The Science of Evil
Once again, I am sharing my platform in the Nebraska Report with an important local voice. Michael Meile is one of my oldest and dearest friends—so trusted that I asked him to help my husband and I raise our son. Mike is an accomplished literary and linguistic scholar, an autodidact, an author of speculative fiction, and a longtime employee of Lincoln’s member-owned cooperative grocery, Open Harvest.
Mike’s mother, the late great Rose Meile, would have been known to many older members of Nebraskans for Peace. Mike’s sister Jolene was born with Down’s Syndrome at a time when such children were routinely institutionalized (i.e., warehoused) and died young, out of sight of most of our society, and out of mind. Rose refused, raised Jolene with siblings Mike, Dave, and Jill, and grew into a champion for families raising special needs children. She was active for many years in the ARC of Nebraska (Association of Retarded Citizens). She lobbied tirelessly for humane public policy based on her understanding that the best way to support people with special needs was by serving their families. Like many who knew her, I embraced Rose’s organizing principle and have made it my own: Find your friends. Hold hands. Keep moving forward.
In Mike’s essay, The Science of Evil, he unpacks the catastrophic failure of empathy which defines the sociopathic personality according to a broad consensus of psychologists after decades of rigorous study. Mike explains empathy, its enormous significance in human development and the rise of civilization, the two kinds of empathy–reactive and learned (or cognitive)–and how we can effectively deal with individuals who lack empathy to minimize the damage they inflict on the rest of us.
The need for this discussion is the rise of Trump, Putin, and the like. For more information, I encourage you to explore the work of Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, who published Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths, and How We Can Stop! in 2019.
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The Science of Evil
by Mike Meile
I want to talk to my fellow Citizens of Earth about the second most important scientific discovery in human history. In one sense, it is a very old discovery; in another sense, it is only about 30 years old. Yet this discovery has the power to help us to understand—and confront—some of the most intractable problems of the 21st century and beyond. It is knowledge every person above the age of 10 should have and use.
I’ll begin with some questions. If Lev Tolstoy were alive today, would he be able to talk Vladlimir Putin out of committing genocide in Ukraine? Would Mahatma Gandhi be able to convince Narendra Modi that his hatred of Moslems is unbefitting a good Hindu? Would Lao Tze or the Buddha be able to redirect the power hunger of Xi Jinping? Would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. be able to cool down the rage inthe hearts of MAGA Republicans? And what does a dog say when she barks?
This last question may seem like a non-sequitur, but keep reading. We all know what a dog says when she barks at a stranger: “Hate you! Hate you! My turf! My pack! Hate you!” Dogs have an admirable bluntness of expression: they say what they mean and mean what they say. They can’t come up with philosophical or political justifications for their rage—all a dog knows of the world is the pack and its territory, and anything beyond these is The Other: The Enemy. This is not because of some flaw in dog consciousness; dogs have evolved to confront the Other with violence, and violence is their only option.
Not so human beings. We evolved in the Great Rift Valley of Africa, surrounded by the deadliest terrestrial predators on the planet and without the strength, speed, muscle, teeth, or claws to defend ourselves against them. Like dogs, we found salvation in the group; unlike dogs, our groups are societies, not packs. Packs are kept together by fear of the alpha, the leader who obtains their position through brute force. Societies are held together by empathy—the master survival strategy of Homo sapiens.
And thus, we come to the second-greatest scientific discovery in the history of our species. For thousands of years, we have struggled to understand people like Putin, Xi, Modi, Bolsanaro, or MT Greene—or Stalin, Hitler, or Jengis Khan—or Manson, Bundy, or CC Holmes—or the Parkland shooter, the Uvalde shooter, the Sandyhook shooter . . . the list seems endless. How could these creatures do what they did? How could society have permitted them to go so far? Why can’t we seem to stop theendless parade of tragedies that are otherwise known as the march of history? Satan may or may not exist—and no debate can resolve the issue—but we need no longer invoke demonic powers as we shake our heads in disbelief, sigh in resignation, or cry out in horror. There is a way to understand and confront the horrors embodied in Putin, Manson, or That Bad Man (aka #45). There is now a Science of Evil for the first time in history.
