Reviewing Evil
Social psychologist Roy Baumeister published his book Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty in 1999 [Henry Holt & Co]. I’ve been reading it the way someone with insomnia reads a book: in short sessions punctuated by the book hitting you in the face. Nonetheless, two-thirds of the way through, I feel like the book has held up well. And this is thus a two-thirds review.
A common dilemma for authors and publishers lies in coming up with a title to make their subject of examination broadly interesting and relevant. Such it is with “Evil.” The title is a more primitive word that seems not to have a place in today’s ever more secular society. It would also be a difficult term to define for the purpose of scientific examination. Nevertheless, the subtitle brackets “human violence and cruelty” as the main objects, and Baumeister returns to these more specific terms quite often to clarify the point.
The book could easily be discussed chapter by chapter, since the subject and Baumeister’s treatment are so dense with ideas. The book does not wallow in misery, however, by expending too much narrative ink on specific acts of cruelty and depravity in great depth. From early on, it grapples with what evil is, and in whose eyes it is described as such.
The first of its three main sections, for example, confronts the reader with the dissimilarity in perspective and how it makes all the difference. Perpetrators of cruelty and violence do not perceive their own actions as having been particularly sharp, violent, or otherwise memorable. Victims, on the other hand, dwell on acts of violence and cruelty perpetrated on them for a long time after. Their memories are lasting, profound, and frequently life-changing, if not life-defining.
Another very basic observation is that acts of cruelty and violence do not tend to mar the psyches of perpetrators—because no one thinks they have ever perpetrated evil. This statement itself is generally applicable enough to warrant the lack of qualifiers. If confronted about their past evil deeds, perpetrators think of their actions as forgettable, either because the violence from their perspective was not at all severe, or else it was justifiable because their victims had done or said things that made their own acts of evil comparable in severity. Perpetrators see themselves as victims more often than not. A lot of the evil acts discussed are perceived as punishment for the victim’s prior actions, as just retribution.
This highly differentiated experience of evil based on perspective leads into a broader examination of what constitutes “evil” in popular culture and social imagination, which Baumeister terms “The Myth of Pure Evil.” The arguments are quite thought-provoking. Evil itself has a life of its own in popular culture, which is arguably how most of us perceive it. In pop culture, the perpetrators are quite often depicted as gleeful in inflicting pain and suffering on their victims. Their motives are not generally portrayed as having much greater depth and breadth than that. Avenging the perpetrators in itself is a just outcome of such narrative storytelling.
The second part of the book distinguishes different types of evil by four general causes. There are acts of violence and cruelty done for revenge, and there is evil carried out for personal gain. There is evil done in the name of utopian idealism, where the perpetrators firmly convince themselves as groups that their causes are noble and so important that any individual’s suffering pales in comparison. Then there is the question of the extent that cruelty and violence are perpetrated out of sadistic urges on the part of the perpetrators.
Some of the examples in the book are by now dated relative to our contemporary cultural fixations, as in World War Two still being a major topic. The most recent mass casualty event at the book’s publication was the Oklahoma City bombing. Many seemingly more heinous acts of cruelty and violence have made the news since. But at another level, the book is pleasantly separated from the politics of our more recent past. It takes a bit of bending to read today’s partisan and tribal battles into it, but one certainly can.
The narrative throughout is easily approachable, in an easy-to-follow style for a general audience. Baumeister repeatedly returns to the main questions he aims to address about the victims’ and perpetrators’ recollections and feelings, and he speculates as to their psychological motivations behind those recollections and feelings.
If you are interested in social psychology as I am, I think you will find Evil to be very accessible and thought provoking.
For your amusement:
https://www.wcnc.com/article/features/producers-picks/marshmallow-trees-larry-sprinkle-april-fools-day-prank/275-2cfe1386-3cd3-485e-b143-ec4dbd51dfd9
This was pretty good' too:
https://www.protoolreviews.com/milwaukee-oppendriver-nuclear-powered-drill/
In other news, I was reading in the WSJ this morning that the accounting firm BDO (Binder Dijker, Otte) plans to acquire the tax planning division of RSM (Rhodes, Salustro and McGladney). Combined it should become a Big 5 firm. Due to increasing EU regulations on auditing firms (making it more painful), I hear the new firm will be known as BDSM*.
* April Fools!