Two books on evil behavior are reviewed today in the Seattle Times. I have read neither but plan to order the book by Dr. Stone. Have any of you read one or both? If so, let's hear what you thought, please.
"Divining the source of evil and human cruelty" begins:
When news breaks of a psychopathic crime (usually murder), people use a particular set of adjectives that reflect their horror, writes psychiatrist Michael H. Stone, M.D., in his new book "The Anatomy of Evil" — "words like 'fiendish,' 'revolting,' 'heinous,' and (pretty regularly) 'inhuman.' This is how we distance ourselves from the acts in question, as if to say: 'no human could do these things.' We don't like to be reminded that only humans do these kinds of things, that evil is an exclusively human phenomenon."
University of Oxford neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor concurs. Her new book, "Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain," coincidentally appearing on the shelves at the same time as Stone's, examines the roots and forms of human cruelty.
Taylor writes, "Cruelty is as old as humankind, if not older. At its core lies unjustified voluntary behaviour which causes foreseeable suffering to an undeserving victim or victims ... [I]ts aim is to make its targets suffer physically or psychologically."
But why does cruelty exist? It is comforting to consider brutality an aberration and decency the norm. ...
University of Oxford neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor concurs. Her new book, "Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain," coincidentally appearing on the shelves at the same time as Stone's, examines the roots and forms of human cruelty.
Taylor writes, "Cruelty is as old as humankind, if not older. At its core lies unjustified voluntary behaviour which causes foreseeable suffering to an undeserving victim or victims ... [I]ts aim is to make its targets suffer physically or psychologically."
But why does cruelty exist? It is comforting to consider brutality an aberration and decency the norm. ...
Click to read the rest of the "Divining the source of evil and human cruelty."
Note: The Wikipedia entry for Dr. Stone's Most Evil. Excerpt:
Most Evil is an American forensics television program on Investigation Discovery starring forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone from Columbia University. On the show, Stone rates murderers on a scale of evil that he has developed in order to help science understand and thus prevent this type of behavior.
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