WEBVTT 00:00:02.930 --> 00:00:02.970 understand in the same context. 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:06.318 - So, early in the book, you raised the question that I think you highlight is 00:00:06.401 --> 00:00:10.637 a very important question: if you could go back in time, would you 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:15.297 kill baby Hitler? This is somehow a defining question. Can you explain? 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:19.037 - Well, it's about whether you think that people are born evil. So the 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:22.797 question of "Would you kill baby Hitler?" is meant to be something that gets 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:26.797 people chatting about whether or not they think that people are born with the traits 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:30.817 that make them capable of extreme harm towards others. Or whether they think 00:00:30.900 --> 00:00:33.997 it's socialized, whether it's something that, maybe in how people are 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:37.457 raised, sort of manifests over 00:00:37.540 --> 00:00:41.397 time. With Hitler, we know from certainly psychologists who have pored 00:00:41.480 --> 00:00:45.297 over his traits over time and looked at who he was over the 00:00:45.380 --> 00:00:49.197 course of his life, there's always this question of, "Was he mad or bad?" 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.017 And the answer to "Was he mad?" Well, he certainly 00:00:53.100 --> 00:00:56.677 had some characteristics that people would associate with, for 00:00:56.760 --> 00:01:00.697 example, maybe sadism, with this idea that 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:04.677 he was less high on empathy is probably also showcased 00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.297 in his work. But in terms of whether he was born that 00:01:08.380 --> 00:01:12.137 way, I think the answer usually would be no. And actually, in his early life, he 00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:16.117 didn't showcase quite a lot of the traits that later defined the horrors that he 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:19.637 was capable of. So would I go back in time and kill baby Hitler? The answer is 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:23.637 no because I don't think it's a straight line from baby to adult, 00:01:23.720 --> 00:01:25.577 and I don't think people are born evil. 00:01:25.660 --> 00:01:29.597 - So you think a large part of it is nurture versus nature, 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:33.557 the environment shaping the person to become, to 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.780 manifest the evil that they bring out to the world? 00:01:36.880 --> 00:01:40.327 - Well, and I'd be careful with using the word evil because I think we shouldn't use 00:01:40.410 --> 00:01:44.540 it to describe human beings because it most commonly "others" people. In 00:01:44.660 --> 00:01:48.540 fact, I think it makes us capable of perpetrating horrendous crimes 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:51.920 against those we label evil. So for me, that word 00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:55.917 is the end of a conversation. It's when we call somebody evil, 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.857 we say, "This person is so different from me that I don't even need 00:01:59.940 --> 00:02:03.740 to bother trying to understand why they are capable of doing terrible things 00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:07.327 because I would never do such things. I am good." And so that 00:02:07.410 --> 00:02:11.077 artificial differentiation between good and evil is something that, 00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:14.837 certainly with the book, I'm trying to dismantle. And that's why 00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:18.897 introducing continuums for different kinds of negative traits is really important, 00:02:18.980 --> 00:02:22.857 and introducing this idea that there's nothing fundamental to people 00:02:22.940 --> 00:02:26.197 that makes them capable of great harm. We all have the 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:29.997 capacity to kill people and murder people and do other terrible things. The 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:33.877 question is, why we don't do those things rather than why we do those things 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:37.447 quite often. So I think humanizing and 00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:40.172 understanding that we all have these traits is the