Dark Side: Thinking Evil, Doing Evil

 



Most of us live between the extremes of serial killer and saint. We all participate in what I call the evils of everyday life; feeling our lives and needs to be the most important of all. In our cravings and strivings to accomplish our personal goals, we inevitably bump up against others who are similarly striving, and we may intentionally or unintentionally harm them. What can we do to turn around our natural self-centeredness? To defeat envy, for instance, we can work at identifying and empathizing with the good fortune of others. The scenario that envy usually follows is this: You have something that I want but do not have. I feel resentfully deficient and angry. I must destroy what you have (or you). But empathic identification with the good fortune of others allows us to put ourselves in their shoes so that we share in their happiness. This is healthy self-centeredness. We more or less healthy people can do this; serial sexual killers cannot.

 

 

We must no longer permit ourselves to doubt that “bad men” do what “good men” dream. All men and women struggle with their dark sides, but that is not reason to despair. One of humanity’s greatest achievements is the ability to turn the mind on itself to achieve insight and growth. If we can acknowledge and channel our demons, we are able to harness a powerful force.

 

The serial killer is incapable of transforming the basic drives that we all have into higher, life-affirming attitudes and behaviors. Theirs are failures of sublimation. Their pathological self-centeredness is in large measure the consequence of unsocialized, unchanneled sexual and aggressive impulses. Against the primitive drives that constantly demand self-gratification, the conscience of the serial killer is no match. Driven to gratify his deadly desires, the serial sexual killer has no joy in his life, only a transitory sexual release at the death of a victim, a release that soon requires the torture and death of a new victim. Instead of engaging in passionate relationships and work interests, as mentally healthy people do, this killer pursues the domination and submission of others. Instead of having the commitment to life goals and progress that characterize mentally healthy people, the serial killer is doomed to repeat a never-ending cycle of compulsion, death, and more compulsion.

 

Most people are able to curb or modify feral instincts, often with the help of knowing that a policeman stands on the corner. An enormous difference exists between thinking evil and doing evil, and although some religions do not accept this distinction, the law does.

 

Acknowledgements:

The Police Department; 

www.politie.nl and a Chief Inspector – Mr. Henk van Essen©

www.aivd.nl      AIVD – Mr. Erik Akerboom ©

 

 

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