Do I believe in "evil?"
Dec. 30th, 2025 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seeyatI think "evil" is an abstract and mystical concept tied to demons and devilry.
All biological beings are born with traits and characteristics aligned with learning and adapting to their world. Some are born with limitations to perception, cognition, sensation, etc.
One of our most fundamental drives is to understand our world, feed and consume to survive, to thrive and potentially propagate for genetic continuation. These things all rely on complex biomechanical systems which allow us to meet our basic needs, when given a healthy social system meeting all emotional needs and an educational framework that's based on individual cognition and understanding.
I believe there can be fear-based cognitive detachment, emotional suppression, dysregulation and miscommunication along with adaptation toward so-called anti-social behaviors. These can be caused by inconsistency or fear in the child's environment or family of origins.
More often than we often want to acknowledge, conditioning factors and either inconsistent or half-assed social strategies from caregivers cause behaviors that when overlooked or punished instead of properly understood, cascade into what is commonly known as "evil" behaviors and personalities.
The interesting thing I've noticed is a pattern of people explaining serial killers as coming from "happy middle class families" when very often, those are the families with the most to lose and therefore they are presented with so much perfection that they shame, blame, punish and scapegoat their family systems into that image.
There's bound to be maladaptive behavioral strategies. We just don't bother to look deep or examine workaholism, alcoholism, over-performed "niceness" or obsessions with religious rituals even so mundane as Sunday Mass.
All biological beings are born with traits and characteristics aligned with learning and adapting to their world. Some are born with limitations to perception, cognition, sensation, etc.
One of our most fundamental drives is to understand our world, feed and consume to survive, to thrive and potentially propagate for genetic continuation. These things all rely on complex biomechanical systems which allow us to meet our basic needs, when given a healthy social system meeting all emotional needs and an educational framework that's based on individual cognition and understanding.
I believe there can be fear-based cognitive detachment, emotional suppression, dysregulation and miscommunication along with adaptation toward so-called anti-social behaviors. These can be caused by inconsistency or fear in the child's environment or family of origins.
More often than we often want to acknowledge, conditioning factors and either inconsistent or half-assed social strategies from caregivers cause behaviors that when overlooked or punished instead of properly understood, cascade into what is commonly known as "evil" behaviors and personalities.
The interesting thing I've noticed is a pattern of people explaining serial killers as coming from "happy middle class families" when very often, those are the families with the most to lose and therefore they are presented with so much perfection that they shame, blame, punish and scapegoat their family systems into that image.
There's bound to be maladaptive behavioral strategies. We just don't bother to look deep or examine workaholism, alcoholism, over-performed "niceness" or obsessions with religious rituals even so mundane as Sunday Mass.
