How (And Why) Do Certain People Become Evil?
This feels like a relevant question for modern humanity.
You’d be evil if you don’t subscribe to this newsletter. No, I’m kidding. I don’t care that much if you do or not, at least not to the point of calling you evil. I’m just looking for ways to make my ends meet. This is a research-driven post, which is what I try to do most of the time. Some of my other stuff can be subjective ramblings, for sure, but I’m also good at chasing deep dives around research into a topic. So let’s roll. What makes people evil?
Here’s a rabbit hole I went down yesterday:
Read this article (in print, not online because I’m old school!) about Bosnian war criminals living in the U.S. and how they might be deported.
Asked my wife, “Wait, why are we deporting people for something that happened on foreign soil 20 years ago?”
We got into a deep discussion about that. (I agree there should be no statue of limitations on genocide, if you’re wondering about my personal morality.)
I walked over to the dishwasher as she was going to take a shower, and I casually tossed out, “Hey, do you know why Argentina was so accepting of Nazis?”
She didn’t really, so I Googled that.
I started reading about a bunch of terrible Nazi shit, most notably Mengele (who did escape and eventually died on a Brazilian beach).
My wife’s still in the shower, and I’m all like, “Whoa, so what are the origins of evil?”
Rabbit Hole №2 commenced.
I’m pretty interested in evil. I don’t think it’s weird to say that; most of the notable TV characters of the past decade are, in fact, anti-heroes. We all seem pretty fascinated with bad people at a pop culture level.
Also, I’m inclined to personally think (and I mean, I’m no scientist or biologist) that no one is fundamentally born evil, which means that “evil” is inherently a journey to a destination, which theoretically means anyone can go on it, which brings us back to the idea of why Breaking Bad was such a good show.
So, why are people evil?
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