A Strange Omission: Where’s Scott Peck?

There’s a big article in The New York Times right now about defining evil, in terms of human psychology. The opening paragraphs state:

Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes – for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason.

Among themselves, a few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation or attempt at treatment.

The article goes on to talk about particularly heinous crimes – John Wayne Gacy, for example. Are there some people, on this planet, who are not just deranged, or cunning criminals, or off-the-charts violent … but actually EVIL? Dare we even ask this question? Religious people ask it all the time, but psychiatrists?

The article pisses me off on a ton of levels – it’s condescending, some of the quotes drip with moral relativity (you know: abu Gharib compared with the beheadings by terrorists – only they’re called “insurgents” in the article) – you know. All that CRAP.

But what REALLY bugged me is that Scott Peck’s name is not mentioned ONCE in this article about investigating the nature of evil. He wrote the book on this! People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, his follow-up to The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, is an investigation into evil. Peck is a psychiatrist, and so he had much trepidation about even “going there” – because a psychiatrist isn’t supposed to judge, isn’t supposed to have that kind of thinking going on. But through his many years of working with people (especially with kids) he came to believe that there are people on this earth, he calls them “people of the lie”, who are evil. They are not outwardly villainous, or BAD. As a matter of fact, they are the opposite. They are smiling, VERY concerned with appearances, outwardly impeccable, and inwardly impervious to their own imperfections. Not only impervious, but unWILLING to believe that they are not perfect.

Peck came to this unorthodox belief in working with troubled teens. The teen would come into his office, sullen, obviously depressed, whatever. Peck would try to draw the teen out. The teen would be very teenager-ish and incommunicative. So Peck would ask to meet with the parents. And time and time and time again, Peck would realize that it was the PARENTS who were “sick”, the PARENTS who were “wrong” – that the teen’s depression was NOT a sickness, but a rational response to the inherent un-healthiness of his parents. It’s subtle, too – Peck is usually not talking about open physical abuse. He’s talking about those people on the earth who ACTIVELY cut off their children’s growth. It’s chilling to think about, but I’ve met a couple people like that … I’m sure you all have, too. (And in movie terms, I would say that Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People is a perfect example of a “person of the lie”. She cannot grow. She cannot admit that she even NEEDS to grow. Deep in her heart, she wishes that her older son had survived and her younger son died. And she punishes her younger son for living. And yet when she is confronted about this, she REFUSES to even consider that it might be true. HER behavior is above reproach. She cannot bear criticism, or examination of any kind. She is cunning, intelligent, and puts on a good act. Everything she does is a LIE. Peck calls this evil.) Anytime Peck would mention to the parents that maybe it was THEY who might need to change, the resistance that would come up was usually so rock-hard and so ferocious that they would pull their kid out of therapy and disappear forever. “No, no, it’s not US – there is NOTHING wrong with us … NO, it’s HIM, it’s our SON, what is wrong with our son???”

A fanatical resistance to change, introspection, and examination.

If you haven’t read People of the Lie – it’s fantastic. If anything, it will really get you thinking.

I don’t know why Scott Peck’s name isn’t mentioned in that article I linked to – it seems quite strange. One of the themes of his “lie” book is that psychiatrists are afraid to even TALK about this stuff … because labeling someone as “evil” is a grave grave responsiblity, and obviously one that should not be taken lightly. You must know what “evil” is, and in terms of PSYCHIATRY – there is no definition yet. See what I mean? Priests could tell you what evil is. They don’t have a shyness when it comes to admitting that there IS evil. The therapeutic community, though, is necessarily cautious about admitting this.

Scott Peck was calling for his fellow therapists and psychiatrists to at least open the door to the possibility that real evil exists.

Anyone who takes up this field of study would HAVE to acknowledge their debt to him.

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58 Responses to A Strange Omission: Where’s Scott Peck?

  1. Bryan says:

    Hi Sheila,

    Funny you should post this today. I was just thinking last night about our previous discussions of this topic. The issue of parents who are oblivious to the suffering that they inflict on their children made me want to recommend an excellent book on that topic, “Sanity, Madness and the Family” by R. D. Laing. The book is basically a presentation of several case histories in which several young adults diagnosed as schizophrenic and their parents were interviewed over a period of time. It emerges that in each case the symptoms for which the patients were hospitalized are the only responses available to the unlivable situations that the parents create for their children.

  2. Mr. Snitch says:

    This is a big can of worms you’ve opened up. Often the same people who profess a belief in God deny a belief in Satan. Getting to the very root of paradoxes such as this is beyond my scope, but I know at least when I am in dangerous territory.

  3. red says:

    Mr. Snitch:

    “I know at least when I am in dangerous territory”. What are you saying – that I don’t?

    Read the post again. I am aware that this is a can of worms. It’s a topic that interests me (and – have you been on my site before? I don’t recognize your name – so I talk about this often), and so I’m posting on it. Should I have waited for your permission?

    If I have misunderstood your rude tone, then my apologies. But I don’t think I have.

    I know why you’re here. You’re just mad that I disagreed with you on Steve Silver’s site yesterday – and came over here to “teach me a lesson”.

    Sad. Really sad.