The first thing science does is define its field of interest. The Science of Evil has as its subject an evidence-based, logic-driven analysis of evil. And evil, simply stated, is the loss of empathy. All humans get angry, feel jealousy and lust, and can experience hatred. But ordinarily, these feelings dissipate with time and can be tempered by empathy. You may wish to say something harsh to a friend, yet knowing that this will cause them pain, you hold your tongue—this is empathy at work. Empathy is the ability to build a mental map of someone else’s experience and predict how something will affect them. And more: it is the ability to feel what others are feeling. Imagine you see a dog hit by a car: even just imagining this makes many people (not just dog lovers) cringe. It hurts! For a split second, you are the dog, feeling her pain as if it were your own. Mental modeling of the Other is cognitive empathy, whereas the feeling caused by witnessing another’s suffering is reactive empathy. The former is under some degree of conscious control; the latter is instinctive and automatic, an emotional reflex.
Both kinds of empathy develop as specific brain areas develop during early childhood. For example, the superior temporal sulcus—the part of the brain that allows us to track another person’s eye movements—becomes active within 24 hours of birth. Mind you, the ability to track motion with both eyes (conjugate eye- movement) is not fully functional until three days after delivery: your brain is ready to gaze into someone else’s eyes before your own eyes can do so. The superior temporal sulcus is just one part of the empathy circuit, a specific, highly organizedregions of the human brain that are active whenever we use our powers of empathy to make sense of the world around us.
What happens when empathy doesn’t develop as it should? Loss of cognitive empathy leads to the social deficits found in the various forms of autism. A person on the autism spectrum has trouble navigating social situations: they have difficulty in relationships, can’t make “small talk,” find it hard to express feelings, and so on.However, people on the spectrum can learn to manage social interactions and may compensate for their social deficits by developing unique talents: many of the most accomplished mathematicians, for example, are on the spectrum; so is Noam Chomsky. In and of itself, autism is not a threat to society. On the other hand, the loss of reactive empathy is a disaster for everyone. A person lacking reactive empathy is trapped in the cage of ego, unable to understand (or care) why it is wrong to harm others. Such a person may have the intellectual capacity to use cognitive empathy; indeed, they may show remarkable insight into others’ desires and fears. But without reactive empathy, they become Machiavellian manipulators, cold-heartedly using others for personal gain with no regard for the consequences. We need only look at Putin, Xi, Modi, or That Bad Man in the light of the Science of Evil to understand how profoundly impaired they are and how profoundly dangerous the loss of reactive empathy can be. Read their words, listen to their speeches, and realize these “people” are nothing more than barking dogs: their damaged empathy circuits have turned them into animals. Worse than animals—psychopaths. Beneath their every word and deed lies a bottomless well of hatred. Their brains are damaged, and we don’t know how to heal them.
Not yet.
So how do we humans confront the Inhumans in our midst? In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker recommends putting them on ICE: we must Identify them, Contain them, and finally Expel them from society. Easier said than done, but we can at the least learn to spot the psychopaths in our lives and call them out. We can confront the MAGA maniacs on Twitter and respond: “Bark. Bark. Bark.” No, theywon’t understand (or care), but this response tells the non-MAGA maniacs that their feelings are valid and that it’s time to disengage emotionally from those who only wish harm. It’s time to stop the hand-wringing and moaning “uncivil” discourse and start to harden ourselves against the inevitable assaults on our freedom and dignity. Ukraine can’t negotiate with Putin—if you tell a psychopath “no,” he must kill, and Ukraine told him no; he’ll stop at nothing less than genocide unless the rest of the world puts a foot down (and his generals remove him). With our would-be alpha, we’ve already learned that there is no “end-game”—the end is pure destruction.
It will take a collective effort more significant than the global effort to eradicate smallpox to put the dictators, mass murderers, and psychopaths on ICE. But now, for the first time in history, we understand where such creatures come from and have a faint glimmer of hope that we can deal with them. We have the second-greatest scientific discovery in history: the Science of Evil.
Every human being above the age of 10 must learn and apply the lessons of this science if we are to survive into the 22nd century, and beyond. And what is the most significant discovery in history? It is, of course, the Science of Good. And what does this science teach us? No less than a way to prevent people from becoming monsters in the first place. And we all know the way and have from the moment we’re born. It’s called
Love! Your! Children!
