The psychology of evil

When we fail to take active responsibility for our life, we tend to feel helpless, which breeds resentment of others—especially those who seem to be doing better than us and to be looking down on us. A passive person is easily hurt and so fixates on, exaggerates, or manufactures grievances. This then creates a felt need to expend energy on destroying perceived threats instead of creating and defending genuine values. This felt need takes the form of an unadmitted motivation that’s possible to all of us, and that we’ve all experienced in moments, but which is fundamentally different from the rational pursuit of values, and which can come to dominate and pervert a soul: the motivation to destroy.

When we see signs of it in our selves, our neighbors, or our nation, we can and need to recognize it for what it is, to isolate and disempower it—and to turn our attention toward building something better.