  4. Chai-rista says:

    Great question, Red. Where is Scott Peck? I swear journalists are sometimes so lazy they can’t even be bothered to bring in the most obvious connections. This is actually what I hate most about tv news. They treat each story as if it exists in a vacuum – each event is discreet and unaffected by anything that came before or after. It’s biased in the favor of people who have no memories and who sleep through life.

    Anyway – back to your point. Scott Peck amazes and hypnotizes me with his courage. I recently finished reading his new book on exorcism – I almost literally could not put it down! He is talking about demonic possession. And then I go out into the world and see people whom he is describing – right in my own family. And I get this weird feeling of, “So&so Familymember has had symtoms that I’ve heard described as being symptoms of pssession for years and years. And So&so has never gotten any better through psychiatry. And So&so refuses to take medicine. I really think So&so is possessed.” But it’s hard and terribly sad to come to believe that about members of your family. And then you feel like you shouldn’t be thinking that way because it’s medieval . . . Sorry for the extended rant! –Liz

  5. red says:

    Liz:

    I saw your post on his latest book, actually … what was the name of it? People of the Lie ends with considering the possibility that demonic possession is indeed real … it was terrifying.

  6. peteb says:

    The impression I get Sheila, is that the author of the article isn’t aware of Peck’s work – judging from your description of it that is – There’s no mention of anything resembling “A fanatical resistance to change, introspection, and examination” in the piece at all.

    What strikes me though is that despite flagging up the “depravity scale” being developed by “a group at New York University” and the ” 22-level hierarchy of evil behavior” (shades of Dante?)there is no detail on either of these.. the article consists for the most part of a catalogue of examples of individuals that most people would consider as automatic inclusions in a ‘hierarchy of evil’ – if we assume one exists.

    It’s nowhere near as subtle as the arugment you describe being put forward by Peck.. and is less convincing, at least to me, because of that.

  7. peteb says:

    Despite Preview the typos escape… sorry ’bout that.

  8. Chai-rista says:

    It was Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption. I think you would appreciate it as much as I did. It does expand on ideas he brings up in People of the Lie.

    Interestingly, both the people who get exorcisms in the new book knew they were possessed. They went around telling people that they were! It was part of their “cry for help.” It is as you say – “terrifying!”

  9. red says:

    I guess what I’m saying, though, is that being unaware of Peck’s work (if this is your field of study, I mean) is … bizarre. Irresponsible. Maybe because Peck is openly a Christian?? And so this discredits him? Highly possible, I suppose. Peck admits that many of his beliefs are ‘OUT THERE’ … but he doesn’t try to hide it, or apologize for it. He just thinks that these “people of the lie” should be studied. The problem is is that people like that (like Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People) are the people MOST resistant to psychotherapy.

  10. red says:

    You guys, we should probably check with Mr. Snitch before we open this can of worms further!!

    Oh and peteb: I barely copyedit my own posts!! No worries about grammar mistakes in comments. :)

  11. Emily says:

    Sheila,
    You should make Pete feel really bad, call him “stupid git”, things like that. It’s not in the spirit of your easy going nature, but it’s a lot more fun.

  12. peteb says:

    Does anyone know what Benedict Carey’s credentials in this area are, Sheila? I mena the interviewees may have mention Peck.. but then again they may not have.. it sounds like a slightly different field of work despite the ‘evil’ overlap.

    (Thanks for the latitude on the grammar, Sheila :). I’ve been trying to minimize the time spent editing.. or I’d never post anything.)

  13. red says:

    Stupid git … heh heh heh

  14. peteb says:

    Yeah.. I know.. I really should have used Preview that time..

  15. Kadnine says:

    “The article pisses me off on a ton of levels – it’s condescending, some of the quotes drip with moral relativity (you know: abu Gharib compared with the beheadings by terrorists – only they’re called “insurgents” in the article) – you know. All that CRAP.”

    Glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who spotted that one.

    Sigh. At the NYT beheadings and human pyramids continue to reside at the same end of the “depravity scale.” I saw that one coming, though, because of the preceding paragraph:

    “We are talking about people who commit breathtaking acts, who do so repeatedly, who know what they’re doing, and are doing it in peacetime

    At first, I felt guilty for presuming an anti-war bias over such an innocuous remark. I mean, I fairly bristled at those words coming from the NYT and immediately fought against my auto-response only to have my fears confirmed a paragraph later.

    Grrr. Maybe it IS time for that Blogger vs. Media debate. I certainly have strong views on the subject, and agree with Steve that the current discourse is less effective than it could be. But examples such as this are so pervasive that I can understand the rage of the bloggers.

  16. red says:

    Well, I don’t know. I think a lot of bloggers see bias where this is none. They’re starting to sound paranoid, and fixated. I think Steve’s onto something when he says that a lot of so-called bias is just disagreement. “Why aren’t they writing what I, almighty blogger, say they should write??”

    I think this is a very important discussion – bias in the media, and blogs and journalists – etc. but I still that bloggers can make a difference in this conversation without being hubristic gleeful self-congratulatory boneheads.

    And this is just a personal bias of mine: I skimmed over the examples of obvious bias in the reporting because the topic itself interests me.

    On the topic of this post:-

    The difference between Peck’s theories about evil and what seems to be going on in the article is that, for Peck – evil is not so much about evil ACTS, or people who do “bad things”. It’s more insidious than that, it’s cleverer. That’s why People of the Lie is so effective, and so terrifying. Peck does a lot of work with people in prison, open criminals – and while many of them may be amoral, or narcissistic – he wouldn’t classify many of them as “evil”. The evil ones slip below the radar, the evil ones can be found hiding behind religion often, the evil ones DON’T do bad things. Openly.

