Talking about evil, even when it is not supposed to exist

Abstract

Several years ago, as part of a study of what some Americans think about evil, I spoke with a number of imprisoned rapists and murderers, comparing their answers to questions about evil with those of free citizens. The biggest difference is that inmates are far less imaginative about evil. After completing this research, I took my project east to Korea and Japan, for half the world does not believe in evil, and I wondered why. Evil, I concluded, is a disorder of the human web, the delusion that we can get other humans to do our suffering for us. Evil is a disorder of human distance, the delusion that we can be shriven of unbearable feelings by finding someone else to hold them for a while. Evil, from this perspective, would be the perversion of what Winnicott calls holding. This is not the Eastern view, but it is how the Eastern refusal to see evil has influenced me. Evil is not what puts people outside the human web, but how the perverse cling to it. © 2006 Humana Press Inc.