At this point in the semester, we’ve spent weeks looking at evil occurrences, looking for deeper meaning, and ultimately asking the big question; WHY did this happen? We ask this question for many things in life as it allows us to gain a better perspective of the situation, to allow us to understand maybe even just a bit more, to make the situation more plausible to us. Asking why can also help us in trying to answer the question we have been asking all semester – is the person inherently evil, or is it the act itself that is evil?
This week we were tasked with reading the conclusion to Roy Baumeister’s text Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. In this final chapter, Baumeister focuses on answering the main question from his text – Why Is There Evil? In this, he closes his text by providing the reader with four major root causes of evil: Simple desire for material gain, Threatened Egotism, Idealism and Pursuit of Sadistic pleasure. These themes were all present throughout our time together as a class both in readings and in classes, and I’d like to look through these root causes as a sort of closure to the class in identifying how these root causes can relate to our class and the world on a larger scale.
Primarily, we can look at a simple desire for material gain. Baumeister mentions that these may not be universally regarded as wrong, but there is a playing factor in this distinction and that is the way the individual goes about getting the material gain. This can be explained by someone wanting something material and using violence and/or crime in order to get it, rather than using a reasonable and ethical way of getting it. Some examples of this could be robbing someone’s home, stealing from a local store, or even something such as murder for status.
The second theme is that of threatened egotism, which we explored in the beginning of the class with the soldiers who were trying to shoot a toddler not because they were interesting in killing the child, but more so that they were desensitized to the idea of murder and were more focused on proving themselves as the better gunsman. This sort of theme can be seen in many many cases of evil as well, such as someone committing an evil act simply because someone says they couldn’t do it, someone killing another due to a threatened ego from the other not showing respect or humiliating them, or even possibly concealing important information due to the nature of this information dragging their reputation. This can loosely be seen in the opinions from the novel Coronavirus and its origins in Wuhan, China. Many individuals have stated that China must have known about COVID-19 prior to releasing information to the public, and the blame is being put on the country being too prideful to ask for assistance or to warn other countries as it could put the blame on them. While there is no way that I can be sure that this is true, there are quite a bit of articles present online and opinion pieces written about it, such as this article by Fox News**. This article focuses on Senator Marco Rubio and his opinions on Coronavirus and the way that China handled the pandemic in its early stages, or in his opinion, the lack of handling thereof. Rubio essentially states his frustrations with China in their apparent withholding of information, which he believes led to the more drastic spread of the pandemic. This can be an example of threatened egotism as Rubio explains that he believes the reason has to do with China’s self-image and their desire to cover up any issues they were having, which ultimately was an evil act as it caused a larger spread.
The third root of evil is idealism. Baumeister explains this as someone believing they are doing good but in this they feel that they can take extra measures and strong force in order to make hard decisions to continue their mission. We can see this in a large scale by looking at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Sure, their mission is backed by ideals of caring for animals and ensuring animals are treated fairly, however some of the measures they take in order to do so are hard to be justified. Protests can be extreme, advertising is often driven by a need for clicks rather than a focus on spreading information, and raids can result in very negative outcomes.
Finally, the fourth root of evil is for the pursuit of sadistic pleasure. We spoke about this in one of our class presentations, wherein we looked into the idea of sadistic pleasure, where it comes from and how evil in this sense is enacted. The topic of sadistic pleasure we determined is that it draws a fine line between what can be considered evil versus what cannot be in this sense. Baumeister explains that even through killing, torturing and rape, the majority of these individuals do not experience pleasure from inflicting harm, but these could still be examples. In this, an individual who kills, tortures, rapes, or does other evil acts with mainly a strong desire for pleasure as the root of the intention, would be considered doing evil things for sadistic pleasure.
By breaking evil down into these four categories, it is easier for an understanding of the WHY to some extent as it allows us to find a reason within these categories. The last little bit of this chapter looks into the future of evil and how it will be seen. Something that really stuck with me from this chapter is that we never really see our evils as being as big as they are at the time being. The Nazi regime was so terrible and while there certainly were individuals at the time that saw it as completely evil, we are now looking back at it with the mentality of “never again”, however it still happens in our societies. We are able to look at evil through a lens of the past and condemn it, while somehow still taking place in these types of evil acts today. This is not to say that we are not getting better as humans and absolutely not to say that we are either, however the lens of understanding as time progresses is certainly something that forces us to have a more evaluative lens on our present, rather than the past or the future.
References:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rubio-china-coronavirus-cover-up
** This article by Fox News does not indicate that I am a supporter of this news outlet or that I believe they are a source of constant reliable information. Due to the nature of the sheer amount of controversies associated with Fox News, this article was only chosen to aid in the description of threatened egotism.
Emily V - Psychology of Evil 
Hi Emily,
I liked your discussion about the different roots of evils and the examples you gave for each. I think the situation we are in right now with the COVID-19 pandemic gives us a lot of different examples of evil. I think that the article you discussed was a great example of threatened egotism leading to evil. I know that there are some world leaders in addition to Marco Rubio that are blaming China for this situation. Why do you think that these leaders are choosing to put all the blame on China? Do you think they actually believe that all of the problems are happening because of China or do you think this is entirely selfish, placing the blame on another country? Also, do you think that putting the blame on another country should be considered more evil, since they are taking time to place blame rather than focusing on helping citizens of their country deal with the issue?