There is no greater knowledge. For all knowledge is based on this.
Mike’s mother, the late great Rose Meile, would have been known to many older members of Nebraskans for Peace. Mike’s sister Jolene was born with Down’s Syndrome at a time when such children were routinely institutionalized (i.e., warehoused) and died young, out of sight of most of our society, and out of mind. Rose refused, raised Jolene with siblings Mike, Dave, and Jill, and grew into a champion for families raising special needs children. She was active for many years in the ARC of Nebraska (Association of Retarded Citizens). She lobbied tirelessly for humane public policy based on her understanding that the best way to support people with special needs was by serving their families. Like many who knew her, I embraced Rose’s organizing principle and have made it my own: Find your friends. Hold hands. Keep moving forward.
In Mike’s essay, The Science of Evil, he unpacks the catastrophic failure of empathy which defines the sociopathic personality according to a broad consensus of psychologists after decades of rigorous study. Mike explains empathy, its enormous significance in human development and the rise of civilization, the two kinds of empathy–reactive and learned (or cognitive)–and how we can effectively deal with individuals who lack empathy to minimize the damage they inflict on the rest of us.
The need for this discussion is the rise of Trump, Putin, and the like. For more information, I encourage you to explore the work of Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, who published Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths, and How We Can Stop! in 2019.
#
The Science of Evil
by Mike Meile
I want to talk to my fellow Citizens of Earth about the second most important scientific discovery in human history. In one sense, it is a very old discovery; in another sense, it is only about 30 years old. Yet this discovery has the power to help us to understand—and confront—some of the most intractable problems of the 21st century and beyond. It is knowledge every person above the age of 10 should have and use.
I’ll begin with some questions. If Lev Tolstoy were alive today, would he be able to talk Vladlimir Putin out of committing genocide in Ukraine? Would Mahatma Gandhi be able to convince Narendra Modi that his hatred of Moslems is unbefitting a good Hindu? Would Lao Tze or the Buddha be able to redirect the power hunger of Xi Jinping? Would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. be able to cool down the rage inthe hearts of MAGA Republicans? And what does a dog say when she barks?
This last question may seem like a non-sequitur, but keep reading. We all know what a dog says when she barks at a stranger: “Hate you! Hate you! My turf! My pack! Hate you!” Dogs have an admirable bluntness of expression: they say what they mean and mean what they say. They can’t come up with philosophical or political justifications for their rage—all a dog knows of the world is the pack and its territory, and anything beyond these is The Other: The Enemy. This is not because of some flaw in dog consciousness; dogs have evolved to confront the Other with violence, and violence is their only option.
Not so human beings. We evolved in the Great Rift Valley of Africa, surrounded by the deadliest terrestrial predators on the planet and without the strength, speed, muscle, teeth, or claws to defend ourselves against them. Like dogs, we found salvation in the group; unlike dogs, our groups are societies, not packs. Packs are kept together by fear of the alpha, the leader who obtains their position through brute force. Societies are held together by empathy—the master survival strategy of Homo sapiens.
And thus, we come to the second-greatest scientific discovery in the history of our species. For thousands of years, we have struggled to understand people like Putin, Xi, Modi, Bolsanaro, or MT Greene—or Stalin, Hitler, or Jengis Khan—or Manson, Bundy, or CC Holmes—or the Parkland shooter, the Uvalde shooter, the Sandyhook shooter . . . the list seems endless. How could these creatures do what they did? How could society have permitted them to go so far? Why can’t we seem to stop theendless parade of tragedies that are otherwise known as the march of history? Satan may or may not exist—and no debate can resolve the issue—but we need no longer invoke demonic powers as we shake our heads in disbelief, sigh in resignation, or cry out in horror. There is a way to understand and confront the horrors embodied in Putin, Manson, or That Bad Man (aka #45). There is now a Science of Evil for the first time in history.
