"Explaining Evil" edited by J. Harold Ellens. 3 volumes.

[Mal7]

Explaining Evil edited by J. Harold Ellens. 3 volumes. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011.

This is a 3-volume set of books, published in 2011.

Volume One: Definitions and Development
Volume Two: History, Global Views, and Events
Volume Three: Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality.

I spent a minute browsing a set of this on the "New Books" display at the library, but having read Łobaczewski, I was disappointed to find the theological and psychological explanations offered by the contributors in Explaining Evil to be not as explanatory as they could have been.

A number of pages of Volume One can be previewed on the Google Books site here:

_http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=E4_jAxfgteoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Publisher's website page for this title here:

_http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313387159

 

[Laura]

Geeze, if it takes three volumes to do it, must be a lot of word salad!

 

[mcb]

Maybe it should have been called Explaining Away Evil.

Since it is a recent publication, there might be some gems in it if you were willing to plough through. Or it might be an attempt to undo some of the recent progress that has been made. I am curious, but not quite enough to take it on.

I see from the contents section of Vol. 1 that this is a collection (OK, I didn't see the word "contributors" in the original post). There could be some interesting stuff in there somewhere.

One of the most interesting aspects of the study of evil is discovering and witnessing how it is that people fail to recognize or respond to it so much of the time. If nothing else, a work like this could provide some insight into the phenomenon, though not necessarily in the way that the authors intended.

 

[Mal7]

I had another look at Volume Three today.

Volume Three was actually sub-titled: Appearances, Responses, Solutions. What I called it above, Psychology, Religion, Spirituality , was actually the series title.

Just over half the essays in this volume were theological interpretations, e.g. New Testament concepts of Evil, a Pastor's response, exorcism in the Bible. One essay was a Jungian interpretation.

The most interesting two essays I thought were:

1. "Evil in Mind: Psychopathy and Anomalous Cognitive Processes" by Kevin J. Eames. Pages 237-246.

This essay took a cognitive psychology approach, mentioned damaged prefrontal cortices and similar physiological abnormalities. It also referred to research on the ability of psychopaths and others to detect facial expression of emotions. It also referenced Cleckley's The Myth of Sanity and works by R. M. Hare.

and

2. "Existential-Integrative Perspectives on the Psychology of Evil" by Lewis Hoffman, Helen Juliett Warner, Christine Gregory, and Steven Fehl. Pages 263-386.

Some quotes from this essay:

"Therapists often unwittingly enter into a pattern of facilitating the banality of evil when therapists reinforce the victim role through empathizing and sympathizing with the client's suffering without encouraging the client to take responsibility, they enable evil."

"It is also necessary to explore the cultural and corporate factors contributing to evil in contemporary society. Larger social, political and international interventions are allowed."

This essay referenced Zimbardo, P. (2007), "The Lucifer Effect. Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."

Finally, here are a couple of quotes from the editor's Introduction and Conclusion:

"Introduction: Avoidance and Prevention" by J. Harold Ellens

"The improvement in the effectiveness of psychological strategies during the recent decades correlates directly with the degree to which psychotherapists have acknowledged that 80% of every thing we see in the psychological clinic is biochemical and genetic in source and cause, thus requiring medication [. . .] Psychological interventions do little good, in such cases, until the patients have been medicated psychiatrically [. . .]"

The conclusion was a strange half tongue-in-cheek essay about how our present institutionalized society needs evil:

"Conclusion: The Future of Evil - A Lover's Quarrel" by J. Harold Ellens

"Addressing the problem of evil in all the ways we do in our society is a huge industry with an enormous budget dedicated to it. Just like the disaster that would occur to millions of government workers if we solved the problem of the poor, so fixing the problem of evil would create a fiscal and social disaster in this land [. . .] We do not want evil, but we need it in ways that enmesh us with it."

[I know the quotes are a bit short. . . I just took a pen and notebook along to copy them into, and found my handwriting is a lot slower than I can type.]

 

[mcb]

So far so good. :)

We certainly need evil. Without bogeymen in which to invest trillions to fight, where would we be today?

So there was something about "unwitting therapists" falling for sympathy ploys. How about regular folks swallowing the lies of their leaders hook, line, and sinker? Psychopathology in business, government, and religion?

 

[SeekinTruth]

It also referenced Cleckley's The Myth of Sanity and works by R. M. Hare.

That would be Cleckley's Mask of Sanity. The Myth of Sanity is by Martha Stout and not about psychopaths but how common dissociation is after experiencing trauma.