Does evil actually exist?
Can we really truly say that a person, or thing, or idea is “Evil?”
Please take 10 seconds to think about that. Are paedophiles evil? Was Hitler / Stalin / Mao / Pol Pot evil? What about ideas? Can a concept like communism / fascism be called evil?
One thing that’s immediately clear is that the meaning of the word evil is relative. Perhaps Hitler called Stalin evil, and vice versa.
A new psychology book (published June 2011) argues that evil doesn’t exist. Rather it is a symptom of a deeper problem, ultimately caused by trauma.
Today I’m going to explain this psychological theory about evil in more detail. But first I want to make some more general comments about good and evil, and about the relationship between symptoms and trauma.
This will help you to understand how RPT works and how you can easily and safely heal yourself.
The nature of Duality
The distinction between good and evil is an example of duality. Duality basically means splitting things into two. Usually, at least in philosophical conversations, the two parts are opposites: hot and cold; present or absent; or the classic: good and evil. This idea of duality is firmly enmeshed in human culture and thinking. I’ll spare you the history lesson, but I do recommend a quick Wikipedia read on Dualism and Good and Evil.
To me, the million dollar question is whether duality is a cause or a symptom of life’s problems?
A year or two ago I would have argued that duality was a cause. I even lectured that it was a core instinct or fundamental “tone” in the universe.
I’ve changed my mind. Mainly because the last year’s research has given me a much more complete understanding of instincts and the causes of human problems. I am much clearer now on what is or isn’t a cause of our problems. It turns out that most things we see and experience are just symptoms of much deeper instincts.
I would now say that all of duality – the human need to split things into pairs like good and evil – is just a symptom. There are deeper underlying problems that cause (a) the behaviour we call evil and (b) the need to classify things as good or evil.
In other words “evil” and “duality” are both invented concepts or labels – they don’t actually exist except as ideas in our human brain. Now just beause evil isn’t real doesn’t mean you can’t experience evil. Evil might be a good adjective for some types of behavior for instance. It just doesn’t exist as a force in the universe. For instance whilst I think that communism and fascism could be described as evil ideas, I don’t think that Stalin and Hitler were evil people. Very seriously damaged and dangerous people – yes. But “evil” is not a helpful way to describe them.
So what is evil if it doesn’t really exist?
Back to the book I mentioned. Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University¸ has just published The Science of Evil (USA), also known as Zero Degrees of Empathy (UK).
[If you recognize the name, Simon is a cousin of Sacha Baron-Cohen, famous for his characters Borat, Ali G, and Brüno. Interesting family in which to study psychology!]
Baron-Cohen grew up in a family of Jewish Holocaust survivors. For his family there was no question that evil exist, and no question about who was evil (the Nazis, or perhaps even the German people).
This explanation wasn’t good enough for Baron-Cohen.
He has developed a new theory that helps people to understand the phenomenon of evil behaviour, without having to believe in evil itself.
Why people do evil things?
According to Baron-Cohen, psychopathic behaviour such as that termed “evil” is a function of lack of empathy
Empathy is a whole spectrum of behaviour, hard to pin down. In really broad terms we might say that a person with empathy can share feelings with another person. People without empathy can be defined as a psychopath or sociopath (there is no real consensus on the difference between those 2 terms).
Baron-Cohen wants us to stop judging behaviour like “he did it because he was evil” and instead explain people’s behaviour according to individual differences in empathy.
This has several advantages. Firstly empathy is measurable in the scientific framework of psychology. You can measure how much empathy a person has and what factors influence this. It is relative, and it is measurable; whereas evil is absolute.
Another real benefit to talking about empathy disorders rather than evil is that you avoid the religious connotations of evil. Evil has no precise meaning, so our understanding of it is cultural. Christian evil can be quite different to Moslem evil or the concept of evil in say small pacific islands with isolated communities. In my country the islanders use the word “tabu” (taboo) to describe a whole range of evils and customary obligations which I would never think of. Avoiding evil (or tabu) and talking about one’s ability for empathy avoids all this cultural subjectivity.
So the next time you want to describe someone as evil, stop for a minute and ask yourself “what is that person’s capacity for empathy?” Does that person even have the biological ability to understand other people’s feelings?
I think this distinction has extraordinary implications for how to treat “evil” in society. It is much easier to use the religious line (even unconsciously and even by atheists) and to describe someone as evil. That removes the need to stop and think about what they have done and why they did it. If we drop “evil” and seriously examine people’s psychopathology, we have a much deeper understanding of people’s behaviour and how to help (or punish) them.
Removing duality from our lives
So evil doesn’t really exist, it’s just a symptom of psychopathology. But where does that leave the entire notion of good and evil?
Remember good and evil is like black and white – absolute. It’s “binary thinking.”
The thing is; the real world doesn’t work that way. Things are not black and white, just as things aren’t really good and evil. There’s always a spectrum.
What I love about Baron-Cohen’s work on empathy is that he gives us the spectrum. Evil has no spectrum but empathy does. We can measure and compare people’s ability for empathy. And the moment you can measure and compare something – it ceases to be duality.
In other words – and I hope you are still with me because this is important – duality is the symptom not the cause of our problems.
