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Contemporary Westerners constantly underestimate a human's ability to commit unthinkable atrocities under the right conditions. I don't know if it's our educati

Contemporary Westerners constantly underestimate a human's ability to commit unthinkable atrocities under the right conditions. I don't know if it's our education's fault. Maybe we just don't bother to ever emphasize this point. Maybe it's too uncomfortable of a subject to deal with. This last century has presented a rich buffet of historical options to choose from when looking for examples of ideologies that allowed otherwise perfectly normal, God-fearing, salt of the earth folk to turn into horror-machines of rape, mutilation and slaughter. Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, you name it. Maybe even a relative or a next door neighbor in our very own US of A, sent to the wrong Vietnamese village at the wrong time. That seed of pure horror is in all of us, and it's ready to rear its ugly head when the conditions are right. I don't think as a species we've quite figured out how to suppress it.

roadnottaken 8y ago
Pinker’s “Better Angels of our Nature” is a masterwork on the subject. It’s also a terrific read and will change your view of history and make you happy to be alive in the present! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nat...
- BadassFractal 8y ago
  I've been meaning to read it, however the criticism from historians about it has made me somewhat uncomfortable about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... Is there anything conclusive about how cherry-picked the numbers in the book are?
trhway 8y ago
>This last century ... example of ideologies that allowed otherwise perfectly normal, God-fearing, salt of the earth folk to turn into horror-machines of rape, mutilation and slaughter. well, just off the top of the head - today we have Yemen, Rahingya, Syria - the places where large number of innocent people/civilians suffer and die as direct result of other, reasonably normal, people just doing their job of inflicting that suffering and death in the name of the cause that is presented as a pretty good cause in all these cases - fighting terrorism.
joneston 8y ago
I think it has something to do with the classification of malignant pathological behavior as “illness” or “disease” which innures people to certain mindsets. The idea that behavioral qualities can be represented as either “sick” or “healthy” provides for belief that individuals who commit atrocities might be identified by externalized qualities. So we say: Mental Illness, but to ascribe that label is to claim that there is a recognizable state required, with externally verifiable traits exhibited, before a terrible act may be performed, and that really isn’t the case at all. People really want to apply the full weight of psychological diagnostics to every misbehavior and deviation from healthy, wherever such misbehavior is willful, and that’s simply an incorrect notion. A person might get up one day, having never abused an animal, and suddenly decide today’s the day that a bad thing happens, and then never repeat that episode. So, how do we rationalize the universe, if such a thing is possible? Well... as unpleasant as it may be, we find that the universe is quite happily irrational, and so too, human behavior.

roadnottaken 8y ago

Pinker’s “Better Angels of our Nature” is a masterwork on the subject. It’s also a terrific read and will change your view of history and make you happy to be alive in the present! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nat...

BadassFractal 8y ago
I've been meaning to read it, however the criticism from historians about it has made me somewhat uncomfortable about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur... Is there anything conclusive about how cherry-picked the numbers in the book are?

trhway 8y ago

>This last century ... example of ideologies that allowed otherwise perfectly normal, God-fearing, salt of the earth folk to turn into horror-machines of rape, mutilation and slaughter. well, just off the top of the head - today we have Yemen, Rahingya, Syria - the places where large number of innocent people/civilians suffer and die as direct result of other, reasonably normal, people just doing their job of inflicting that suffering and death in the name of the cause that is presented as a pretty good cause in all these cases - fighting terrorism.

joneston 8y ago

I think it has something to do with the classification of malignant pathological behavior as “illness” or “disease” which innures people to certain mindsets. The idea that behavioral qualities can be represented as either “sick” or “healthy” provides for belief that individuals who commit atrocities might be identified by externalized qualities. So we say: Mental Illness, but to ascribe that label is to claim that there is a recognizable state required, with externally verifiable traits exhibited, before a terrible act may be performed, and that really isn’t the case at all. People really want to apply the full weight of psychological diagnostics to every misbehavior and deviation from healthy, wherever such misbehavior is willful, and that’s simply an incorrect notion. A person might get up one day, having never abused an animal, and suddenly decide today’s the day that a bad thing happens, and then never repeat that episode. So, how do we rationalize the universe, if such a thing is possible? Well... as unpleasant as it may be, we find that the universe is quite happily irrational, and so too, human behavior.