Where do these evil people come from? Throughout history

[TerraNovaTwo]

...

@araiwa

Luton

Sorry but I lol'd. Might I add, Woking.

Evil is as evil does....

Oh wait, is that "beauty"?

Bad manners is what’s brought it on. No one says please and thank you anymore.

And poor table manners. People then think they can get away with any shameful behaviour.

I once ate with my elbows on the table and didn't say thank you when I was handed the peas. Next thing you know I'd murdered everyone else at the dinner party. So embarrassing.

@Clocktopus

Bad manners is what’s brought it on. No one says please and thank you anymore.

And poor table manners. People then think they can get away with any shameful behaviour.

I once ate with my elbows on the table and didn't say thank you when I was handed the peas. Next thing you know I'd murdered everyone else at the dinner party. So embarrassing.

But books will be written afterwards excusing your murderous tendency and blaming your parents for not bringing you up right. You might even get off with a caution.

Listen to the “Real Dictaors” podcast. It’s eye opening.

But books will be written afterwards excusing your murderous tendency and blaming your parents for not bringing you up right. You might even get off with a caution.

I do have a childhood tale of woe. Emotionally abusive father and my mum once raised her voice at me for dropping a hot iron on the carpet, I'm sure the book will blame it all on her.

Everyone has potential to do evil deeds, thay I do not doubt
.
When I say 'evil people', I'm thinking serial killers, dictators, paedophiles and so on, those who strategically use their position of power to abuse to get their thrills. I do not think the average Joe and Jane are inherently evil, though the wicked amongst us is hidden behind a thin veil of respectability.

I've been watching a TV series based on a tragic period of British history and it's made me question where evil comes from. Is it nature or nurture, or a combination of both? Can it ever truly be rationalised?

tragic period of British history

Which one?

Konrrad Lorenz wrote a book called 'on aggression', which explains how aggression in dogs can start off as a defensive behaviour, which leads to success. If it then doesn't learn better social skills or different strategies, it keeps using aggression.
It then escalates and learns to enjoy the feeling of being aggressive. Aggression becomes its own reward.

If you are they type of person that has learned to associate some emotions with a negative value judgement, it can be hard to see that there are people who actively enjoy being spiteful, or a bully, or controlling. They do it because they find it pleasurable.

@Thelnebriati. How interesting and it makes a lot of sense. You can see how youngsters learn aggression from abusive fathers and then are appeased by their mothers (looking at you Hitler), who they then start to bully which gives them a sense of self-worth. Its a small step to starting to treat others like that. Making others feel worse about themselves is an easy way to feel better about yourself.
However, it's excusable in dogs, but in humans not so much.

I know a young man who was sent to prison for having class A child pornohraphy on his computer, although he had a young child of his own. I've known his family since he was a little boy and I was totally shocked when ot was in the paper.
He came from a totally normal family too.

@mustlovegin

tragic period of British history

Which one?

The Jacobite Rebellion, specifically the Battle of Culloden.

@TerraNovaTwo

Everyone has potential to do evil deeds, thay I do not doubt . When I say 'evil people', I'm thinking serial killers, dictators, paedophiles and so on, those who strategically use their position of power to abuse to get their thrills. I do not think the average Joe and Jane are inherently evil, though the wicked amongst us is hidden behind a thin veil of respectability.

I've been watching a TV series based on a tragic period of British history and it's made me question where evil comes from. Is it nature or nurture, or a combination of both? Can it ever truly be rationalised?

Nice to think that OP but sadly it doesn't work like that.

Dictators tend to have a lot of support or they wouldn't get very far.
Atrocities are committed over and over and over. By all sorts of nations at various points in time.
In the 'West' it's all about the Nazis. Must never forget. Let it happen again. But it's happened again including on mainland Europe and... Nothing. So much for lessons learned.

Some people are not right in the head yes. Because of childhood etc? Who knows.

Other than that it's complicated. Money. Power. Othering. Exploiting.

Under certain circs most people will be susceptible to blaming a certain group etc. Seeing them at other. And then whatever follows.

In the end we're humans. Mammals. Animals. We are tribal and we want to look after our own. We are highly adaptable. And fighting over territory resources etc is what we do and have always done. Fighting for supremacy.

So no. I don't think some people are 'evil'. I think that humans are what we are. That our background upbringing experiences peer groups and so many other things affects how we... Are and react.

There are terrible terrible things happening all over the place all the time.

