![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Origins of Evil
Feb. 10th, 2007 09:35 amRecently I wrote about the suffering of people and the situations that damage our psyches. A foundational piece of this examination is the 'evil' people who inflict harm on others. This article will look at the human faces of evil, offering some generalized explanations of why people do evil things.
Many years ago I saw the Clint Eastwood movie, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". I think I was a teenager. The film taught me about the morals and intentions of humanity. From it I learned that the "Good" can do harm, the "Bad" can be quite evil by action, but charming in appearance, and the "Ugly" can be evil by action, but harmless/confused in motivation. The result was shades of gray in which the action/motivation interplay of people is rarely completely understood.
To me, the Eastwood movie asked, "why do people do bad things?". This is the question that I find myself blogging about. The responses from my LJ friends indicate a level of pain and injury inflicted upon them by others. Some friends have been bravely forthcoming, sharing periods of deep and prolonged abuse. The sadness of the shared situations, and indeed my own, is that the people who hurt us are not mustache-twisting villains of the movies. The people who do evil to us are families, friends, co-workers, and well-intentioned groups. It would seem that the potential for good, or at the least neutrality, is equal to that of evil. Stuff still happens. If people are not inherently all good or all bad, the evil stuff will occur. It is my opinion that the majority of evil perpetrated upon people is from a grab-bag of unfortunate human states. While the outcomes are easily condemned, the origins can be forgivable in their very sadly comical flavors.
Below is my list of the origins of "Evil People". I will attempt to apply the labels of "Good", "Evil" and "Ugly" to them, with the understanding that no source of suffering is truly "Good", but the intentions may be so.
( Read more... )
An abusive person rarely has only one of these factors. The classic example would be the parent abusing the child. The parent may be expressing bored/sickness/stress/tough-times/rage. Any sum mix of human faces of evil is more toxic than its separate parts. The influences of evil can feed on each other, amplifying one another.
The list of human origins of evil is by no means complete. The eighteen points I've listed are a good starting point. The mixing of these root causes leads too an infinite variety of "reasons". All is not lost. I'm a BIG believer in self-awareness. We humans do mean, stupid things to each other. Awareness of motivation, desires, and intention allows us to STOP before the outward expression of an evil act occurs. The self-regulation of awareness can turn the evil action to an ugly one. The ugly act can be shift to good. Or perhaps, just maybe, we don't act out at all. It is a mix of choice, not-choice, and bad luck. It is also all part of the human experience. Love it or lump it, we're here for the ride.
Many years ago I saw the Clint Eastwood movie, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". I think I was a teenager. The film taught me about the morals and intentions of humanity. From it I learned that the "Good" can do harm, the "Bad" can be quite evil by action, but charming in appearance, and the "Ugly" can be evil by action, but harmless/confused in motivation. The result was shades of gray in which the action/motivation interplay of people is rarely completely understood.
To me, the Eastwood movie asked, "why do people do bad things?". This is the question that I find myself blogging about. The responses from my LJ friends indicate a level of pain and injury inflicted upon them by others. Some friends have been bravely forthcoming, sharing periods of deep and prolonged abuse. The sadness of the shared situations, and indeed my own, is that the people who hurt us are not mustache-twisting villains of the movies. The people who do evil to us are families, friends, co-workers, and well-intentioned groups. It would seem that the potential for good, or at the least neutrality, is equal to that of evil. Stuff still happens. If people are not inherently all good or all bad, the evil stuff will occur. It is my opinion that the majority of evil perpetrated upon people is from a grab-bag of unfortunate human states. While the outcomes are easily condemned, the origins can be forgivable in their very sadly comical flavors.
Below is my list of the origins of "Evil People". I will attempt to apply the labels of "Good", "Evil" and "Ugly" to them, with the understanding that no source of suffering is truly "Good", but the intentions may be so.
( Read more... )
An abusive person rarely has only one of these factors. The classic example would be the parent abusing the child. The parent may be expressing bored/sickness/stress/tough-times/rage. Any sum mix of human faces of evil is more toxic than its separate parts. The influences of evil can feed on each other, amplifying one another.
The list of human origins of evil is by no means complete. The eighteen points I've listed are a good starting point. The mixing of these root causes leads too an infinite variety of "reasons". All is not lost. I'm a BIG believer in self-awareness. We humans do mean, stupid things to each other. Awareness of motivation, desires, and intention allows us to STOP before the outward expression of an evil act occurs. The self-regulation of awareness can turn the evil action to an ugly one. The ugly act can be shift to good. Or perhaps, just maybe, we don't act out at all. It is a mix of choice, not-choice, and bad luck. It is also all part of the human experience. Love it or lump it, we're here for the ride.
