Evil – All too Human?

I’m currently addicted to the Discovery Channel show Most Evil where Columbia University forensic scientist Michael Stone plots the most infamous serial killers and so called evil people on a 22 point Scale of Evil. I tried to plot several people I knew, former friends and such, but compared to John Wayne Gacy, the famous clown serial killer, or Jim Jones, the cult leader who ordered mass suicide of hundreds of people they looked far too gentle and meek.

Evil in human nature seems to be one of the more attractive subjects in psychology. We have been enlightened by the studies of Zimbardo, Milgram and Asch, showing for instance how good people can turn evil through pressures of conformity, obedience and other dispositional factors. While Michael Stone rated psychopathic tendencies and engaging in psychopathic behavior, free of remorse as being more evil, Alford’s interviews among several participants showed that the concept of evil was highly privatized. Even Alford was surprised to hear participants associate evil with scary dreams, feelings of fear and doom. Evil was described mostly as a threat or a feeling of obliteration of the self.

Interesting about the study is the use of two groups for participants: free informants and prison inmates. While both groups came to the similar conclusions regarding evil – such as Adolf Eichmann was not evil, the reasoning behind conclusions were dissimilar, at least on the surface. Free informants were likelier to answer that Eichmann was just part of the system, while prison inmates were more likely to use the Hobbesian argument that the world is a war of everyone against everyone else. On a deeper analysis, Alford came to conclude that both reasoning amounted to the same idea – that the idea that someone would be killed for not killing is only an extension of the Hobbesian idea. Alford comes to conclude that a basic understanding of evil needs to address these issues, disturbing as they may be.

22 Point Scale of Evil

Most Evil

Alford, C. F. (1997). A Political Psychology of Evil. Political Psychology

Photo: “the evil doll” by , c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

Virtual Conference Report: Day Six (26 Oct, 2009)

By Paula Bowles

Welcome to the second week of the Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Conference. The first day back has started with a keynote speech from Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University) entitled ‘Virtual Communities, Virtual Cultures, Virtual Governance.’ Conference delegates also had the opportunity to meet Peter at the Second Life Cocktail Bar.

There were two other papers on Monday’s session Adam Brown’s (Deakin University): ‘Beyond ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’: Breaking Down Binary Oppositions in Holocaust Representations of ‘Privileged’ Jews’ and ‘A Hybrid Model of Moral Panics: Synthesizing the Theory and Practice of Moral Panic Research’ presented by Brian V. Klocke (State University of New York, Plattsburgh) & Glenn Muschert (Miami University). In addition Wiley-Blackwell’s Vanessa Lafaye held a publishing workshop entitled ‘The Secret to Online Publishing Success.’

As you can see, this week promises to be as exciting and innovative as the previous one. All of the papers and workshops from last week are still available to download from the conference site, and both the ‘battle of the bands’ and the opportunity to contribute a ‘winning comment’ remain.