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.

• That led me here.

• 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?