    It’s a difference in psychology, in philosophy – and I find that brand of evil much more frightening. It’s easy to just point at John Wayne Gacy and label him as evil.

    Peck takes a much different view. The examples he gives are … they’ll stay with me forever. It’s psychological evil – it is (again, I sound like a broken record) an open REFUSAL to grow, and (in the case of the parents) and open REFUSAL to let their children grow.

  17. David Foster says:

    The analysis in Scott Peck’s book is far more interesting and subtle than anything in the article…even if one totally rejects any supernatural explanations.

    Sheila, I think that the people who write and edit The New York Times tend to have a faily limited and constrained worldview, and a fairly limited and constrained set of “experts” to go with it…and this is a serious problem with most of the MSM, though I know you don’t like the term.

  18. red says:

    David:

    Just the New York Times? They’re the ONLY ones who have a limited worldview? I have to disagree with you there.

    Reporting which requires specialization is always going to be rare. (I mean, good and competent reporting) In all different specializations, I mean – science, foreign affairs, music, architecture etc. You can probably name the journalists who SPECIALIZE in something – and do it well. They’re really rare. Across the board.

    A good theatre critic is rare – one who knows his stuff, knows how to critique, knows the context of the plays he ses – a good science reporter is (or so I understand) very rare.

    I think putting all of this at the feet of the worldview of the NY Times is too broad.

  19. David Foster says:

    Everyone has a worldview which is limited in some way. But at least my reading of the NYT is that there is an awful lot of groupthink among its staff. In such an environment, I would expect the mentioning or non-mentioning of Scott Peck to be driven largely by who is trendy in the psych community this year…

  20. peteb says:

    I agree with what you’re saying about the article describing the evilness of the acts and not evil, Sheila.

    There’s also the point that the various researchers the writer is focusing on seem to have fixated on the acts to try to quantify the ‘evil’ and then claim that they understand those acts and the people committing them. That short-sighted attempt extends to the limited discussion of psychology in the article – the extremes of behavior used in the psychopathy test.

    But by focusing on the acts and not on the psychology/philosophy of the evil that is described in the work and analysis you cite by Peck, and the finger-pointing, at Gacy, Bundy etc, the article makes an unconvincing case both for and against what it is supposed to be attempting to describe and, in the process, misses what would have needed to be a much more thoughtful and interesting piece – and that’s the fault of a short-sighted writer.

  21. NJ Sue says:

    I seem to recall in People of the Lie that Peck identified as evil the kind of people who must hang on to their image of themselves as good and perfect at all costs. There was a section in which patients were asked, “What matters the most to you?” Honest people answered, “Myself.” Dishonest people answered, “My self-esteem.”Unwillingness to confront one’s own flaws and failures is almost universal, because it’s so uncomfortable.

  22. David Foster says:

    NJ Sue…regarding the “self-esteem” comment…I’m kind of haunted by the following, in C S Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost:

    (contrasting Adam and Satan)

    “Adam, though locally confined to a small park on a small planet, has interests that embrace ‘all the choir of heaven and all the furniture of earth’. Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of Hell, and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan..Satan’s concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament..”

    An awful lot of education today seems focused on developing “self-esteem” as opposed to developing interests outside oneself. I don’t think this directly *causes* evil in the Peckian sense, but it may well make a difference in borderline cases.

  23. NJ Sue says:

    Yes, David Foster, Milton’s Satan shows in his soliloquoys that what galls him the most is submission to God, a force outside of himself (“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”). His moral autonomy made him popular as a character with Romantic poets and thinkers. The Romantic cult of self-esteem (which continues to this day in schools and elsewhere) can be very destructive.

    I’m rather dubious about the benefits of psychotherapy, unless a patient is truly committed to the rigors of self-examination and change. What sets Scott Peck apart from so many other “pop psychology” authors is his respect for truth and his refusal to help patients lie to themselves in order to feel better.

  24. Bryan says:

    Hi NJSue,

    In defense of the Romantic poets, I would like to quote from P. B. Shelley’s preface to his Prometheus Unbound. “The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, is [Milton’s] Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical character than Satan because, in addition to courage and majesty and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandisement, which in the Hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the interest. The character of Satan engenders in the mind a pernicious casuistry which leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs and to excuse the former because the latter exceed all measure. In the minds of those who consider that magnificent fiction with a religious feeling, it engenders something worse.” Shelley’s point is not that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost but that there is no hero of Paradise Lost. C.S. Lewis, arguing against Shelley, seized on the words, “leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs and to excuse the former because the latter exceed all measure,” and denied that Milton’s God had wronged Satan at all. However, if one makes the experiment of changing all the character names in Paradise Lost, turning God into Zeus, for instance, and Satan into Prometheus, but otherwise keeping everything else the same, then Lewis’ assertion becomes far from obvious. This, I think, is what Shelley meant when he said, “In the minds of those who consider that magnificent fiction with a religious feeling, it engenders something worse.” It is quite arguable (I would argue, and Shelley would argue, and William Blake would argue) that Milton’s God sets up first Satan and then Adam and Eve to fall and then punishes them ferociously when they do, which ordinarily one would consider the action of a lunatic tyrant. To consider such action with religious feeling would tend to engender base submission to tyranny, creating the soul of, to borrow a phrase from Christopher Hitchens uttered in a very different context, a model citizen of a banana republic.

