to think some people are just born evil?

[themomentsinbetween]

Do you think some people are born bad?

Or is it there surroundings and people in their lives that make them bad.

For example, Thompson and Venables, were they just born bad?

Charles Manson?

Harold Shipman?

Good people don't just have a bad day and start killing people.

but what does that tell us? Siblings are treated differently and they grow up to be different? It has no bearing on whether or not someone is born evil or not.

outraged you don't have to be abused or have a bad childhood to do evil things. Abusive people can come from totally normal backgrounds with no history of abuse or trauma themselves.

Not everything can be explained by having a bad childhood

IMO no.
I'm a foster carer, on a recent training course we were given a exercise to do. We had to read a script about a child and decide at which points people could have intervened to help the child involved.

The child's story was one of the most distressing examples of abuse I had ever read. There were dozens of incidents where SS, teachers. police, other parents should have done something to help him.

Only when we had finished were we told the child in question was Jon Venables. Nothing can ever excuse what he did but I do feel truly sorry for the little boy he was.

Outraged that's your opinion. You are entitled to it,as I am entitled to have mine.

Hec would send that link to me in a pm? On phone picking up DP and don't wan thread going pffft before I get to laptop.

'outraged you don't have to be abused or have a bad childhood to do evil things'

No of course not, but do you think we ever really do anything completely unrelated to our background/childhood. Surely everything we do is influenced by who we are?!

'Outraged that's your opinion. You are entitled to it,as I am entitled to have mine'

erm....thanks. Still not sure what it's contributing to the discussion though? I mean, it my opinion that black pudding is the food of the devil, but it would be a bit random for me to post it as part of a discussion about serial killers!

It isn't a justification though. You cannot justify being a rapist/murderer/paedophile by saying "I had a bad childhood".

Lots of people have horrorendous upbringings and do not abuse,rape,murder.

At what point does one have to take responsibility for ones actions as an adult without "bad childhood" being an excuse. Because the average,mundane actions and choices people make are not justified in such a way.

Lots of people who had bad childhoods strive to be the complete opposite with their own children...because of it. But bad childhood is only ever used as justification in the context where the person has done something abhorrent.

Outraged

I was trying to politely say: you disagree with me. I disagree with you. Drop it and stop quoting my posts. Thanks.

I don't think who we are is totally influenced by how we were bought up and yes I do think we do things that are completely unrelated to our childhood.

Many people find it in themselves to do well regardless of their childhood. It's not unreasonable to think some people will turn out bad however they were bought up

More crack your opinion has severe limitations and takes no account of biology. Like someone has said how come the siblings don't murder, tey were brought up in the same circumstances!

Frogspoon said what I was going to - there is interesting research about that has looked into the physical and genetic differences of populations that has fielded some interesting resutls.

It is shown that mothers with amygdala damage or stunted development show a decreased maternal instinct and often neglect or abuse their children - did it start here or were they the unlucky one off mutation that emerged from the ether. It impairs Pavlovian fear conditioning, appetitive conditioning and you are more likely to have a small or non-existant social network due to a reduced emotional intelligence and ability to process facial expressions or feelings of others.

The shooter in the bell tower had a brain tumour.

I don't think it is purely nature or nuture but I think certain people are born (certainly more people than go on to be murderers or even serial killers) with a destructive gentic package that coupled with the right environmental ingredients causes the problem - how much of each ingredient is present, needed or mixed is dependant on the person and environmental set up. It's not black and white but it does start in infancy as attachment disorders of neglected or abused infants show quite clearly.

'I was trying to politely say: you disagree with me. I disagree with you. Drop it and stop quoting my posts. Thanks'

you disagree with me that siblings can have different experiences growing up?

I thought it was recognised that around 4% of the population are 'psychopathic' to varying degrees in that they have zero empathy.

Empathy is something so fundamental to being human that it is very hard to imagine someone not having it and so it seems easier to blame it on an abusive childhood or that we are all capable of doing horrific things under certain circumstances.

I personally don't believe that all people are capable of doing 'evil' things although I accept that good people do commit great wrongs. However what makes those people human is they feel real remorse for it.

Psychopaths don't...they simply don't care. So I guess what makes/defnes someone as 'evil' is that they enjoy the hurt they cause and feel no remorse.

I think it is a combination of nature and nurture tbh that causes this. Someone with a psychopathic brain chemistry brought up in a non abusive household is likely (not always) to probably grow up to be a bit of a narcissist but generally ok, whereas the same child brought up in an abusive house could turn out to be a lot more extreme

I think there is likely a physical or neurological predisposition and that this can be triggered one way or another or not at all by life circumstances and events, or trauma, particularly in early infancy and childhood. I also think brain injury can affect the parts of the brain responsible for empathy and inhibition of violent impulses.

We disagree on the fact that their siblings grow up to be normal after having the same upbringing is a prudent observation.

amillion - I think they've already been banned. They have disappeared. It's just that mnhq are not deleting the thread because of the interest expressed in the issue.

Siblings can be treated very very differently within the same family piglet.

Lauriebluebell

Ive heard about that training tool before. far too easy to label people evil, in doing so it removes the responsibility from those who could have done something. to say they were evil means that nothing anyone couldhave done would have made a difference.

Nature, nurture, physical and circumstance - mix of these. Last time I did any reading on the subject, that was the majority concensus (long time since I did my degree though).

I know people who have been born into hideous families and 'turned our normal' and people with stable homes, loving families but 'turnes out a wrong 'un' after 'falling in with the wrong crowd'.

I dont think 'monsters' come from nowhere. There is usually a back story to them.

Read The Psychopath Test. You'll then understand that some people are born psychopaths, without the normal human emotions and without the ability to understand the concepts of right and wrong. Some of these people will do things that others describe as evil... does that make the people evil? I'm not sure it does.

Sorry meant to say empathy andconscience

Outraged

In all honesty I have no idea if it's nature or nurture. None of us do.

I just felt like you were picking on me whilst other posters were saying the same thing

No you're not being unreasonable to think that
We're all entitled to our opinions
Whether you're right or not is another matter

As this thread has redeemed itself from it's hairy origins (metaphor for whole debate even ) I'm going to risk throwing in my random thoughts.

I have a little bit of experience looking after people with dementia and a little bit of experience of people with brain injury, tumour and stuff. It is surprising how lovely, kind, gentle people can become aggressive or even violent when their brains are affected.

I think there is some evidence that abuse of all sorts has a measurable effect on children's brain's but also that even damaged brains can recover amazingly well and even 'reroute' their internal wiring to recover functions after injury.

I don't want to believe that anyone is born evil or is not 'redeemable' but I also have to recognise that some people do behave in evil ways and it isn't necessarily possible to predict it any more accurately than predicting weather.