Human Evil - Hate or Understand it?
‘Evil’ is spelled ‘live’ backward because evil is, indeed, against life itself.
One of the ugliest things I have ever seen was the sight of a man without a heart crying. I have never met anybody else I would describe as pure evil except for this man. Maybe it was his first time crying, and the antagonist and protagonist muscles in his face did not know when to relax and when to contract, making his face look like someone trying to squeeze tears out of a wrestler's knee. Now, after some years, stories, and books, I understand why an action as simple as crying is so hard for evil people; it doesn’t fit their self-image of ‘never coming across as weak or imperfect.’ I now know more about what drives the energy behind ‘evil’ and what paralyzes its human host from taking any healing actions: fear. A deep-rooted fear of having its perfect self-image destroyed. While this knowledge may not be healing for the narcissist themselves, I wish I had this understanding for the sake of my many clients who have stood in the path of its destruction and its wake of consequences.
A few months ago, during my travels in India, I stayed in a cute little guest house in a cute little village run by a cute little Indian lady, as wide as she was tall. To reach the rooftop terrace, I had to climb four flights of stairs, each step filled with books, so I started calling it the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ because if there is a heaven, I hope it will be filled with books. During one of my climbs to heaven, my eyes fell on a book halfway up the fourth floor titled ‘People of the Lie - The Hope for Healing Human Evil’ by M. Scott Peck, an American psychiatrist and author best known for his book ‘The Road Less Traveled.’ His approach combined psychiatric insight with spiritual wisdom, encouraging readers to confront life’s difficulties with discipline and grace. He writes:
‘The most dangerous lie is not the lie to deceive others but the lie which deceives themselves.’
A significant part of Scott's book, "People of the Lie," consists of case studies of former clients. He encountered narcissists in the flesh only a few times in his clinic, but it was always as the parents of a patient, never as patients themselves. In one case, it was two narcissists—the parents of a boy named Bobby who was labeled as "troubled." The reality was that Bobby had been severely affected by his parents' evil behavior and now "threatened" the self-image of their perfect and flawless world. As a Christmas gift, they gave Bobby the very same rifle his older brother had used to shoot himself because they couldn't afford anything else. They didn't want people to think they wouldn't give their only son anything for Christmas. The parents in this case could not understand the issue of giving the suicide weapon to their younger son. Scott writes:
"Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are increasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity. They worry about this a great deal. They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them. Like Bobby’s parents, they dress well, go to work on time, pay their taxes, and outwardly seem to live lives that are above reproach. The words ‘image,’ ‘appearance,’ and ‘outwardly’ are crucial to understanding the morality of the evil. While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their goodness is all on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie. This is why they are the ‘people of the lie.’"
All of us have a little bit of ‘evil’ in us and hopefully a lot more ‘good,’ and anybody who would say they do not have any evil in them would highly likely be a person with undiagnosed narcissism. Because a narcissist is exactly those two things: 1. undiagnosed, as they would be the last person to ever seek help because 2. they are, in their world, absolutely perfect without flaw, and anybody who would ever imply to prove the opposite they would, using evil, destroy this person. And ‘this person’ has many times ended up on my table in complete and utter despair because, of all the things they have been traumatized with by an evil person, there is one thing in particular which causes the most suffering: lack of understanding. How can a person be this evil? Does the person know how evil they are? How can some people do such evil deeds? And for the religious: how can God permit such hateful, evil actions?
These are complex, bleeding, brutal questions, and answering them is neither the purpose of this blog post nor within my capacity to do so. However, having had my fair share of evil in my own life and having been privileged to be trusted with the stories of my clients, the subject of ‘evil’ lies very close to my heart. I believe that to ‘conquer’ evil, we have to keep it close to our hearts because we can choose to hate evil, or we can try to shed light on its darkness and understand it. Just like a plant usually has more than one root, evil has more than one cause.
“The evil hate the light – the light of goodness that shows them up, the light of scrutiny that exposes them, the light of truth that penetrates their deception. Psychotherapy is a light-shredding process par excellence. ”
There is one question and one phrase I tend to come back to when working with loved ones of an evil person: ‘Do you want to forgive?’ and ‘Maybe some things are unforgivable.’ Many books, teachings, and scholars swear by forgiveness. I have met many healers who believe we cannot heal if we don’t forgive. From the knowledge I have today, I say that some things are unforgivable and, more importantly, it is in the client’s free will to decide if forgiveness is the appropriate approach—for some, it was, and for many, it wasn’t. Some of my most memorable sessions have ended up evolving around letting go of the pressure of having to ‘forgive the person’ who hurt them in unspeakable ways and instead accepting what happened, let go as much as possible and move on. Some clients did not know ‘not forgiving’ was even an option, and finally, with the permission not to forgive, they could move on with their lives.
In conclusion, Scott believes we can only study and ‘treat’ evil through the methods of love. Even though evil is ‘antilife’, it is itself a form of life - we cannot conquer evil by destroying it or hating it. Can it be that in the struggle between good and evil, life finds its meaning and gives birth to one of the most profound emotions: hope. Hope that good will succeed. Or, as my mentor in writing once told me, ‘anything which in the heart is in conflict with itself about is worth writing about.’ If I look carefully, I can see beauty in evil, in the undeniable strength gained from the courage of facing any darkness entering our lives. Or, as Scott writes so precisely and clearly at the very end of his book:
"Evil can be conquered only by love."