It is easy to read a headline like that and immediately feel disgust. Obviously this person is evil, and if there were only fewer people like that, the world would be a beautiful place, right?
I maintain that this is not just false, but dangerously false. Even after we lock him up (and I agree we should), someone else will fill his shoes, because we have collectively designed a system which encourages the kind of mind he has. The critical question we need to be asking ourselves is: what kinds of conditions could turn me into a person like this?
If your answer is "there are no conditions that could have been applied (to even baby me) that would make me do that," you haven't introspected carefully enough. Nazi Germany was possible because of conditions, not because of inherently evil people.
Until we turn away from the cycle of constant outrage and disgust, and toward understanding the darkness in our own minds, we will never solve this problem.
I maintain that this is not just false, but dangerously false. Even after we lock him up (and I agree we should), someone else will fill his shoes, because we have collectively designed a system which encourages the kind of mind he has. The critical question we need to be asking ourselves is: what kinds of conditions could turn me into a person like this?
If your answer is "there are no conditions that could have been applied (to even baby me) that would make me do that," you haven't introspected carefully enough. Nazi Germany was possible because of conditions, not because of inherently evil people.
Until we turn away from the cycle of constant outrage and disgust, and toward understanding the darkness in our own minds, we will never solve this problem.