I would say the good are rarer. The ones who fight and act and risk when they could sit back.

Most people just try and look after them and theirs and are pretty neutral tbh. And that's normal really.

Well I'm not a historian. Had a quick Google.

I'm English and off the top of my head.

Various awful things with Ireland.
Loads of aspects of the empire inc slavery.
Being a massive arms supplier.
Treatment of workers Inc children industrial revolution.
A seeming inability to get to grips with children being raped by members of various groups even though it happens over and over again.
VAWG not being of much interest eg marital rape being legal until early 90s.
We used to do torture, hanging, beheading etc as a society pretty much casually.

We're no different to other humans though. Given the right circs ordinary people will do terrible things. Or stand by and keep out of it.

Are there any peoples who haven't done awful shit to others through history?

Wiki Jacobite rising of 1745:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rising_of_1745

Not being funny OP. But do you have anything that more posters might know about?

Your example is what over 300 years ago? There's plenty of awful stuff gone on since then.

I'd give en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre 1995 as a more recent example of an atrocity and inaction etc.

I read somewhere about a (thankfully) very rare personality type - a ‘malignant narcissist’ which would apparently apply to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

Humans are toxic sociopathic selfish and violent naked monkeys. The surprise is that some of them are decent. Today I am genuinely questioning ttc because I think our species is fundamentally awful and I’m not sure I want to make another one.

@HarrietsChariot

Humans have always killed to the maximum extent allowed by the technology of the time. It's perfectly natural, whether you're a Roman massacring the population of Carthage, a German gassing Jews or an American dropping an atomic bomb.

Whether they are "evil" or not depends solely on the point of view of the observer. At different points in history certain people have believed all the above acts were justified and necessary. Certainly nowadays the overwhelming view is that the holocaust was evil, and there is a growing voice that claim the use of nuclear weapons on Japan was wrong.

Personally, I think humans are all inherently evil. We only do things for our own selfish ends whether we do it overtly (snatching an old lady's handbag) or camoflagued as social good (XR, demanding that all follow their idea of the direction the future should head in).

Yup

Have you ever listened to the podcast Dictators? It's quite an objective look at tyrants' biographies and can be quite fascinating.

Generally I think that men have the ‘extremist’ gene that pushes them towards eye watering violence and destruction. I don’t see any solid evidence that women are wired this way. There are of course outliers, but generally it’s a guy thing.

Evil people like Hitler, Stalin etc weren't evil in a vacuum, a lot led up to their deeds. Let's not forget the European leaders who were also genocidal when creating colonies. Look at the problems wrought from religion as well. A whole nation was responsible for the crimes in WW2, Hitler didn't carry out genocide by himself.

@coffeeisthebest

Hitler was physically and emotionally abused in childhood and lived with the uncertainty of Jewish ancestry which apparently in his culture would have brought great shame to his family. He spent his adulthood acting out the fury that he had held since childhood. He isn't he only one.

I don't think syphilus and dependency on methamphetamine did much to help his mental state either

Berkeys

Yes we are unbelievably successful and highly destructive and the level to which we can invent explore etc is massive really.

I think with 24/7 news global news now more than every the full horror that we inflict is tbh and understandably really taking a toll on a lot of people's peace of mind.

We are what we are. Tribal. Territorial. Resource hungry. Ambitious. But also. Inquisitive. Inventive. Empathetic.

We invented nukes but also vaccines.
Some groups have horrible rallies and some have joyful festivals.

We're an interesting species.

The good news is that if/ when we manage to wipe ourselves out, the earth will still turn and it will heal.

In the meantime we have such a huge amount of stuff we have learnt and thought and invented and documented and still we want to understand more ..

We aren't all bad :)

If you do really feel that the entire human race are irredeemably evil then probably it's not a good time to have a baby!

We're not though. We're just animals. Mammals. No better or worse than the others when it comes to territory, killing etc.

They had meth then?

You learn something every day.

I didn't know he had syphilis either!

Hereditary?

I thought he was just a fucked up little man with thwarted ambitions and anger because of that. And his views and charisma/ oratory persuasiveness combined with the economic situation meant he could get the power and admiration he thought he was always owed.

There are plenty of people in plenty of countries who would like to exterminate various groups of people given the chance.

Ordinary people supported the Nazi party. They would never have got anywhere if not.

The desire to believe there's a handful of monsters is so appealing. Yes some are. But most atrocities involve bog standard people. That's the really scary thing.