4720-Week 2

This week in class, we went a bit more into depth about the meaning of evil, whether we are born evil or if it is something someone becomes, and if anyone can truly be an evil person through and through. Through discussion it is easy to understand that maybe evil is simply just an act rather than a personality trait, but this leaves some to be desired still for many of us. Those affected by evil acts will certainly see the individual committing the act as evil through and through, but how can one truly know until they have seen all sides of an individual?

In looking through the works of Simon Baron-Cohen, Roy Baumeister and Philip Zimbardo, we spent the class vivaciously debating the ins and outs of the phenomenon of evil. Why do people do evil things? In the readings I was able to find three themes of why individuals commit evil acts and they are 1) Evil is done under the rule of someone else, 2) Evil is done based on personal egotism, and 3) Evil is done based on personal ideals. When thinking of evil acts, these three “reasons” seem to fit nicely into ideas of why these evil things may have happened. When we think of big, large-scale acts of evil such as the Holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide, these acts are clearly done under the rule of someone else. In the example of the Holocaust, the Germans were made to see Jews as lesser, they were ‘othered’ by the highest ranking power at the time, and therefore were influenced to do evil acts; much the same, the Rwandan Genocide happened due to the government ‘othering’ half of the community. Evil can be done based on personal egotism in instances where an individual is made to feel lesser than, as is commonly seen in serial killers, often being outcasted, and treated as odd. Finally, people do evil based on their personal ideals in instances where there are race or sex killings, people are murdered due to their difference in skin colour or sexual orientation. With this however, it is imperative to question how much of our personal ideals are actually our ideals, and how many of them are fabricated by our society and those we keep close to us?

There have been already 3 homicides located in and around Vancouver, since the start of 2020. In less than 20 days, 3 individuals have already been murdered and while the police spend time looking for the culprit, it is difficult to not sit back and wonder what it is that is making these things happen? With the statistics showing that there were only 10 homicides in the area in all of 2019, one must wonder why the sudden increase, and whether there is any sort of a pattern or reason to it all. In an article posted by Global News, the article speaks of the two most recent homicides happening within 5 hours of themselves and that the killer(s) is/are yet to be identified, however it is interesting to wonder if both these acts were committed by the same individual, and if not, then is there something happening in the area that is leading individuals to commit these acts? Article: https://globalnews.ca/news/6434076/vancouver-homicide-gastown/

In investigating the ideas surrounding homicide and why they happen, there is a famous heat hypothesis, which attempts to put the increase in crimes during warmer months is attributed to the fact that when it is hot, individuals are more irritable and therefore more likely to commit crimes. Mario Coccia (2017) acknowledges that while this is a great theory and it can certainly be used to some extent, they know that there is a possibility that this may not be the only reason. Coccia investigates the possibility that there may be more of a correlation between income/socio-economic inequality and crime than there is for heat increase. In studying individuals from 191 countries, this study investigates the correlates of socio-economic inequality and intentional homicides while controlling for thermal climate. With this, they were able to find that the income inequality present in these countries was either equal to or sometimes greater than, when it came to identifying why homicides happened (Coccia, 2017). In correlation with the Global News article from Vancouver in January, it is clear that the heat is not the issue but perhaps there are some underlying issues of inequality when it comes to income in these areas.

This brings us back to the topic of why evil happens, but adds yet another possible reason as to why people do evil things. Reasons such as environmental factors was not much discussed in our readings, but can clearly have an effect on individual’s attitudes. Additionally, the topic of income inequality can tie back to the idea of evil being done from an egotistical stance.

The point at hand is that it is difficult to put evil into a box. How can we even begin to attempt to think of one possible cause or definition of evil when there are clearly so many probable answers? While it can surely be difficult to try to fit it all together, it is definitely interesting to think of all of the possibilities and to debate which may have the most impact. The fact of the matter however, is that evil is similar to psychology in the sense that because you are working with humans, a species so complex with varying lives and ideas and attitudes and traits, it all comes down to the individual act. When trying to understand why an evil act was committed, it seems as though the “right” way to comprehend it all is to start with a broad idea, and move deeper in order to truly understand the root of it.

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