What is evil? Can an action be evil? Can a person be evil? How do we define evil? Why do we define it so differently? In several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, and most topically at the moment Brunei, homosexuality is viewed as such an evil act that it is punishable by death. Yet, here in the (for the most part) more secular, more liberal, and more enlightened west we consider the execution of homosexuals to be evil.
We can't all be right. But could we all be wrong? That's a pretty extreme example to kick off with but in Dr Julia Shaw's very professional, very funny (there really was way more laughter than I had expected), and thoroughly thought provoking talk at Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub last night we got a crash course in how evil does exist - but only in our minds. It was an exceptionally wonderful evening.
A tasty plate of pie'n'mash in Goddards, a beautiful riverside walk in the light spring air, and a pint of ice cold lemonade would be, you may think, an unlikely preamble for an evening in which I'd be plunged into some of the darker corners of the human psyche. But that was not how it panned out at all.
Dr Julia Shaw, still in her early thirties (what have I done with my life?), was an enthusiastic, learned, and accomplished public speaker who wasn't remotely phased by woofing interjections by Dougal the dog (joking Dougal wanted her to hurry up and cover the bit about zoophilia) and managed to hold the crowd entranced for well over an hour and then pretty much the same again during a fascinating Q&A that took in subjects as diverse as Peter Sutcliffe, power games, insanity, hallucinations, the 'outsourcing of morality', tolerance of intolerance, 'cute aggression', British Transport Police's 'See It Say It Sorted' campaign, and our old friend God.
Dr Shaw is a forensic psychologist by training and an expert on false memories. Her first book, The Memory Illusion:Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory came out in 2016 and it was followed, last year, by Making evil:The science behind humanity's dark side which was also the title of her Greenwich Skeptics talk. One she introduced by telling us that we are ALL terrible people and that we should all leave the pub full of self-doubt and suffering existential crises.
Before launching into some graphics of people pissing on gravestones and carrying out various other taboo acts. In 1881, Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that "thinking evil is making evil" and Dr Shaw's talk was, in essence, a captivating, all-embracing riff on that maxim that both explained it and expanded upon it.
Just like those dreadful bastards (in my opinion) that execute gay people and their views of homosexuality, it seems that anything you may think is evil, someone else will say it's not. Some say LGBTQ+ lifestyles are evil, some say 'living in sin' is evil, some people say being sexually attracted to children (even though you don't choose to be and even if you don't act on it) is evil and, of course, to most of us, that last example sounds a bit dodgy. As if I'm giving moral equivalence to paedophilia and homosexuality - which I am unequivocally not doing. Stay with me. It'll start to make sense.
We all put up walls. Some of us put up (or try to put up) physical ones, some of us put up psychological ones. We put up walls to distance ourselves from those we may consider harmful. Or evil. Then, once those walls are erected we begin to lose empathy with those on the other side. We begin to 'other' them. Quite likely, this way of arranging our lives was beneficial in ancient tribal days when strangers were often a genuine threat but now the world has changed and much of our thinking hasn't evolved to keep pace with it. These walls, this process of othering has become dangerous and it explains (to a degree at least), but absolutely does not excuse, why racism and xenophobia still exist.
'Evil' is almost always something other people are. When we err it's because we're weak. Or we're righteous. Or we're self-justified. But, if we're honest with ourselves, we all commit acts that have incredibly harmful consequences on a daily basis.
If we buy cheap clothes we're harming real human beings who work in sweat shops making them. We all do untold environmental damage if we travel in cars, buses, or aeroplanes. Those who eat meat are not just having animals killed to serve their desires but they're instrumental in the destruction of the planet. I don't eat meat but I do eat cheese and drink milk. I'm slowly coming to realise it's just as bad and that if we don't all change to a vegan diet soon there will be no planet left for us to kill cows and pigs on.
We'll all try and justify why we need cars, why we eat meat, why we drink milk, why we buy cheap clothes and many of these justifications will be valid but, essentially, our morality is always one step behind our desire, trying to sweep up the mess it's made, and it's our desire that seems to dictate most of our behaviour rather than our morality.
This doesn't mean we're evil. It just shows how easy it is to justify things that, deep down, we suspect (or even know) are amoral. When this moves into areas that are deemed transgressive (and these differ wildly according to one's society) it's not long before the E word starts to appear. In Yemen and Saudi Arabia, gay sex = amoral = evil. In the West, execution for gay sex = amoral = evil. It's not such a big jump (and if you believe in some kind of God you can turn that little jump into a huge leap of faith.
