Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side

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This book has definitely started some interesting discussions in our household....my husband and I are still debating what we think about the nature of evil and what situations might lead us to make an "evil'' choice. We had a long discussion this morning about how we perceive those who commit evil acts...do we see them as a person who committed an evil act...or do we judge them as an intrinsically evil person. Are there levels of evil? Are there really "evil'' people...and can "evil'' people have portions of themselves that are good? I think this book is going to be spurring debate in my household for some time to come. Healthy debate is a good thing!

First, I’d like to start by saying that as a fan of true crime, sinister stories, and exploring the “dark side”, I waited anxiously for this book to hit the shelves. Yes. The consequences of this are extremely serious. When one person is violent to another this sometimes leads to what the victim sees as a justifiable and proportionate retaliation; but in the eyes of the person whom he takes action against, that retaliation is going too far, and so it provokes an even greater counter-reaction. And so on. If Baumeister is right, the escalation of violence in these sorts of circumstances is inevitable since the recipient always sees the violence against him as worse than anything he had previously done. Sophie and Agatha have been kidnapped, but they know exactly where they are being sent, to The School for Good and Evil. In this place, they will become either a hero or a villain. Everybody thinks that Sophie will choose the light side, while Agatha will have a preference for the latter, however, this story has many twists as it has magic… In The Ultimate Evil we find a lot of such descriptions. But not only that, we find – if we do choose to believe in it – a whole theory about serial killers. Maury Terry, journalist, wrote this book originally in 1987 but it’s reprinted now with an introduction from Joshua Zeman. Joshua Zeman is a producer and director with several titles on his name that deal with urban legends and conspiracies. He calls The Ultimate Evil one of the most terrifying books he’s ever read. We make evil when we label something so. Evil exists as a word, as a subjective concept. But I firmly believe there is no person, no group, no behaviour, no thing that is objectively evil. Perhaps evil only really exists in our fears.

Now that we told you the order for the Good and Evil books, don’t miss these series

Agreed! This is a very timely book in the light of the current ‘Me Too’ movement. She describes sexual harassment and sexual assault, and she has a moving chapter on strangulation. She spends a lot of time on the case of Eliot Rogers, this man who felt he was always rejected by women, and then went on a shooting spree, killing many people, and finally killing himself. She describes these cases in some depth, and provides a really interesting analysis. I see this analysis as the mirror image of David Livingstone Smith’s, although they could both be right for different cases. The late Iain Banks, pictured in 2013. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian The authors you suggested most often were John Fowles, Iain Banks and Stephen King Your first book is a very famous one, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. As a journalist for the New Yorker, Arendt went to report on the trial of the notorious Nazi responsible for organising the trains that took people to their deaths at Auschwitz. The book was first published as essays in the New Yorker in 1963. On murder, Shaw sees no evil: a person who has killed once in the heat of the moment doesn't deserve to be labelled a murderer; even Jeffrey Dahmer was apparently just lonely. I hadn’t read Eichmann in Jerusalem until very recently. Obviously, I’d heard about it. I knew the gist of it. But it’s only recently that I’ve come to see what all the fuss is about.

You’ve had to choose five books and we’ve gone down quite a dark road. I know you want to end by mentioning a few books that take a more optimistic line. With her heart sworn to the warrior-prince by her side, and her fealty pledged to the people she is determined to save, Aelin will delve into the depths of her power to protect those she loves. But as monsters emerge from the horrors of the past, and dark forces become poised to claim her world, the only chance for salvation will lie in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear.Cinderella and Snow White have studied in this peculiar institution. But also have the most despicable villains, which side will these two girls choose? The fact that Terry gets more traction from the letters, articles, and other highlighted books that Berkowitz mails around the country to various DAs is a bit naive. I mean, letter writing and strange mail was one of Berkowitz's Son Of Sam calling cards. The fact he continued after arrest seems to prove his culpability more than anything else. Furthermore, the sending of articles and other texts to law enforcement continued to support Berkowitz's paranoid delusions, showing others all the evidence that connects the scrambled world view of his mind. I read American Psycho all the way through but nearly fainted reading one of the scenes. I did get rid of it … thought of burning it but imagined a vision of some kind of devil in the flames, so consigned to a cardboard box and then the dump.” tribord