The first time my counselor called my mother “evil” I freaked out a bit. An electric shock zapped through me as I totally rejected that idea. This was before any of my repressed memories had surfaced so my immediate thought was “No Way”! My mother was certainly unloving and unkind, but that didn’t translate to “evil”, did it? The word “evil” brought a picture to mind of some demonic personality deliberately inflicting pain with a sinister laugh and a flick of their tail. Surely no mother would ever fall into that category.
Then I came home and started looking up definitions of the word. The first one I found described “evil” as “something or someone who causes great harm.” Ouch! Reluctantly, I decided that Sarah had used the word appropriately. My mother had caused great harm to me, especially during my teenage years. And now that those other pesky memories have arisen I know that the great harm actually started from birth. Sadly, my mother definitely fits the mold of “evil”.
So, what is the point of this post? Only that thinking about the word gave rise to more questions. Like –
How common is it to be truly evil?
Google let me down on this one. I could not find anything even close to an answer on how many evil people are out there in the world. But I will make a stab at deciphering what I did find.
Some recent scientific studies have focused on what they called “dark traits” that all evil people seem to possess. The higher the score on these traits (called D-factors) the higher the likelihood those people will be malevolent. The D-factor traits are: Egoism, Machiavellianism, Moral Disengagement, Narcissism, Psychological Entitlement, Psychopathy, Sadism, Self-Interest, and Spitefulness. And these dark traits are related. Someone who scores highly on one dark trait will generally score highly on others as well.
There is also the “dark triad”. A central core of the above traits that are so closely linked – Psychopathy (particularly a lack of empathy), Narcissism (excessive self-absorption) and Machiavellianism (callous manipulation) – they overlap. You will find the traits of one listed under the rest of the triad as well. i.e. Psychopaths are inherently narcissists while narcissists and Machiavellians also lack empathy. It gets rather confusing.
But here are some statistics on some of these that may help.
– Statistics –
People who have been identified as psychopaths actually have structural and functional differences in their brain that can be seen in an MRI. So, stating here that about 1% of people have those abnormalities is fairly straightforward. However, having the brain structure of a psychopath does not necessarily lead to evil. Many, maybe even most people with these structural differences live normal lives and never cause anyone great harm. Obviously, there are also other factors that nudged the evil psychopaths in that direction. So, once again coming up with a percentage is basically a wild guess. But at least I can be sure it is a fairly low number.
A little more conclusive is the number on narcissism. Naturally, everyone exhibits narcissistic traits to some degree. That’s normal, especially during certain developmental stages like babies and teenagers. These traits include: constant need for admiration, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, self-belief in being special, manipulating & belittling others, etc. Depending upon the underlying causes a narcissist may come across as either aggressive and arrogant, or easily offended when not treated as they expect. They also tend to deflect criticism or blame for anything, and excel in holding a grudge. When such traits grow excessively after the teenage years then that degree of narcissism becomes Narcissistic Personality Disorder. NPD affects about 0.5% of people, or about 1 in every 200. 75% of those are men.
So, how common is it to be truly evil? Years of watching Hollywood movies had me assuming there were evil people lurking around every corner. Now, after reading these reports I’m hopeful that the true number is much lower, at least less than 1%.
Is evil hereditary?
Maybe. Psychopathic parents can certainly pass along structural differences in their brains that could lead to problems and some of the other D-factors may also be influenced by biology. But most of the dark traits sound like they were shaped by environment more than genes. Childhood events played a definite role in creating them.
Take my mother as an example. She was basically a middle child in a very large, poor, farm family where the kids were the work force. Parental attention was understandably sparse with the amount of work required to survive. Then as a teenager she contracted rheumatic fever. Her months in bed suddenly brought her tremendous attention. Perhaps is was then that an extreme narcissist was born. For the rest of her life she used illness to manipulate others and bring any straying focus back to her.
Personally, I believe that “evil” is a choice. Of course, events and environments effect us. They may make our choices harder but eventually we are responsible for what we choose. From the earliest age that I remember it being possible to have a goal in life I only had one. I determined to be as unlike my mother as was humanly possible. That saw me through a lot.
Can evil be fixed?
The comedian Ron White uses a catch phrase I like – “You can’t fix stupid.” But can you fix evil? Can someone who rates highly for that dark triad be cured?
Naturally, anyone can change. If they want to. But someone who views themselves as superior to others and rejects criticism never sees a need to change. Perfection is already theirs. The odds of altering their self-perception are too small to even calculate. I just can’t see it happening.
Evil people – what do you do if you know one?
Be careful. Be very, very careful.