I'm making the evening sound much more serious than it was. There was lots of voting (and, fortunately, not of the indicative nature - credit to host Chris French for a topical and tittersome interjection there) and we even got to play a little game of Choose Your Own Adventure. So good at this public talking malarkey is Dr Julia Shaw that she'd prepared several different talks and a straw poll would dictate the way forward.
She'd even mocked them up like dinner party menus so for starters we got to choose one of two hors d'oeuvres:-
MURDER FANTASIES
CREEPINESS
A close call but creepiness won out. It's a bit of an odd concept if you give it any serious thought. Movies have certainly played their part in building up our idea of who or what is creepy or not. Quite often the bad guy (and it usually is a guy) is signposted pretty early on.
But we've all been in a pub when we've been approached by someone who seems a bit 'creepy'. Studies have suggested things that people deem creepy are long fingers, standing too close (invasion of personal space), constantly steering the conversation to one topic, and poor hygiene. Though, I'd contest that people who are overly concerned about hygiene (Donald Trump claims to be a 'germophobe') can be pretty creepy too!
Of course, these traits could describe creepy folk. But they could, equally, describe gauche or socially awkward people. Or people with mental health issues. Our creepiness radars lead us astray and, even worse, they pick up, as ever, on 'otherness'. Most people like to claim they're good judges of character but tests have shown, again and again, that that just isn't the case. One test showed participants photographs of Nobel Laureates mixed in with photographs of America's Most Wanted criminals and asked to identify who was who. The hit rate was 51%. Random guessing would have polled almost exactly the same.
Palates sated, it was time for the main course and on the menu last night were three options:-
TABOO TRADE OFFS
BDSM
PSYCHOPATHS
Taboo trade offs were traded off pretty quickly as BDSM and psychopathy came equal top (you're getting the measure of a Skeptics crowd). Dr Shaw pulled rank and told us about psychopaths.
Most psychopaths aren't murderers and most murderers aren't psychopaths. Psychopathy is mostly defined by a diminished capacity for empathy. It's easier to hurt people because you don't feel bad about doing so. This doesn't lead to psychopaths becoming sadists (because to enjoy hurting people you have to be aware they're hurting) but it does mean that many psychopaths are very successful financially.
It's a treatable condition (though it's debatable that people who are both rich and lacking in empathy would have any reason to want to be treated) though there is a misconception it's not and a further misconception that treatment can actually make it worse as it may teach its 'sufferers' how to fake empathy and become even more exploitative of those around them.
Dr Marsh had not only provided a huge sweet menu for us but she even let us have a small spoonful of her main course - BDSM! Sadly, we couldn't get too deeply into this but the basic gist was that more than 50% are aroused by behaviour that is considered sexually 'deviant'. Putting us in a position (yeah, a position) where deviancy is normality and normality is deviant.
Apparently, lots of us are into kinky stuff. No shit. What's for dessert?
MURDERESS
ZOOPHILIA
NARCISSISM
TROLLS
BABY HITLER
Choices! Choices! Narcissism just edged the trolls out (though I'd contend there's certainly some crossover between those two categories). Are Instagram and Twitter making us more narcissistic? It certainly seems that way to some.
Dr Shaw's contention was that there are two forms of narcissism. A toxic variety and a more wholesome version. Toxic narcissism springs from an inferiority complex and tends to involve people curating a cherry-picked (or wholly untrue) image of their lives for social media. The less harmful form of narcissism (the one I partake in, natch) is where you just accept yourself for who you are and, without pitting yourself against others, simply share links (or, cough, blogs) about things you genuinely like. It's useful to like yourself at least a bit as you have to spend a very long time in your own company.
Sometimes, from a distance, these two things can appear the same. So we get confused and accuse people of 'virtue signalling' or 'over-sharing'. The more we accuse people of things like this, the more we ourselves become trolls. Only (only? maybe this is quite a high percentage) 2-6% of online trolls identify, often proudly, as trolls but many more of us (hands up from me, I'm afraid) have indulged in at least some mild trolling.
