid evil for many reasons, conscious or previously learned. Evil is a type of bad, and therefore is not one unless considered as the opposite of good (Good versus Evil). Good and bad are synonymous with positive and negative. As they refer to the positive and negative of human experience this is not wholly open to interpretation, but nonetheless defies clear definition on an absolute scale.
[edit] Unattainable
Bad and good as absolutes are unattainable, because there is always something better or worse, respectfully. When we say that something is either bad or good, we mean that it is mostly bad or mostly good, though consequences in everyday living can often speak for themselves in absolute terms.
[edit] Germany
- Amusingly for English speakers, in Germany Bad (German for "bath") is a prefix for town names signifying a spa town, as in Bad Wörishofen or Bad Kissingen.
