A Reaction to Becoming Evil, Chapter 5: Beyond Demonization, Book Review Example

The author of the book, James Waller, has uncovered both the internal and external factors that are perceived to make the ordinary people commit several acts associated with evil and demonization. One of the things that moved me is how the author has offered a sophisticated and comprehensive psychological view regarding how a person can potentially participate in several heinous crimes that can be termed as evil since they are against humanity. The evolutionary forces are well outlined that are responsible for shaping human nature. Another thing is the individual dispositions, which are highly involved in engaging in the acts of evil. Additionally, as presented in the book in the context of cruelty, these extra ordinally acts are likely to emerge.

An example of an evil act presented in the book is the Holocaust. A human-made event unveils an instance of genocide and mass killing that adversely affects society. Therefore, there has been a great need to confront the effort of trying to explain the behaviors of evil acts such as genocidal perpetrators. For identifying the particular issue underlying this problem, the focus has been directed on particularities. In response to this, the aberrant behaviors have been caused by society’s evil culture and unusual situations such as political instabilities and other exceptional circumstances. However, as presented by James, the underlying assumption is that there is a vital flaw with a significant deviation from the social norms that need to be discovered to account for the evil acts among the ordinary people.

Initially, most societies in the world are not involved in committing genocide. Most people are not engaged in becoming part of the genocidal killers. Regarding this, there is an intuitive common sense related to such evil acts and behaviors. In respect to this, the author argues that if the extraordinary evil acts do not result from such norms in our daily experiences or historically, then they originate from other abnormalities, particularly to those individuals and societies which do not perpetuate the issues of ‘extraordinary evil. In most cases, within the society, as stated in the book, we look for flaws in other people and not latent potential within ourselves. This is one of the things that captured my attention from the reading. What that means is we and the society that we belong to cannot do the things done by the perpetrators and their societies.

However, political and social groups are the ones that are likely to be involved in committing mass murder based on ethnicity, racism, and differences in religion. This has confirmed not to be hindered by the lack of willing executioners. The reading brings us to the current horrific events concerning extraordinary human evils. For instance, the ones that come from the perennially troubled Balkans and the African Continent. A reconfigured explanatory model of evil has been offered to understand that numerous human actions have been affected. Therefore, the response to ‘why did that person behave as he/she did? Two separate stages of study, which involve the ultimate and proximate levels, have the ability to be investigated. As explained in the reading, genocide is an issue affecting the society whose time has not yet passed.

In conclusion, the reading presents a clear vision that people have started to see and understand how ordinary people are recruited to the evil process of destruction.