Duality (good/bad; right/wrong) is the easy label, the quick fix. It’s what we say when we haven’t dug deep enough to find the true cause.
And so, contrary to a statement I made nearly 2 years ago in a recorded demo, I do not believe the duality exists. I don’t think duality is a cause of our problems. And duality is not some universal tone or instinct that has to be healed.
So how DO we heal it?
If duality isn’t real, how do we heal the symptoms of duality (like evil) or the very need to create duality?
I’m glad you asked that question – this is where RPT comes into the picture. If you are reading my blog you probably already have a little knowledge about our main area of research – tools for instantly clearing trauma. That is my main focus – even though I like to blog about other subjects to keep things interesting.
All my research over the last few years has convinced me that trauma is the ultimate cause of our problems (and our strengths). In fact I can be more precise; it’s the way in which we respond to trauma that is the ultimate cause of who we are.
The way that RPT creates an instant healing result is to identify the way in which we responded to past trauma, because this determines how the trauma is attached to our sense of identity. It is usually not necessary to know or to heal the trauma itself – after all it’s just a story. What matters is the way in which we responded to the trauma. Unlocking that association is the secret to instant change in your life, your health, your relationships and so on.
Back to evil and duality: we now know that evil and duality are symptoms of psychopathology. And what causes someone to become a psychopath / sociopath? The answer is trauma. This can be active trauma such as sexual abuse, or sometimes a “passive trauma” like lack of love, attention or connectedness. If you clear the trauma the symptoms of the duality can disappear.
Of course in RPT we rarely deal with the extremes of the spectrum like psychopathology. 99% of our work is for ordinary people like you, who might occasionally feel stuck or just want more from their lives. Ordinary people get stuck in dualistic thinking – using labels like “good and evil” to explain or justify things. Where RPT can help ordinary people is in letting go of this thinking, in clearing the underlying trauma that locks us into this limitation in our consciousness.
[Note – I’m not suggesting that psychopaths can be easily treated with RPT. Yes we can clear their trauma, but a psychopath doesn’t want to change.]
Acknowledgments:
This article was inspired by an interview with Baron-Cohen in NewScientist magazine, 9 April 2011 (Australian edition).
Your comments/ questions
What are your thoughts? Do good and evil really exist? Are people evil or just damaged? Should the world evil be released from our cultural vocabularly?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Blessings
Simon
Shane Marsh 
Tom Jones 
George Duisman 
WendyB 
Tamara 
Therese Marie Duesund 
Merry Block 
Nena 
ericwt 
Liz Barnard 
Emcye 
Paul 
They actually have a process called Brain Light which restores the original radiating light of the 14 brains, removing the propensity for evil / anger. And they teach perception by which you can actually measure the degree of lightness or darkness of each brain. Now imagine that kind of process introduced in prisons and hospitals (post birth.) Got a new homework assignment for you Simon – how about applying RPT to peak states? I.e. removing obstacles to each state, and then … pop, you’re in it. I’ll sign up 
Orr 
Peter Baxter 
Interesting article. What you said resonates with me. Whilst I believe duality exists in nature (up/down, hot/cold etc.) and is fundamental to the physical universe, duality applied to morals and behaviour is more a matter of individual perception. Just take a look at the differences in the age of consent or rape laws around the world and you realise how arbitrary notions of correct moral behaviour are. Of course it’s a sliding scale – there are some truly heinous things that most humans would agree on as right or wrong but as you move up the scale the arbitrarian nature of morals begins to become more obvious. Having said that, there’s nothing inherent about nature that dictates what’s right or wrong. What humans consider to be murder and “wrong” is another species’ act of survival with no consequences.
I feel intuitively that there’s truth to this but it’s also a bit disturbing at the same time. On a positive, it opens up the possibility of treating such things. On a negative, it brings up issues like free will and the inevitable legal ramifications ie. if a person performs acts that most people would consider to be “evil” but those acts are just a response to programming from past trauma then it opens up the potential for the medicalisation of criminal acts. To use a phrase I read in a court case, if the defendant’s “power of volition has been dethrowned” as a result of a recongnisable psychiatric illness then it really changes criminal and sentencing law. No longer can anyone be held responsible for criminal acts – they’re just the inevitable and foreseeable consequences of a medical issue.
I’m not saying that’s necessarily bad – it just makes me think about an alternative way of dealing with crime and I haven’t fully digested it yet. It could be a good thing in that, instead of throwing criminals into prisons to rot and be “punished”, we send them to institutions where they can be treated and properly rehabilitated (instead of the “Claytons” rehabilitation that currently goes on in prisons). It’s certainly got potential and hopefully someone will do a trial one day to see how effective it is. It has a precedent if you believe the stories about Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len’s work with using ho’oponopono in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane but I suspect it would take a lot of work and studies to become a broadly acceptable way of dealing with crime in society.
I’m going to add that book to my next Amazon order (and I’ll be sure to click your link
)
[Reply]
Shane Marsh Reply:
June 21st, 2011 at 9:29 pm
I forgot to add, it also brings up the potential justification for “Minority Report” style “pre-crime” measures.
[Reply]