I couldn't see the flash of his Cincinnati gold teeth anymore. His nervous smile had faded along with the self-deprecating jokes. He glanced around at the convicts surrounding him. From my spot in the stairwell, aware of everything while “seeing” nothing, I watched as the gravity of his situation set in.
There were no cameras or guards here. Just him and prison consequences. Before he could act, they grabbed his arms. Immediately one man broke his finger, causing him to cry out in pain. He should've held it in. The moment his mouth opened a third man grabbed his head as a fourth poured boiling baby oil down his throat. I don't know if he died, I just know he never came back from the infirmary. All because he was late repaying three boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes he owed.
You don't understand Evil.
It's not hyperbole when I state that you do not know what evil is. Even those of you who have survived, endured, and fought it, cannot grasp what was in front of you. Like the Native Americans who saw clouds instead of the Santa Maria's sails, your brain couldn't comprehend what it was seeing. So it formed it as something you could understand. That's why when you discuss and even seek to destroy it, you cram evil into a framework you can wrap your head around.
You can't place yourself in an evil human being's shoes. You can't see it from his point of view. If you could, you'd be one of us. Yes, I lumped myself in with this group. Incredibly bizarre circumstances have led me to live as a “good man”, but that does not make me one.
I have logical reasons to live as a citizen now yet I still lack the moral compass that guides the vast majority of society. I mimic your behavior and follow the handy rules and laws society has put into place. However, should the need arise, I can still commit terrible acts and sleep soundly afterward. This conflux in my being is what allows me to give you a glimpse into this topic.
Your first mistake is believing an evil person is like you under different circumstances. The cliche “anyone can be a killer” is a shallow viewpoint. Yes, you could be provoked into taking someone's life but that's the issue: you had to be pushed and pressured to a breaking point before that choice was made.
Evil men do it just because it makes sense to us at the time. You could be forced to take a life to save your own, we can do it simply to avoid what may be a potential problem in the future. They're not the same and it's dangerous to make moral equivalencies.
However, in that vein, another misconception is that evil is nothing more than an inversion of what you know. What makes a man evil is not as superficial as him being the opposite of good. Evil men are not casually basing their decisions on, “I love being evil, muahahahah!”.
In truth, it's actually indifference because the actions themselves are so matter-of-fact they seem obvious. An evil man regards you with a similar value he'd attribute to a chair or refrigerator.
I've been shocked by people reacting with a normal moral compass towards me. Times where it never once occurred to me that someone would react negatively to seeing something like me stabbing another man in a fight. With blood on me, a knife in my hands, and a surprised look on my face, “What? Did he get me?” As I check myself for wounds.
Evil men do not begin from your moral starting position and simply abandon it. It never existed in the first place. You could’ve frightened me as a child, however you couldn't have horrified me.
That brings us to wiring and experience. The nature vs nurture people need to listen because you're wrong for trying to make this a binary. I understand why you want the answer to be simple. Yet it's not. It takes both. Neither nature nor nurture can alone make a man evil. I don't care about statistics, I've watched it cook people my entire life.
Nature: first, we're born wrong. Don't start defending babies, it is what it is. While I can't feel as you feel, I can observe behavior and that shows me what is normal. You display your feelings. However, we do not experience emotions in the same fashion as you do. It's not that we lack feelings, such as with psychopaths, we simply can't make an emotional moral/connection.
Which means we lack the basic communal instincts people possess. We don't need you to like us because some lizard part of our primordial brain links it to safety and survival. Yet, we do mirror behavior just like anyone else. That's why we can see you while you can rarely, if ever, see us.
That brings us to nurture. Those mentioned above are born into all walks of life however the vast majority are never introduced to culturally acceptable evil behavior. Therefore they lead average lives. You see them every day. However, when introduced and brought up in a world of criminal behavior, having no emotionally based moral roadblocks, it all feels natural and even good.
A normal human being, even in that culture, would never find themselves in the life I lived. I know because the ghetto is as full of good people, as plentiful as anywhere in society. I saw them every day growing up. The difference is those who are wired wrong in your world blend in, they stand out in ours. That's why you're afraid to go there.
“So what do we do?”. The unfortunate answer is nothing. You can't fix it. Even now, I look at the things I do and they “just make sense” given my situation. However, I also recognize that if these things were ever stripped from me, I'd no longer have that motivation. I have no desire to live as I once did however I'd be completely comfortable doing so should I be placed there once more. Indifference, remember?
There is no cure. Rehabilitation only applies to good people who circumstantially did evil things. No matter your resolve, how much psychology you apply, or how genuine your motivations are, toast can never be turned back into bread. That's why you must fight evil. That's why you must set aside your misgivings and focus entirely on its destruction wherever you encounter it.
It's a zero-sum game and the sympathy you feel is not shared by your enemy. Any “evil acts” you may employ against evil men do not make you evil yourself. You'll suffer because you're good and that fortitude to do what must be done will spare others. Because you use the law, it being your means of justice, make certain those laws are the kind that settle the problem.
Quit preventing the consequences of our actions from fitting our actions. You're not saving our souls, however, you are likely allowing the creation of future victims. You do not understand evil and that should scare you.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
In the animal kingdom, those who show psychotic and/or sociopathic behaviours are rejected/shunned and/or killed, right from birth even, no exceptions. Humanity is so focused on moving away from nature, acting as though we are better/smarter than creation, that we refuse to see the imploding all around us. Hopefully a majority of some sort wakes up before it’s too late. Admitting we are wrong/making mistakes is the only way forward. Being “nice” to our abusers, waiting for a “hero” and playing the victim/prey is definitely not a winning strategy.
I was naive. I was a child. Then I grew up.
Speaking from 27 years experience in prison work, I understand exactly what is said here. The largest number of those inmates I worked around were solid people in need of the tools to make it in society. But a significant number had no interest in rehabilitation. Man, they could work the system to their benefit, but they could care less about those they hurt. That idea was a puzzle to them.