Deciding To Be Evil

The Intellectual Insurgent recently posted on the topic of evil personality disorders. The Insurgent says that evil is the opposite of life, and she maintains that some people are inherently evil. This is an excerpt from her post.

"People Of The Lie", by Christian psychiatrist Scott Peck, is the beginning point for a real discussion about evil. In this thought-provoking work, Peck approached the concept of evil from a psychiatric perspective -- evil is the opposite of life (as evil is live spelled backwards), i.e. it is anything that has its purpose to distort reality.

The symptoms of an evil personality disorder are
consistent destructive scapegoating behavior, which may often be quite subtle.excessive, albeit covert, intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury.pronounced concern with one's public image and self-image of respectability, contributing to a a stability of lifestyle but also to a pretentiousness and denial of hateful feelings or vengeful motives.intellectual deviousness, with an increased likelihood of disturbance of thinking in times of stress. People who suffer from this disorder are people of the lie. Who they are, how they are weaved seamlessly into our society without notice and the destructive nature of their disorder is illuminated through several case studies in the book. They are people who are so narcissistic that they would rather distort reality, kill, lie and cheat than ever admit their own imperfection.

Are they people beyond redemption?

Applying Peck's definition and my own observations in life, I remain of the belief that there are people of the lie who are beyond redemption absent some drastic remedy such as a lobotomy or suffering brain damage.

I would alter the notion that evil is the opposite of life. I think evil is the opposite of love, and when I use the term love, I’m talking about love in the agape sense. (One of the first things you learn when studying the Bible, is that modern versions of the New Testament translate 3 different Greek words with the word “love”: eros- romantic love; philia- familial, pleutonic, or brotherly love; and agape- unconditional or selfless love.) Agape is the love that would provoke a stranger to jump into a lake to save a drowning child.

Any act of agape love is done with out any expectation to receive anything in return. Any one who has ever suffered for another person or put themselves at risk with no expectation to benefit personally, but only to help another person is expressing agape love. It’s why we respect firefighters so much (even though their motivation may not be selfless, but for career advancement or personal glory). When a young lawyer asked Jesus about the commandment to “love thy neighbor”, Jesus told him the parable of the Good Samaritan to demonstrate what agape love looked like (Recall from the parable that a couple of “religious” persons rode by and ignored the traveler who had been ambushed and left for dead by bandits on the side of the Jericho road, but it was the “secular” Samaritan who got off his ass and helped the injured man.) Many of the greatest acts of love in history have been by people like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Gandhi, but most acts of agape love do not earn fame or recognition. Agape is the definition of “good”, and thus in my mind is the antithesis of evil.

An evil act is motivated by selfishness. (Sadistic behavior is evil, because the sadist seeks to serve his desire to see physical suffering, but even the masochist’s behavior is often evil, because he is serving his own desire to suffer pain.) The greatest acts of evil in history can be traced back to rudimentary selfish motivations such as fear, greed, lust, and jealousy. (e.g. the Holocaust, the Middle Passage Slave Trade, and the Rwandan genocide).

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The distinction that I would like to make about love and evil is that these words describe behavior or human acts. One has to decide to do something that is an act of love versus and act of evil. Insurgent, you describe some people as having evil personality disorders which makes them inherently evil. I disagree with this notion. I don’t think anyone can be inherently evil. I recognize that people have personality disorders, but a person’s personality is the result of their genetic make-up and their life experiences (mostly their childhood experiences). We do not choose our personalities, but our personalities are simple traits of our person like being tall, short, or handsome.

Therefore the person who has an anti-social narcissistic personality disorder will have a predilection to evil behavior, but they still have to make decisions whether to gratify their desire to behave in an evil manner. Psychiatrists have proposed that these individuals cannot distinguish right from wrong. This is actually untrue. These people will claim to not recognize that their behavior is evil, but it’s their narcissism that does not want to admit fault. In actuality, even disordered persons are capable of distinguishing loving behavior from evil behavior, and can choose to behave lovingly, and some of the most disordered sociopaths have made decisions to no longer gratify their evil desires, but to do good instead. What separates the disordered individual from most people is that for them, a simple act of love such as offering a greeting to a person and wishing them a nice day is contrary to their selfish desires and takes tremendous effort. For most of us, that type of behavior come naturally. I recognize that a person with an antisocial personality disorder is potentially very dangerous, and once diagnosed should probably be monitored more closely in society than the average person, but to say that they are inherently evil is an unfair judgment.

We all have some proclivity for evil behavior. No matter how we are “wired” (personality), our character is determined by how we choose to act. I may have learned to tell lies easily to avoid problems as a child, but I can still decide to be honest despite my prodigious ability to tell mistruths. My honest character or dishonest character is determined by my choices to tell the truth, and not by how easily it is for me to do so. I think a person who has a charitable personality, but chooses to be self-serving is more evil than the person who has an anti-social personality, but decides to do their best to “love his neighbor”. The designation of evil should be assigned to someone’s behavior or their character. I fundamentally think this is how we all will be judged. I have often said that I believe that God “grades on a curve” and recognizes that not everyone is equally equipped to behave in a loving manner versus a evil manner. That is why we are admonished not to judge one another, because it is impossible to know what set of circumstances that any act took place in. You may have caught someone stealing, but perhaps he has a thief’s personality and upbringing, but he has decided only to steal for people who have no food to eat. “Thou shall not steal” is a commandment, but it is relative. This is why Jesus said that the two most important commandments are “to love God and then to love your neighbor as yourself”. These are the only two absolute commandments. All of the other commandments are relative and based on the first two commandments. For instance, “thou shall not kill”, but if homicide is required to protect the innocent and defenseless, then killing might actually be an act of love (i.e waging war against Nazi Germany). The New Covenant established by Jesus is based on love and not on commandments. The commandments were suppose to be guidelines, but they were impossible for anyone to keep. Instead, the Christian commission is to love our neighbors, to grow in faith more and more, that one might be able to love more and more selflessly…true agape love.

So I cannot agree with the notion that anyone is inherently (or hard-wired to be) evil. I think no matter what our personalities predisposes us to do, we still decide whether to follow those predispositions. What makes us human is our ability to choose what we will be.

Your sometimes loving, but sometimes evil brother,
chad

“For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.”
~Saint Augustine