Tarmander
Member
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2015
- Messages
- 3,772
I think both descriptions (mine and yours) are valid. The people I describe usually go through a period of rage/resentment before turning into...machines. The people you describe are definitely bad, but still they are acting more on emotion than mechanically. True evil is where you talk about murder/rape as if you are ordering burgers. That's what psychiatry calls "personality disorder". Those people do not believe the victims got what they deserved, they simply cannot be bothered by a thought about the "business as usual". It's just work.
I am sure you have met these people who keep insisting that "it was business and not personal". Most specialist doctors over 50 are like that. The Stalins of the world are usually very personal and most often carry their deeds as a revenge for something they thought the world bestowed upon them unfairly. Same with the Columbine boys. Not saying it makes it OK, just that those cases are still...dare I say..."normal" humans. It's the dehumanized, mechanical, serotonergic zombies that are the real concern. You know what's scary - less than 2% of the population are like the Stalins/Columbiners. I did not make up that number, this issue has been studied. But guess what? Every person on SSRI is a "zombie" in the making. And that's 20% of the population, based on official prescription data. Your neighbor is much more likely to ruin your life than a random psycho hiding in the woods and plotting world revenge.
I see what you are saying.
I would say that someone like Stalin needs a lot of zombies to get his work done. You need all those paper pushers and camp guards who don't mind shooting a running prisoner. But then I loop back around and think that to be a prison guard, you had to be a certain type which included anger at life, or at least a disregard for it. Maybe that is what you mean. I have been reading gulag archipelago, so have been thinking about this stuff recently.