The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence

gravitates toward it. Should he find during the period of his training and early duty that the work is not satisfying or that he is somehow not compatible with the rank and file of other policemen, he will either resign or be weeded out. The result is that a police force is usually a quite homogeneous group of people who have much in common with each other and who are distinctly different from other types of groups, such as antiwar demonstrators or college English majors.

... the society at large – partly through the self-selection process described – employs specific types of people to perform its specialized roles – as, for instance, it employs aggressive, conventional men to perform its police functions.⁶

Selection by authorities was evident in a study of twenty-five Greek men who became torturers under the military junta that ruled Greece in the 1970s. They were selected as members of the military police and torturers early in their military training because of their total obedience to authority and because they came from fervent anticommunist families who saw leftists as enemies of Greece.⁷

In Nazi Germany, many of the perpetrators – for example, doctors in the “euthanasia” program and the death camps – were selected on the basis of their ideology, their devotion to the Nazi cause.⁸ Some Nazis were pressed into the role of killer or into indirect involvement with killing, but even they had joined the movement and the party voluntarily and had advanced in it through their commitment and devotion.⁹

Self-selection may have played a role in the prison study I discussed earlier. The participants were recruited through “ads in city and campus newspapers” and offered fifteen dollars a day to participate in a study of prison life. Not everyone would want to participate in such a study; the personal characteristics of those who answered the advertisements may have been one reason for the intensifying hostility.

Earlier I identified characteristics predisposing societies or individuals to violence. I will briefly summarize those most relevant to individuals.

The potentially antisocial person

Self-concept and world view. A poor or shaky self-image, easily threatened, and a tendency to see the world, other people, or institutions as hostile may cause a constant need for self-defense and elevation of the self. People with such characteristics may be especially sensitive to life problems. A low level of well-being and much frustration and pain – a negative hedonic balance – heighten the desire to enhance the self.¹⁰ Diminishing others raises at least one’s relative well-being.

Moral values and empathy. A person’s values determine his or her orientation to others’ welfare. In extreme cases, harming others can become a value in itself. We can call this an antisocial value orientation, the devaluation of human beings and the desire to harm them, whether conscious or unconscious. It makes empathy with victims unlikely.

Moral exclusion. People who devalue other groups will tend to regard moral values as inapplicable to them and exclude their members from the moral realm. An important characteristic of Christians who risked their lives in Nazi-occupied Europe to save Jews was their inclusiveness: “a predisposition to regard all people as equals and to apply similar standards of right and wrong to them.”¹¹

Competence and a cognitive orientation to aggression. Some people learn strategies of resolving conflict by aggressive means. Research indicates that aggressive behaviors persist from childhood (as early as age eight) into adulthood. Some researchers believe that aggression becomes self-perpetuating because children learn aggressive “scripts” or cognitive schemas, representations of reality that serve as blueprints for aggressive behavior.¹² Fantasies may also fuel aggression.^a

People with this constellation of characteristics may be called potentially antisocial. These characteristics can give rise to the motivation to harm or reduce inhibitions against aggression whatever motive it serves, and provide the competencies required for aggression. Aggression becomes a possible avenue to satisfy varied motivations, even a desire for stimulation and excitement.¹⁴

Lack of self-awareness and self-acceptance. This is part of both the potentially antisocial and the authority-oriented patterns. One effect is difficulty in accepting other people.

Often lack of self-awareness serves a positive self-concept, maintained by rigid defenses, especially denial and projection. Scott Peck regards as “evil” people who must find themselves faultless and blameless and must appear so in others’ eyes, but who have an “unacknowledged sense of their own evil nature.”¹⁵ As a result they “attack others instead of facing their own failures.”¹⁶ I noted in Chapter 3 another reason for scapegoating: the illusion of understanding and control that arises from identifying the cause of one’s problem.

Most of us have some difficulty in recognizing and confronting our faults and failures. Greater difficulty contributes more to an antisocial potential, especially under hardship and stress. A person whom Peck regards as evil – someone who in our schema has one strong predisposing characteristic for harming others – may behave in beneficial and helpful ways in ordinary times, as a responsible member of the community, for example, in civic organizations. But when circumstances are complex and threatening and guidance by social rules is unavailable, people who must remain blameless will blame others. When group norms allow violence and even make it socially respectable, such people are likely to engage in conduct that harms others.

Family origins of the potentially antisocial personality

Research identifies certain parental socialization practices related to aggression. Punitiveness (especially frequent physical punishment), rejection of the child, hostility between parents and children (especially boys and their fathers), and violence in the home contribute to boys’ aggressiveness.¹⁷ Family disorgaization, the loss of structure and rules, or a coercive, aggressive family system are additional contributors.¹⁸ In a coercive family the child is both the object of hostility and is hostile and aggressive toward others.

These conditions make a child feel hurt and angry, vulnerable and worthless. The home provides a blueprint for human relationships. The child may begin to regard people in general as hostile and dangerous, and view aggression as the best, if not the only, mode of conflict resolution. The child’s capacity to fulfill goals by nonaggressive means, and even the development