Great post!
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Hey Kayla! To answer your question, and to be frank about it, I think that leaders are choosing to put blame on China because it is easy. In concordance with a topic we spoke about in class, I think that some of it has to do with fear and they are resorting to something to help them understand the situation and blaming China is something that is easy for leaders to do. I do however agree with the fact that this definitely is selfish and evil because realistically, there is no need to blame China on the scale that many leaders are. I think that this is a situation that our planet has not encountered in this scale, and every country is sort of learning as they go. I think that putting the blame on other countries is certainly evil as it allows us to continue to “other” them and make them the issue, when really there are things happening in every country that could be part of the blame. While it seems as though articles such as the one I discussed are focused on giving an explanation, I do not think that it really helps citizens understand and deal with the issue at all, but rather just tries to allow them to take blame off of their own administrations.
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Hi there guys,
Emily, I loved how you broke down the last chapter of Baumeister’s book. When it comes to reasons for why people commit evil acts, I believe we (as people) have become a lot better at identifying the individual’s contributions. When it comes to combining all of the viewpoints and power dynamics, however, I do not think we have really become closer to identifying what evil actually is (except Fox News perhaps – haha!).
In terms of the discussion with Kayla – and looking at placing blame. The other day I was talking to relatives in Germany, and when they receive their daily news, they do not hear that much about North America – especially us Canadians – as we do (obviously). The only thing they hear in terms of updates and ‘evil’ – is when it came to the US government and halt on N95 masks from 3M. In several articles the actions are compared to ‘piracy’ as well as uttering ‘inhumane’ towards US government officials. Here is an example – an article from RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg), which is a news institution under German public law – therefore reliable.
https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/thema/2020/coronavirus/beitraege_neu/2020/04/atemschutzmasken-berlin-bestellung-usa-abgefangen.html
What I thought was interesting as well, and looking at the similarities between your post Emily, Kira’s and Madison’s, is that there was a comparison to the Nazi regime back then, as well as to current times. Although many may have reservations and biases, I believe excellent points have been made. Especially recognizing the fact that just because we are distant from events now, it does not mean that power dynamics and authority can change. Looking at current times of COVID-19 and current emergency act responses of various governments, we need to realize how much power we are actually giving our governments, how long they will be able to hold on to it for, and if power will be relinquished again once the situation is under control.
When talking about the rumours of China withholding outbreak information, it could be seen as evil (if it is true). I would like to consider the individual though in this scenario. Even though we see ‘the government’ as a somewhat machine, or humanness entity if you will, we must consider that they are still made up of individuals, that are entrusted with yes, not only power, but enormous responsibility – not only for themselves, but hundreds of thousands of people. I think that when decisions are being made, we must consider ‘the human factors’ – and therefore emotions that accompany such news – such as i.e. shame.
Great post!! I loved the discussions as well. Thanks!
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I thought it was really interesting how you discussed that we don’t see ourselves as being evil until after the fact. This is something that I never really thought too much about, but it makes a lot of sense. In terms of the Nazi regime, we look back at that and see it as an incredibly horrible incident, full of hatred and bias. I think that because we are disconnected from events such as that, it’s easier for us to put the label of evil on those past actions. I feel that if we are directly associated with an evil act, we try to justify our actions and make excuses as to why we do the things we do. And I’m sure this happened to the people partaking in the Nazi regime, but at the time, their actions were justified by their leader. Really great thoughts.
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I like your point about how some people are considering China to have withheld information about Covid-19 and how that shows an example of egotism taking place. When I see this I notice something that seems to contribute to either the creation of the ego or the action of evil when the ego was threatened – or both. It seems to me that what made it so easy for them to withhold such important information was not only their ego but the power that fed into that ego or the power of being able to choose the action that resulted from having this information. The power could have came from any consideration of their status. Their status gave them many choices and the power to act on those choices. We talk a lot in this course about authority contributing to evil by making others do the evil acts but not too much about the authority doing the evil themselves. What do you think about all of this?
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Hi Emily! I think your post this week was a really interesting take. I like your mention of China and COVID-19 as it is something very relevant. If what is being said is true about China withholding information, than I agree that threatened eogtism could be part of the motive. I also think that China would like to maintain their sense of superiority over others and maintain the idea that they are a strong world power, and so they may have tried to hide what’s happening in order to maintain this. Placed in a situation where their sense of self is threatened, they have reacted in a way that has possibly harmed many, many people around the world. I think what you mentioned about how we never really see what we are doing as evil until afterwards is super important. Baumeister considered intent and deliberation as components of evil, but I don’t think that’s always true. When we do evil things we may not set out to harm others, but it is through putting our wants and desires before others, that others are often caught in the crossfire. Great post this week, I think you summed up Baumeister really well. Thanks for sharing!
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