    One of the many things that bother me about Lewis is that, despite his awareness of Socrates’ question in the “Euthyphro”, “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods,” he often strikes me as being willing to worship arbitrary power just so long as one attaches the word “God” to it. It is that sort of thing that led Blake to accuse the Christians of worshipping Satan under the name of Jehovah.

    One might or might not have sympathy for the Romantic argument against Milton, but it is in my opinion a serious one and worth taking seriously.

  25. CW says:

    I think Scott Peck was talking about evil as a tangible, visceral force that affects people – much like a virus or another kind of infection. Only the infection comes from a tangible, malevolent, spiritual force.

    In general, there is no official popular consensus on the existence of tangible spiritual evil. But I think you would have a hard time finding someone who has witnessed an exorcism who is all that fuzzy about it. Scott Peck was convinced.

    But what if there is such a thing as evil? What if the devil is real? What does it mean for humanity?

  26. David says:

    Awesome post and comments. Awesome. One thing about “People of the Lie” is that Peck mostly uses these examples of parents (and in one instance a wife) who bring in their children to be “fixed” as examples of evil because he readily admits that these are the few and rare brushes with deeper evil he has. Evilness avoids the light at all costs. Psychotherapy, and the very premise of the Road Less Travelled, is that of willfully shining the light on the dark areas of our psyche. We ALL have resistance to this, thus it is labelled the road less travelled. The amazing thing about this book to me was recognizing the evil which lives inside of me. The lengths I often go to avoid shining the light on my own psyche and even the scapegoating I do to help me in this. His encounters with these parents were a chance meeting with a stronger will and the ultimate destruction of someone else’s psyche in favor of their own. But look around us, look inside of ourselves and we will be amazed at how we practice in this psychology of evil ourselves. How we are People of the Lie to a certain degree. Even in the labelling or “judging” of these evil people we avoid our own and become liars ourselves.

  27. Bryan says:

    David,

    Your comment articulates well one of my points of scepticism concerning Peck’s definition of evil as refusal to grow. It strikes me that even if that is a necessary condition of being evil, assuming that the concept “evil” is even coherent, which I have argued against in a previous discussion here, it certainly cannot be a sufficient one. There are plenty of parents, my own included, who project their own psychological limitations on their children, turn their children into the problem, and demand that the children be fixed. Even though that caused me a significant amount of suffering, I would hesitate to call my parents evil for having done that; that seems grandiose. Rather, I would call it human, all too human.

    One could take the Augustinian or Pascalian route of asserting that we are all evil, but I regard that as emptying the concept of meaning by overapplying it. If everything is purple, then nothing is. It makes the concept vacuous.

  28. David says:

    Yes Bryan, but I believe that is exactly what Peck may be talking about. And, him being a Christian, with the concept of original sin and all, perhaps being human means being evil to some degree as it means being “good” as well. The word is so morally loaded that one hesitates to label ones parents as evil and ourselves for that matter, but I believe Peck’s genius lies in his ability to illuminate the evil in us all. Once we recognize this and see it as a matter of degrees we can further understand the human psyche.

  29. Bryan says:

    David,

    I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are right and that Peck is trying to pull a St. Augustine on us. If that is correct and he is trying to make a case for original sin, then I would argue strenuously against him as follows.

    It is quite clear that we all engage in repression, lack of self knowledge, and refusal to grow in one way or another. If Peck wants to call that “evil”, then I would ask, what information is the word “evil” carrying? If “evil” is a strict synonym for “lack of self knowledge”, then we may dispense with the term “evil” altogether and simply use the phrase “lack of self knowledge.” However, as you point out, “evil” has considerable layers of connotation that a more neutral phrase like “lack of self knowledge” does not, and I think that Peck in making “evil” denotatively equivalent to “lack of self knowledge” nevertheless wants us to retain those connotations. This is an unjustified style of argumentation and falls under the category of trying to pull a fast one.

    What I mean is this. Insofar as Peck’s motives are Christian apologetic, he seems to wish to insinuate the following argument:

    1) Lack of self-knowledge is evil.
    2) We all are lack self-knowledge.
    3) We all are evil.
    4) Therefore, God is justified in damning us if we don’t kneel at the foot of the cross (or whatever).

    Now, steps 1-3 constitute a perfectly valid syllogism, provided that one is willing to go along with Peck’s definitions. I could propose many equally valid syllogisms using alternate definitions of the word evil, i.e.,

    1) Having sexual desire is evil.
    2) We all have sexual desire.
    3) Therefore, we are all evil.

    Perfectly valid logically, in that the third proposition follows from the first two. The problem is the fourth proposition, which is not asserted but merely insinuated from the loaded connotations of the word “evil”. The definition of evil as “lack of self-knowledge” or “refusal to grow” is not strong enough to justify such connotations.

  30. red says:

    CW: I guess I lean towards belief in the existence of an outside malevolent force.

    But I also think that none of us are immune, like David says. Scott Peck says again and again in his book that we must be very careful in labeling others as “evil” – and that psychiatrists who are interested in going into this realm must, above all, be rigorous in their OWN self-examination.

