Comments on: Are We All Potentially Evil?

By: catg

catg — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 22:06:53 +0000

Can someone tell me who’s the lady with Philip Zimbardo in the black and white picture. Is she his wife? His first or second?

By: tpaine

tpaine — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 23:03:51 +0000

How would it seem if there were more to go around, increasing natural resources that we need to survive on?
What if that were the case? Would it still seem inevitable that ISIS should exist? What if the biosphere was not really damaged at all?

By: Joseph Woodhouse

Joseph Woodhouse — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:25:06 +0000

So a corollary question would be, do we see a dramatic rise globally in situations that bring out “evil”? With more people, less to go around, deteriorating natural systems that renew what we need to survive, it seems inevitable that ISIS should exist… it is a disease of a damaged biosphere.

By: bigterguy

bigterguy — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 11:12:03 +0000

Not surprisingly Shermer has written about good apples and bad apples and the conventional explanations for people committing evil acts. And yet perhaps the most important factor was ignored despite this statement:

“…with only one outlier trait: “Validity scales indicate the patient presented himself as a morally virtuous individual.”

A belief in one’s moral superiority – whether derived internally from education and background or bestowed by various authorities – distorts one’s perspective and can be used to justify mistreatment of others. Self-righteousness amplifies the ‘in-group’ vs ‘out-group’ distinction at the core of xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. And self-righteousness in combination with the hubris of ‘knowing what is best’ for others leads to tyranny.

As C S Lewis wrote:
“…those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

The cure for self-righteousness is humility. Not the false humility that is so often displayed in acceptance speeches at awards shows, but humility that is expressed in everyday acts.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: ‘You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.’