The first thing science does is define its field of interest. The Science of Evil has as its subject an evidence-based, logic-driven analysis of evil. And evil, simply stated, is the loss of empathy. All humans get angry, feel jealousy and lust, and can experience hatred. But ordinarily, these feelings dissipate with time and can be tempered by empathy. You may wish to say something harsh to a friend, yet knowing that this will cause them pain, you hold your tongue—this is empathy at work. Empathy is the ability to build a mental map of someone else’s experience and predict how something will affect them. And more: it is the ability to feel what others are feeling. Imagine you see a dog hit by a car: even just imagining this makes many people (not just dog lovers) cringe. It hurts! For a split second, you are the dog, feeling her pain as if it were your own. Mental modeling of the Other is cognitive empathy, whereas the feeling caused by witnessing another’s suffering is reactive empathy. The former is under some degree of conscious control; the latter is instinctive and automatic, an emotional reflex.
Both kinds of empathy develop as specific brain areas develop during early childhood. For example, the superior temporal sulcus—the part of the brain that allows us to track another person’s eye movements—becomes active within 24 hours of birth. Mind you, the ability to track motion with both eyes (conjugate eye- movement) is not fully functional until three days after delivery: your brain is ready to gaze into someone else’s eyes before your own eyes can do so. The superior temporal sulcus is just one part of the empathy circuit, a specific, highly organizedregions of the human brain that are active whenever we use our powers of empathy to make sense of the world around us.
What happens when empathy doesn’t develop as it should? Loss of cognitive empathy leads to the social deficits found in the various forms of autism. A person on the autism spectrum has trouble navigating social situations: they have difficulty in relationships, can’t make “small talk,” find it hard to express feelings, and so on.However, people on the spectrum can learn to manage social interactions and may compensate for their social deficits by developing unique talents: many of the most accomplished mathematicians, for example, are on the spectrum; so is Noam Chomsky. In and of itself, autism is not a threat to society. On the other hand, the loss of reactive empathy is a disaster for everyone. A person lacking reactive empathy is trapped in the cage of ego, unable to understand (or care) why it is wrong to harm others. Such a person may have the intellectual capacity to use cognitive empathy; indeed, they may show remarkable insight into others’ desires and fears. But without reactive empathy, they become Machiavellian manipulators, cold-heartedly using others for personal gain with no regard for the consequences. We need only look at Putin, Xi, Modi, or That Bad Man in the light of the Science of Evil to understand how profoundly impaired they are and how profoundly dangerous the loss of reactive empathy can be. Read their words, listen to their speeches, and realize these “people” are nothing more than barking dogs: their damaged empathy circuits have turned them into animals. Worse than animals—psychopaths. Beneath their every word and deed lies a bottomless well of hatred. Their brains are damaged, and we don’t know how to heal them.
Not yet.
So how do we humans confront the Inhumans in our midst? In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker recommends putting them on ICE: we must Identify them, Contain them, and finally Expel them from society. Easier said than done, but we can at the least learn to spot the psychopaths in our lives and call them out. We can confront the MAGA maniacs on Twitter and respond: “Bark. Bark. Bark.” No, theywon’t understand (or care), but this response tells the non-MAGA maniacs that their feelings are valid and that it’s time to disengage emotionally from those who only wish harm. It’s time to stop the hand-wringing and moaning “uncivil” discourse and start to harden ourselves against the inevitable assaults on our freedom and dignity. Ukraine can’t negotiate with Putin—if you tell a psychopath “no,” he must kill, and Ukraine told him no; he’ll stop at nothing less than genocide unless the rest of the world puts a foot down (and his generals remove him). With our would-be alpha, we’ve already learned that there is no “end-game”—the end is pure destruction.
It will take a collective effort more significant than the global effort to eradicate smallpox to put the dictators, mass murderers, and psychopaths on ICE. But now, for the first time in history, we understand where such creatures come from and have a faint glimmer of hope that we can deal with them. We have the second-greatest scientific discovery in history: the Science of Evil.
Every human being above the age of 10 must learn and apply the lessons of this science if we are to survive into the 22nd century, and beyond. And what is the most significant discovery in history? It is, of course, the Science of Good. And what does this science teach us? No less than a way to prevent people from becoming monsters in the first place. And we all know the way and have from the moment we’re born. It’s called
Love! Your! Children!
There is no greater knowledge. For all knowledge is based on this.