    I read People of the Lie and was terrified. But I also saw myself in some of the stories he told. Not completely, but I definitely can see how there are times when I have lied to myself, or actively hidden from the truth, or whatever. None of us are without sin.

    But Peck, I believe, gives a very convincing case for the actual existence of evil. Some are more afflicted than others … because of this refusal to examine oneself, and the refusal to admit that you are not perfect. MY behavior can NEVER be questioned. EVER.

    I know people like that. They’re exhausting and disturbing to be around.

  31. Bryan says:

    Hi Sheila,

    Exhausting and disturbing to be around, yes, but evil? Is such an extreme term really justifiable here? It is interesting to me that where I would assert, “None of us are without limitation,” you assert, “None of us are without sin.” There is a big difference between the two statements even though we are describing exactly the same phenomena, and the difference, to return to my connotation/denotation argument above, has to do with how much theological machinery one wants to apply to the question.

    R. D. Laing saw the same destructive family dynamics as did Peck and exposed them before Peck did, but he refused to give them a theological interpretation. On the contrary, he considered his findings as having anti-theological implications, insofar as phenomena previously attributed to concepts like sin, evil, wickedness, and the devil, could now be understood adequately without any recourse to such concepts whatsoever.

    I think that Occam’s razor applies here. It is not clear to me why we need to appeal to the devil to understand how people can create immense suffering for themselves and others.

    I hope I don’t cause offense by disagreeing at every turn, but this is a question that interests me a great deal, and I find it illuminating to debate it with people who have differing views.

  32. red says:

    Let me be clear, Bryan, that I do not throw around the word “evil” lightly.

    But yes – I have met people (I’m thinking of one in particular, actually) who, for whatever reason, seemed to have a kind of destructive darkness emanating from them … I have no proof of this, but all I can say is: I felt what Peck felt when in the presence of some of these parents: a literal re-coiling. Peck could not get away from these people fast enough. I have felt a similar spiritual revulsion in the presence of certain people.

    But again: Peck isn’t quick to leap on the “that person is evil” track. Quite the opposite.

    And I guess I don’t agree with your characterization of “needing to appeal to the Devil to understand how people can create immense suffering for themselves and others”.

    I don’t think that that is what Peck is doing, and that’s certainly not what I’m doing.

    I have no proof of the existence of evil. I don’t feel like I NEED the Devil to explain certain things. It’s not about that at all.

  33. Bryan says:

    Hi Sheila,

    I can definitely grok the experience of intuitive revulsion around certain people who emanate a destructive force field around them, as I have felt that on more than one occasion. I tend to interpret that as an intuitive self-defense mechanism that alerts me on a preconscious level to when someone may have a character trait that will be damaging to me. Still, though, I balk at seeing in that any evidence for metaphysical evil, since the phenomenon can be interpreted otherwise.

    It is honorable that Peck is not careless about his application of the term evil to persons. Nevertheless, he clearly wants to use the term because its connotations are buying him something that the more neutral terminology of, say, R. D. Laing, would not buy him, and it is the danger of those connotative meanings of evil slipped in through the back door that make me uncomfortable with the term. So the question that I would want to ask of Peck is, “If you believe that the psychological profession is in need of the term evil, and if it is the intention of your work to rehabilitate the term, then what is that term buying you?” My fear is that he wants the term because it serves him as a kind of insinuated apologetic, i.e., the doctrine of original sin is shown true by his case histories. If that is his hidden intention, then I would point to the many analogous case histories collected by other psychologists who drew exactly the opposite conclusion from them. If that is not his intention, then I would return to my original question, what does the term evil buy us?

    My intention here is to make explicit the connotative meanings of the term evil and to ask if we really have a right to those meanings.

  34. red says:

    Bryan:

    I don’t know if we have a right to those meanings or not. I think it is a VERY important question.

    But I do think that debating whether or not we have the right is essential, and very healthy. You may not convince me, I may not convince you, and none of us will convince the Snitch up there who doesn’t want us to talk about this in the FIRST place — but Peck’s goal in his book was to stop being afraid to even just ask the question. To ponder the possibility.

    Now you may just not believe in evil as some kind of real force. Nothing I say will ever convince you – and I really have no need to try to convince you. I respect your arguments, and I certainly don’t think I’m RIGHT. I’m talking about a gut-level thing here – and whether or not I have a “right” to that gut-level thing is up for debate, I suppose.

  35. red says:

    Bryan:

    A couple other things – and I seem to recall mentioning this in some other similar discussion here:

    When I first read East of Eden in high school, and encountered the character of Cathy … I felt, instinctively, that Steinbeck was describing something that was TRUE.

    Now I have a feeling that you will never agree with that, but I don’t really care at this point – I’m just telling you how I felt when I met Cathy – the woman who is missing the milk of human kindness. She was BORN missing it. There are people who devote their lives to studying and pondering the Cathies of the world … like: Are some people genetically just MISSING essential human qualities – like compassion, like the ability to see other people as PEOPLE, and not just extensions of yourself…

    Are there actually aberrations in humanity? Like … God fell asleep at the assembly line or something, and babies were born MISSING certain human qualities.