Trolling, or any form of negative online behaviour, diminishes others, it builds those walls, it creates those 'others'. It's easier to do online because the people you are abusing aren't there with you. You can withdraw empathy from a position of relative safety. It seems likely laws will be changed to deal with this before long. Dr Shaw cited a statistic that, at the moment, more than half of all crimes are committed online.
I can't verify that (and these blogs are as much report on the evening as my own take on it) but when you think of extreme examples of trolling like malware attacks on the NHS you will surely concede that lives can be lost because of this behaviour. So how do we stop it?
Two ideas were proposed. (1) With each post we make imagine the recipient sitting next to you. Don't write things online you wouldn't say to people's faces. (2) Remember the internet never forgets. You may delete you comments or hot takes. Others may not. These things can be used against you in court so don't ever post anything online you wouldn't want read out loud in a court room.
All of this may seem to stray away from the concept of what is evil but the point that underpinned it all is that evil is what we deem to be evil. Be it malware attacks on the NHS, sexual deviance of any kind, murder, torture, or withholding emotional support from people who need it. Some of these things are demonstrably bad and have terrible consequences and some of these things are demonstrably fun and hurt nobody whatsoever except those who have decided, often through reading a 'holy book' written thousands of years ago, that they are evil.
If you make somebody evil that's your problem, not theirs. If they're performing a sexual act you don't approve of, ignore it. If they're performing a sex act on children or animals (or murdering and torturing) then put them in prison and/or treat their personality disorder as it is genuinely harmful to others. Just saying there is evil out there and there's nothing we can do about is accepting evil and, in an odd way, if anything IS evil it's probably that.
Dr Shaw's contention was that there are two forms of narcissism. A toxic variety and a more wholesome version. Toxic narcissism springs from an inferiority complex and tends to involve people curating a cherry-picked (or wholly untrue) image of their lives for social media. The less harmful form of narcissism (the one I partake in, natch) is where you just accept yourself for who you are and, without pitting yourself against others, simply share links (or, cough, blogs) about things you genuinely like. It's useful to like yourself at least a bit as you have to spend a very long time in your own company.
Sometimes, from a distance, these two things can appear the same. So we get confused and accuse people of 'virtue signalling' or 'over-sharing'. The more we accuse people of things like this, the more we ourselves become trolls. Only (only? maybe this is quite a high percentage) 2-6% of online trolls identify, often proudly, as trolls but many more of us (hands up from me, I'm afraid) have indulged in at least some mild trolling.
Trolling, or any form of negative online behaviour, diminishes others, it builds those walls, it creates those 'others'. It's easier to do online because the people you are abusing aren't there with you. You can withdraw empathy from a position of relative safety. It seems likely laws will be changed to deal with this before long. Dr Shaw cited a statistic that, at the moment, more than half of all crimes are committed online.
I can't verify that (and these blogs are as much report on the evening as my own take on it) but when you think of extreme examples of trolling like malware attacks on the NHS you will surely concede that lives can be lost because of this behaviour. So how do we stop it?
Two ideas were proposed. (1) With each post we make imagine the recipient sitting next to you. Don't write things online you wouldn't say to people's faces. (2) Remember the internet never forgets. You may delete you comments or hot takes. Others may not. These things can be used against you in court so don't ever post anything online you wouldn't want read out loud in a court room.
All of this may seem to stray away from the concept of what is evil but the point that underpinned it all is that evil is what we deem to be evil. Be it malware attacks on the NHS, sexual deviance of any kind, murder, torture, or withholding emotional support from people who need it. Some of these things are demonstrably bad and have terrible consequences and some of these things are demonstrably fun and hurt nobody whatsoever except those who have decided, often through reading a 'holy book' written thousands of years ago, that they are evil.
If you make somebody evil that's your problem, not theirs. If they're performing a sexual act you don't approve of, ignore it. If they're performing a sex act on children or animals (or murdering and torturing) then put them in prison and/or treat their personality disorder as it is genuinely harmful to others. Just saying there is evil out there and there's nothing we can do about is accepting evil and, in an odd way, if anything IS evil it's probably that.
There was a lot more to the talk than I've been able to share here (and Dr Shaw threaded it all together in a way I have proved quite incapable of). There's also a lot more in the book so, really, if you're interested in the subject I totally recommend you buy yourself a copy.
Thanks to Dr Julia Shaw and thanks, again, to Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub. These events always prove to be a tonic and this was one of the best I'd ever attended - at a time when I needed it most. They are, and we all are, beyond good and evil.
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