From whence cometh badness?
The whole imbroglio revives for me a component of my ongoing quest to get at Unassailable Spiritual Truth: the nature of evil. I went through a period during which I viewed it as misperception. This was the notion that if the person embracing evil would just get his take on reality right, he would no longer harbor a desire to disrupt the Great Cosmic Balance. That sort of seems to be where Smith (and, I think, Kimball) is coming from. I’m now starting to skate over (how’s that for a winter metaphor?) to the view that there’s something intrinsic about it. Still not willing to say that the references in the New Testament (Jesus, James) to the devil are more than metaphorical, because then you get into the whole array of questions about what kind of being can exist and not occupy geographically pinpointable space. I do, though, think that not only for those who engage in petty cruelty (murderers with no ideological axe to grind, for instance), but those to whom Smith and Kimball are referring, those who advocate meanness in the service of a grand vision, cross a line on some kind of conscious level. That is, they give in to an impulse, a cosmic suggestion, that has an existence unto itself.
December 27th, 2007 at 8:33 am
I have cited this book in other threads here. Here’s another review, just because you need to be aware of this websource, makes me so horney:
http://www.bookslut.com/scarlet_woman_of_selfhelp/2005_03_004676.php
While Dr. Stout doesn’t explicitly say what causes sociopathy, she does suggest that it’s a combination of nature and nurture. I found it a bit frightening to think that there’s no real cause — too much asparagus in early childhood, say, or too many Barney videos. Sociopaths just seem to crop up, though they occasionally have their uses. They can make excellent soldiers in times of war; people who can kill on the battlefield without feeling guilt after the fact are probably good to have on your side. Without really understanding what causes a sociopath, there’s doesn’t seem to be much that can be done to cure it. Can a conscience be instilled in somebody who haven’t ever had one? Dr. Stout doesn’t presume to suggest a cure; she admits that there isn’t one, at present, and some cultures actively encourage sociopathic behaviors.
“Heaven knows how you lied to me
You’re not the way you seemed”
–Giant, Baum, Kaye (not Leiber & Stoller, but, hey)
For more on Elvis’ songwriters go here: http://www.elvisinfonet.com/interview_ken_sharp.html