    Steinbeck makes no bones about it. Cathy is evil. Now East of Eden is part allegory, I realize that … but I still sensed, even in high school, that there was some deep-down TRUTH in the story, and in his depiction of a character born without the things that make all of us human.

    Steinbeck’s Cathy is not openly evil. She is, first of all, gorgeous – so that her beauty acts as a smokescreen. People are easily fooled by beauty. And Cathy skips town whenever she comes close to having her evil nature discovered – and she leaves a wake of destruction and death behind her. But she, above all, is CUNNING, clever, and only interested in self-preservation. Other people are not REAL to her.

    So. I call that evil.

    You probably never will, Bryan, and that’s okay by me. It is good and right that there should be disagreement on this issue. If we all were in agreement, it would be scarier. Like Inquisition time, know what i mean?

  36. Bryan says:

    Sheila,

    Well said.

    After having accused Peck of having a hidden apologetic agenda, I should confess that I do as well. My quarrel with the concept of evil is a subset of the disagreements of Buddhism, the religion to which I adhere (sort of), and Christianity, the religion in which I was reared, on such issues as the meaning of the good and the purpose of human existence. I once challenged you to write on your views of the nature of God, and this discussion has made me want to do the same. As the Platonic dialogues illustrate over and over, the best way to make philosophical progress is to stick a stake in the ground and then watch what happens in the ensuing controversy.

  37. red says:

    Bryan:

    I don’t think I’ll ever write an essay about my view of the nature of God. It’s one of the most private and personal things in my life … and writing about it would feel weird and ikky. Additionally, I have no desire to defend my beliefs. None. Nada. None. Because it’s so personal and private, it would just seem WRONG.

    There’s no intellect here. I don’t intellectualize about God, I don’t enjoy discussing God, I don’t enjoy any of that. It’s not up for debate. I totally accept that other people have other views … don’t bother me at all … I just don’t like talking about my relationship to God.

    God for me is most evident in the stars, in the ocean, in the wind, and in other people.

    But even just writing that feels like too much for me. God is really really private for me.

  38. Ken Hall says:

    Well, now I have to put People of the Lie on the to-read-soon list, with Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy and Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution (it’s about the Ninth Amendment and the presumption of liberty; you’d probably like it, Sheila).

    I have no trouble believing in evil, and I think Augustine nailed it in one.

  39. David says:

    ooooh baby!

    This is good stuff.

    I think Peck makes it clear that evil can be a psychological term and not a moral or a religious one.

    I completely understand Bryan’s question, “Why, what does it buy us?” I do not believe Peck has a Christian agenda. I don’t believe he even has a moral one. I believe his book is pure psychotherapy. The subtitle is “The Hope for Healing Human Evil”. To heal this mental disease. Like all diseases some are too far gone and incurable but there are some who can be cured of the evilness inside. All of us.

    It’s important we don’t say “Who” is evil, but rather “What” is evil. It’s extremely difficult because the word is so very loaded. To say there is hope to cure the evil inside, I actually hear a southern evangelical minister in my head, “Evil be gone!” But, yes, there are many other terms, scientific and specific to the profession of psychotherapy, that work fine in place of evil, but Peck seems to concentrate on the people who not only have a lack of self-knowledge, but a willfull desire to keep it that way, and, most importantly, the use of others, in a harmful way, to keep this lack of self-knowledge intact. I am way oversimplifying his thesis but it’s not just resistance to grow that calls into play the word evil, it’s the harming of others.

    If one of my daughters is “acting up” and I am in a difficult place, mentally, I may, and have, lost my temper and screamed at them in a mean-spirited way. I have hurt their feelings. The ensuing justification in my head may go like this, “Of course I lost my temper, they won’t behave. It’s their fault I lost my temper. They asked for it.” That, in my mind, is evil. There are many degrees, parents may physically abuse them in these situations, etc. But by recognizing it as such, I have an enormous distaste for it. Even saying it makes me cringe. I have acted in an evil manner towards my own kids. Many of us have done this with our kids, many times, some worse. So the word evil, buys for me, the necessary weight to begin changing and thus curing myself of this affliction. And I have and I continue to hold myself up to the light and cure myself of evil. I don’t think it ever ends and I don’t think it’s supposed to. When I recognize it as something that afflicts all humans I begin to have understanding and compassion for it thus curing myself of evil. But when we label people as evil we continue our own evilness, we see them as monsters, and it is my belief, feel free to disagree, that the distaste we have for these evil people is that we see our own evilness in them and our inability to “own our shadow”, “own our evilness”, to have compassion for ourselves and our inherent evilness, and this forces us to project it onto them, continuing the lie.

    That’s my thesis. Nonetheless I think it’s futile to believe that the word won’t have religious connotations for so many people. Like the word God. It’s loaded with deep, intricate, very personal, highly unique connotations for so many.

  40. ricki says:

    Add me to the list of people who want to read Scott Peck now that you’ve discussed his work.

    I guess I believe in the existence of evil. That it’s something people can slide in to if they’re not vigilant – that the justifying of actions begins, and if you try hard enough, you can justify anything.

    I’ve also met a few people who were “missing” that vital humanity (rather like Cathy). They were the only things that mattered to themselves. Not the most important thing, the only thing. And they didn’t care who got hurt in the process of fulfilling their desires. It’s really unsettling to talk to someone who doesn’t understand why hurting other people is wrong when it’s the means to an end.