most important thing in 00:02:40.255 --> 00:02:44.747 my book, certainly. - Yeah, I think a prerequisite of doing 00:02:44.830 --> 00:02:48.747 evil, I see this in war a lot, is to dehumanize 00:02:48.830 --> 00:02:52.047 the other. In order to be able to murder them on scale, you have to 00:02:52.130 --> 00:02:56.007 reformulate the war as a fight between good and evil. And 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:59.610 the interesting thing you see with war is both sides 00:02:59.790 --> 00:03:03.627 think that it's a battle of good versus evil. It almost 00:03:03.710 --> 00:03:06.807 always is like that, especially at large-scale wars. 00:03:06.890 --> 00:03:09.015 - That's right, and on top of dehumanization, 00:03:09.098 --> 00:03:10.527 there is also this other thing 00:03:10.610 --> 00:03:14.287 called de-individuation, which is where you see yourself as part of the 00:03:14.370 --> 00:03:18.287 group, and you no longer see yourself as an individual. And so, it's this 00:03:18.370 --> 00:03:22.170 fight of us versus them. And so you need both of those things. You need that 00:03:22.890 --> 00:03:26.677 sort of collapse of empathy for other people, the people who are on the 00:03:26.760 --> 00:03:30.167 other side. And you need this idea that you can be swallowed by the 00:03:30.250 --> 00:03:32.450 group, and that gives you a sense of 00:03:33.450 --> 00:03:37.077 also the cloak of justice, the cloak of morality, even 00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:41.630 when, you know, maybe you're on the wrong side. And that's where, I mean, 00:03:42.430 --> 00:03:45.307 getting into sort of who's on the right side of each war is always a more 00:03:45.390 --> 00:03:46.047 complicated issue. 00:03:46.130 --> 00:03:49.680 But certainly calling other people evil and calling the other side evil 00:03:49.910 --> 00:03:53.987 and dehumanizing them is crucial to most of these kinds of fights. 00:03:54.070 --> 00:03:57.967 - Yeah, you promote empathy as an important thing to do when we're trying 00:03:58.050 --> 00:04:01.947 to understand each other, and then a lot of people are uncomfortable 00:04:02.030 --> 00:04:05.527 with empathy when it comes to folks that we 00:04:05.610 --> 00:04:09.507 traditionally label as evil. Hitler's an example. To have 00:04:09.590 --> 00:04:13.550 empathy means that you're somehow dirtying yourself by 00:04:13.650 --> 00:04:17.467 the evil. What's your case for empathy, even when we're talking 00:04:17.550 --> 00:04:21.327 about some of the darker humans in human history? 00:04:21.410 --> 00:04:23.957 - My case for empathy, or evil empathy, as I sometimes call it, 00:04:24.041 --> 00:04:25.167 so empathy for people who we 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:29.187 often call evil... Also, the title of my book is Evil, or in 00:04:29.270 --> 00:04:32.164 the UK market, it's Making Evil, which is a reference to a Nietzsche quote, 00:04:32.247 --> 00:04:33.187 which is, "Thinking evil 00:04:33.270 --> 00:04:37.047 is making evil." The idea being that evil is a label we place onto 00:04:37.130 --> 00:04:40.367 others. There's nothing inherent to anything that makes it 00:04:40.450 --> 00:04:46.707 evil. And so, I also think that we need to dismantle that and 00:04:46.790 --> 00:04:50.467 empathize with people we call evil because if we're saying that this is the 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:57.224 worst kind of act or worst kind of manifestation of what somebody can be, 00:04:57.307 --> 00:05:01.010 so if someone can destroy others, torture others, hurt 00:05:01.110 --> 00:05:04.927 others... I work as a criminal psychologist, so I work a lot on 00:05:05.010 --> 00:05:08.847 sexual abuse cases, on rape cases, on murder trials. And so, 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:12.890 in those contexts, that word evil is used all the time. So, 00:05:13.010 --> 00:05:16.907 this person is evil. And if we're doing that, then we need to go, okay, 00:05:16.990 --> 00:05:20.349 but what we actually want is, we don't really just want to label people. 00:05:20.432 --> 00:05:20.967 We want to 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:24.907 stop that behavior from happening, and the only way we're going to do that is if 00:05:24.990 --> 00:05:28.927 we understand what led that person to come to that 00:05:29.010 --> 00:05:32.226 situation and to engage in that behavior. And so, that's why evil empathy, 00:05:32.310 --> 00:05:32.747 I think, is 00:05:32.830 --> 00:05:36.707 crucial, because ultimately what we want is to make society safer. And the 00:05:36.790 --> 00:05:40.627 only way we can do that is to understand the psychological and social levers that 00:05:40.710 --> 00:05:43.460 led them to engage in this behavior in the first place.