Home > Miscellaneous Articles > Evil People

Evil People There are few people who are really evil. I've mentioned before (‘Guilt Free’) how people attempt to justify their actions by convincing themselves that they are acting in the best interests of others. Even the Khmer Rouge justified their atrocities by saying that a few people had to be sacrificed to benefit Cambodia as a whole. Contrary to what may be supposed, this justification is actually an indication that these people are not totally evil. The self-justification is an attempt to quieten the voice of their conscience telling them that what they are doing is wrong. People who are evil do not have a conscience. There is a syndrome called ‘Psychopathic’ where the individual has no conscience. These people are usually very intelligent but have no relationship at all with their emotions. They often fool psychiatrists with intelligence. In ‘On Feeling Guilty’ I discussed how people sabotage themselves through a misguided relationship with their emotions. Psychopaths don't have this problem because they don't have emotions. Consequently they are often very successful, albeit in a twisted way. Some successful salesmen have no compunctions as to what or to whom they sell. These people are not usually psychopathic, but the best ones have honed a relationship with their emotions that enables them to successfully use self justification or they have cut themselves off from their emotions until the voice of their conscience is so soft there is very little to answer to. Some power players in the workplace have a Machiavellian nature which often means success at any cost, or at least at the expense of their co-workers. I've mentioned many times that in order to understand others you have to see the world as they see it – to stand in their shoes. Many people assume that others see the world in the same way as they do. There's a cliché ‘Appeal to the good in others and you will get an answer’. There may be some truth in this, but there are people who see this attitude as a weakness to be exploited. To understand whether you are going to get an answer when you appeal to their good (or at least, the answer you want) you have to understand the individual you are dealing with. Understand what motivates them, what excites them, what they fear etc. These are different in each person and lumping everyone with one cliché is simply naive.