Thomas Ramey Watson

Lure of the Dark Side

Power is the central attraction of the Dark Side. People enjoy the power of controlling other people, and many times power that can be used for “good” is used instead to commit unethical and immoral acts.

Most people who are evil feel that they

are above the law, that they are exempt from mainstream societal mores and morals. Their sense of entitlement gives them a sense

of superiority.

IS EVIL BANAL?

Hannah Arendt, a philosopher who fled the Nazis, decided during the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, that evil was banal — ordinary and humdrum because she thought Eichmann was banal.

She was wrong.

Evil is never banal; the evildoer may sometimes be banal, if he is the one who is simply following orders.


*****

In many cases the evil doer is a sociopath obsessed with the uses of power.

But evil acts are not confined to sociopaths.

All of us — under the wrong circumstances — have the capacity to do evil if we make the wrong choices.


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