    I also have to admit that I WANT to believe in some kind of “outside” evil (be it the devil or a “virus” like thing as one commenter described). Otherwise, I see some of the things that are done in this world – especially to children – and I just despair for the human race. I want desperately to believe that evil acts are an aberration, that are something done by a sick or infected or even posessed mind, and not something that “most” people would be capable of.

  41. David says:

    >

    To me, this is why Peck wrote the book. Great, honest comment Ricki. We want to attribute the horrors humans inflict on other humans to an outside force. It’s “unsettling” (great word) as Ricki says. But Peck makes a strong case to say it’s an inside job and everyone of us, although most choose not to, are capable of doing it. To accept this is the HOPE he writes of. To accept it we can cure it. To continue to label people as evil and abberrations we perpetuate our own evil. Whenever we feel hatred for another human being we are living in the psychological dark side of the moon and we are perpetuating evil. We have succeeded in deflecting the light from us and shone it on someone else.

  42. red says:

    David – he also makes a big point of saying that during the exorcisms he witnessed what was overwhelming in the room was the sense of God’s presence, a presence of LOVE. That the only way to confront the evil and drive it out is through love. Which is why it is very very difficult, and we must tread carefully here.

    He admits to us that he is not really up to that task. He had a natural abhorrence for some of those parents who came into his office. He describes a feeling of instant revulsion, a NEEDING to get away from them, a desire to never ever see them again. And this is from a man who obviously is compassionate and loving and helpful!! But even he couldn’t bear to be in the presence of such denial, and such smug HARD self-satisfaction.

    He did not feel that he would be able to love those people. His detestation of them was too strong.

  43. David says:

    Actually, that was always his initial response, if I’m not mistaken, but he did indeed try to work with them, to help them, to reach out to them. He did bear being in their presence. It was extraordinarily difficult, and, in all those cases, ultimately fruitless, but his pushing through his revulsion, helps him to cure himself of his own evil. Helps him to be the loving and compassionate man he is.

    Personally, I find it too difficult to be around those people. I’m not strong enough yet to love them when they’re in my presence, but I’m not done accepting myself wholly for who I am yet, as I widen that acceptance and love of me I believe I’ll widen my acceptance and love of others. To make it about them and not completely about us, perpetuates evil.

    Strong opinions, great topic. I accept that I may be completely full o’ shit and I love myself for it. LOL

  44. red says:

    David – have I ever told you the story of the “break it up” lady? It’s one of Mitchell’s favorite stories of mine (you know me and my stories) It’s probably the only time in my life when I felt what Scott Peck describes: literal revulsion and horror at another human being. Irrational, needing to get away.

    Very weird. But also a very funny story.

    And actually, no … Peck describes his whole journey with his own revulsion and no, he didn’t always try to work with them. One of them was a patient who was determined to have a love affair with him … do you remember that? And he looks back on how he handled that with regret. But at the time, he hadn’t found the courage to “name” what it was about her that was so disturbing. He talks a lot about the power of “naming”. Of course, as a psychiatrist, being able to “name” a diagnosis is a very important thing. You say, “Sir, you are schizophrenic” – and you will change someone’s life – you have to take the power of “naming” really seriously.

    But now he writes that he can look back and see that that patient (she’s fascinating) was “a person of the lie” – and if he had just had the courage to name her as “evil”, then he might have known what he was up against, understood better the nature of her illness, the nature of his foe. And – instead of getting irritated with her and pushing her away, he might have been able to have more compassion and love for her.

    Remind me to tell you of “break it up” if I haven’t already. (Mitchell calls her “the break it up lady” and makes me do imitations of her. Like I’m a circus chimp. “Do break it up lady! Do break it up lady!”)

  45. Bryan says:

    Hi David,

    I like your analysis of the rhetorical and deterrent use of the word evil a great deal. Also, I agree entirely with your analysis of projection and of “devil” concepts as a cop-out, a way of refusing to recognize what you eloquently refer to as evil as an inside job.

    The one thing I would add is that compassion can be shown to oneself as well, and that the moment of insight that one is creating suffering does not have to be attended by any guilt whatsoever. One can simply recognize that one is creating suffering, and stop.

    Although I have been arguing merely that the concept of evil is unnecessary, it is actually my belief, although I have not yet stated it explicitly, that it is harmful, because it leads inevitably to the kinds of repression and projection that you describe.

    The type of language that we use can make an enormous difference because it conditions the way we emote towards ourselves and others.

  46. red says:

    Hmmm. The devil is a cop-out? Maybe for YOU, but not for everybody. That’s the problem with talking about this.

    So … if I believe in the devil, and in the presence of evil … I am somehow copping out?

    Thanks for judging me on something so personal and UNPROVABLE anyway!

    Read the end of the book where Peck talks about the 2 exorcisms he witnessed. Peck went into those exorcisms frightened, unknowing … and he came out KNOWING what he saw – that something evil was inside those people – and he describes literally watching this serpent-devil come out, and extinguish itself at the end of the exorcism.

    Yes, it’s out there, but Peck describes what he saw. Knowing that it is difficult to believe.

    Peck is not afraid to name that thing he saw the devil, and to call it evil.

    But on the flip side, he constantly reminds us that we must be very very very careful when talking about this stuff.

    After all, the first line of the book is:

    “This is a dangerous book.”

