Effective socialization of the young will create individuals whose personal values and conduct accord with those of the system. It is unlikely that Roman soldiers who killed enemies defeated in battle experienced remorse: their socialization and experience made killing defeated enemies and enslaving women and children normal operating procedures. In some societies violence against people seen as outsiders is a way of life. We do not assume that members of such a society should have resisted a way of life integral to their social-cultural system. We do not blame individual Mundurucú headhunters, because being a Mundurucú male meant being a headhunter.6 When a long cultural continuity of this type exists, which creates synchrony between the characteristics of the individual and the group, the social organization, not the individual, is responsible. In the modern world, however, even violence-prone societies or subsystems of societies, such as the Argentine military, usually also hold and transmit moral and social values that prohibit violence. This creates individual responsibility. Usually person and system each carry a share of the responsibility.
Socialization and experience in most modern societies result in a wide range of personal characteristics, so there will be people whose values, sympathies, self-interest, and current needs suit a violent and inhumane system and others who are opposed to such a system. The degree of opposition and conformity to a new social order depends on the nature of the preceding society. But human malleability continues through life. People not initially involved in creating the new system often undergo resocialization. This can be slow or fast and may affect a smaller or larger segment of the population. The speed and amount of change depend on the degree to which the original culture and therefore personal characteristics are at variance with the new system, how effective the new system is at resocialization, and the magnitude of life problems and resulting needs.
When we ask how people could do this, we must not judge only by universal moral standards that represent our ideals but must also appreciate how people are influenced by systems. Ultimately, we must ask how to create cultures and social systems that minimize harm-doing and promote human welfare, in part by how they shape individuals.
The roots of evil
Evil is not a scientific concept with an agreed meaning, but the idea of evil is part of a broadly shared human cultural heritage. The essence of evil is the destruction of human beings. This includes not only killing but the creation of conditions that materially or psychologically destroy or diminish people’s dignity, happiness, and capacity to fulfill basic material needs.
By evil I mean actions that have such consequences. We cannot judge evil by conscious intentions, because psychological distortions tend to hide even from the perpetrators themselves their true intentions. They are unaware, for example, of their own unconscious hostility or that they are scapegoating others. Frequently, their intention is to create a “better world,” but in the course of doing so they disregard the welfare and destroy the lives of human beings. Perpetrators of evil often intend to make people suffer but see their actions as necessary or serving a higher good. In addition, people tend to hide their negative intentions from others and justify negative actions by higher ideals or the victims’ evil nature.
Most of us would not regard it as evil to kill to defend one’s own life or the life of one’s family, or to protect others’ lives. In contrast, most of us would regard terrorist violence against civilians (who are not responsible for the suffering of either the terrorists or those whose interests they claim to represent) as evil.
But any kind of group violence has evil potential. It is rarely directed only at people who cause suffering. Its aim is rarely just to protect people or alleviate their suffering. And its intensity and the circle of its victims tend to increase over time, as our discussion of genocide and mass killing will show. This is also evident in the history of torture. In the Middle Ages, when torture was part of the legal system, the circle of victims expanded over time. Starting with low-status members of society accused of a crime, progressively higher-status defendants and then witnesses were tortured in order to extract evidence from them.7
Ordinary psychological processes and normal, common human motivations and certain basic but not inevitable tendencies in human thought and feeling (such as the devaluation of others) are the primary sources of evil. Frequently, the perpetrators’ own insecurity and suffering cause them to turn against others and begin a process of increasing destructiveness.
But the same needs and motivations that cause evil can be fulfilled, and probably more completely, by joining others. This may be a more advanced level of functioning, requiring more prior individual and cultural evolution toward caring and connection. The tendency to pull together as an ingroup and turn against an outgroup is probably more basic or primitive. Threats and stress tend to evoke more primitive functioning.
There are alternative views of the roots of evil, of course. Some believe that because power and self-interest are strong human motives, human beings are basically unconcerned about others’ welfare and will therefore do anything to satisfy their own interests. Thomas Hobbes developed this view most fully, and Freud’s thinking is congenial to it.
According to Hobbes, people must be controlled externally, by society and the state, to prevent them from harming others in fulfilling their own interests. According to Freud they must acquire a conscience through socialization, which then controls them from within. However, assumptions about human nature cover a wide range. Some regard humans as basically good but corrupted by society (Rousseau). Others regard them as good but capable of being shaped by experience with parents and other significant people
