Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty

This remarkable book begins to give us a firm basis for hope, because it provides a deep and accurate understanding of evil. This well researched and well written book examines and discredits the "myth of pure evil", and instead rigorously examines the point of view of real perpetrators to understand the true causes of evil. After adopting the simple definition of "intentional harm to other people", the author identifies the four roots of evil as greed, egotism, idealism, and sadism, and explores each of these in depth. He dispels the popular misunderstanding that low self-esteem is a major contributor to violent behavior. Instead his careful analysis establishes that people who have high self-esteem, but lack a firm basis for that belief, are especially prone to be violent. He describes how an ordinary person crosses the line into evil, how evil spreads, and how perpetrators deal with guilt. After examining the provocative question of "why is there not more evil" he describes the central role of self-control in preventing evil. He also describes how typical bystanders often unwittingly contribute to evil acts. Central to the analysis is the principle he calls the "magnitude gap." This describes the discrepancy between the importance of an evil act to the perpetrator and the victim. This magnitude gap accounts for the rapid escalation of violence that is so typical in retaliation. The response chosen to avenge each provocation is amplified at each round to account for the victim's point of view. Because lasting peace will come only from a profound understanding of violence, the analysis and insight this book provides is an important contribution toward a more peaceful world.

I have taught a course on violence and culture for a few years, and the last few times I have taught it, I have included this book as a required reading. It is smart, organized, and engaging. Students really enjoy it for its analytical clarity and its rich descriptions. It is an important read for anyone interested in the human roots of violence. As he points out, the "myth of pure evil" asserts that "evil" is a force or entity apart from us, rather than behavior that we engage in. WE are always good and innocent, but THEY are always evil and solely responsible for the bad in our life. That is just silly. Baumeister's analyses of the group effect, the root causes of violence (we should stop using the term "evil" altogether, since one person's evil is another person's noble truth), the escalating factors, and more are valuable to anyone who is seriously interested in why we normal regular humans perform violence sometimes and even feel good about it...or feel nothing at all. I integrated insights from this book, as well as many other sources, including Zimbardo's work, Kreisberg's work, and many cross-cultural studies into my own recent book, "Violence and Culture" (Wadsworth 2005). If we want to do anything about violence, we must understand it realistically, not just attribute it to some irrational, foreign, and sadistic force or being that could never just be us. As Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments illustrated, it could be and has been us.

In the course of reviewing over 20 books on the topic of human violence and mass murder, I found this to be far and away the best. Some obviously have problems with the author's attempts to understand and not just demonize killers. I can think of no other way of getting into the heads of those who commit violence in the name of a state, an ideology, an ethnic group, a religion or indeed any other belief system. Confronting the "banality of evil" is indeed an unpleasant exercise, but necessary if we are ever to achieve a deeper understanding of our greatest failing as a species. To summarize, this work is probably the best research-based study of the psychology of human mass violence currently on the market.

This is the book for anyone who has ever been the victim of a crime and wishes to understand how or why it happened, or whose profession requires frequent contact with perpetrators of evil and who needs to understand the thinking process of such people. I have read several other books on the subject, mostly approaching it from the perspectives of literature, religion or mythology, but these works tend to provide unsatisfying answers to the basic questions of what inspires evil and what causes it to spread. Dr. Baumeister's work answers both of these questions convincingly, along with many others, such as why evil people almost never consider themselves to be evil; why there is not more evil in the world, considering how often evil goes unpunished; why revenge is usually disproportionate to the initial offense and why it settles nothing and often inspires further and greater evil; why drugs and alcohol so often accompany evil and whether they are actually a cause of evil; whether low self-esteem or high self-esteem is more conducive to evil, and the role which self-esteem, and challenges to self-esteem, play in the initiation of evil; and how the perpetrators of evil manage to live with themselves. This is not only the best book I have ever read on the subject; it is the only one I have read which approaches the problem from the standpoint of empirical research rather than mere ideology. It is also extremely well written, accessible to the general reader and generously illustrated with examples from history and current events.

"Evil", in the strict sense of the word, might best have been left out of the title of this book. Baumeister does an excellent job of explaining the inner workings of the human psyche as it pertains to cruelty and violence. These actions are deeply or thinly veiled in all humans and held in check by the strength of ones self control and/or morality. A small step at a time could lead any human to acts of cruelty or violence, scarcely noticing the descending path one has taken. I wouldn't say that this book is light reading and it is sometimes disturbing, but it is well worth the effort for anyone who seeks insight into the darker sides of humanity. Beware, you might recognise some small part of yourself within these pages.I am a subscriber of Scientific American and was referred to this book by their recommendation.