    But let’s not mischaracterize what Peck said: He comes from a Christian background – he believes that there is a God, that there is a force for good in the universe, and he wrote the book from that bias. He admits it freely in the introduction.

    By the way, I’m very much enjoying this conversation – but when I get red flags like the “cop out” thing, I’ve got to mention it.

  47. David says:

    I completely agree Bryan. I’m just with Peck in taking the word evil out of the realm of morality and into the realm of psychology, if it’s even possible. And yes, aptly put, about guilt. I contend that guilt only creates shame which in turn creates a desire to hide that aspect of ourselves, keeping it in the dark instead of dragging it out into the light where it withers and evaporates.

  48. red says:

    Oh and yes to the point:

    Peck wants to bring the concept of evil out of morality, and into psychology. After all, as he tells us time and time again: most of these people of the lie are good upstanding citizens. The criminals in prison, the OPENLY bad ones, the ones who flout the laws of society, rarely struck him as “people of lie”.

    It was the good ones who could really be sneaky, who could really HIDE.

    But that this was not so much an issue of morality (Peck talks about how easy it is for people of the lie to hide and cluster in churches and mosques) – but of psychology.

  49. David says:

    I can’t believe I’ve never heard or seen the “break it up” lady. Must’ve happened at Hickory!

    And Oh God, I forgot about the woman who “loved” him. That was an amazing case.

    OOh I just read the “cop-out” post. It is an inflammatory phrase, and it may even sound judgemental, but I have to agree with Bryan. I see it as a way to not accept the devil within us all. But, we are talking about the unprovable, and I love you all, and I do not mean to judge harshly, it’s just my feeble opinion.

  50. red says:

    Just admit that the cop-out thing is an opinion, and I’ll admit that my feelings about the devil are an opinion (because God help us if we have proof!!!) – and we’ll be fine. I won’t get into some right or wrong debate in this particular post. It would be ridiculous.

    David – hahahahahaha with the Hickory!!! Laughed out loud when I saw that. No, it didn’t happen at Hickory – but Tonio was involved. Now the problem is, it really REQUIRES that I do an imitation of this woman – so that will have to wait for our next night at Willie McBride’s – but strangely enough, I did describe the night I met the “break it up lady” here on this blog. Read it at your leisure.

  51. red says:

    I want to make it clear, Bryan, that I love talking about this stuff with you … I’ve always loved the philosophical discussions we’ve had in this realm – it comes up often, doesn’t it? An endlessly fascinating conversation … I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m not enjoying myself or enjoying your contributions.

    Carry on!

  52. Bryan says:

    Hi Sheila,

    No offense taken at all. Just took me a while to think out my next post.

    With the hypothesis that there may exist intelligent non-human beings who do not have our best interests in mind, I do not necessarily have a quarrel, though I do not have any reason to believe in them either. The existence of such beings is an empirical claim, even if it is hard to imagine what kind of evidence would be sufficient to establish its truth.

    Concerning what Peck saw, I am reminded of a C. S. Lewis’ remark, “I know only two people who claim to have seen a ghost, and neither believes in them, and they are quite right. Seeing is not believing.” Peck’s experience may or may not be valid evidence; I can’t really say, but I strongly suspect that if I had been there, I would not have come into the exorcisms as frightened as he was, and I would not have been able to see the things he saw. But I don’t know that.

    Concerning belief in “devil” concepts as a cop-out, although it was not my intention to create offense, it’s not a claim that I am quite willing to back down on because it is very clear that in most cases it is precisely that. The projection is very obvious in the case of religious people who insist that gays are of the devil, or sex is of the devil, or feminists are of the devil, or America is of the devil, or what have you. In more sophisticated religious people, it takes more sophisticated forms, but you can often find the projection by asking the same question about what the term devil is buying the person who uses it. What does the use of that term indicate about what that person is unable to accept, finds beyond the pale, considers unredeemable, wants to destroy? And at that point the game is up and the term becomes superfluous.

    I am also not saying that it is never acceptable to find something beyond the pale, to consider it unreedemable, or to want to destroy it. I myself, for instance, would have little problem with seeing Saddam Hussein hooded and blindfolded and dropped through a trapdoor on the end of a rope. But that is a social and political judgement about how to treat certain people, not a metaphysical statement about whether or not a concept such as evil adheres to them.

    I will repeat my admission that I do not have empirical evidence against the empirical claim that intelligent non-human beings who have malice toward us exist. But in the absence of what I would consider adequate evidence on either side, I consider it useful to pose the question of what a person is trying to accomplish through belief in such entities.

    These matters can, indeed, be considered personal, but religious ideas are not only personal but social and political as well and have effects in those arenas.

  53. red says:

    Bryan:

    I agree with what you just wrote. I’m sorry to keep bringing back Peck and his work, but that is the context of this conversation: your observation about those who claim that this or that is from the devil is right ON. That’s why Peck says, over and over again, what a dangerous book he has written, and how in the wrong hands it could be used for evil itself. His main goal was to take a good open look at what he calls evil … and see if it cannot be cured, through love. But there could be those who would read his book, and use it for all kinds of awful malevolent justifications.

    Oh, and he also makes a huge point of saying that the anecdotal evidence of the two exorcisms he witnessed was just his own personal experience. He is not trying to be an expert. Far from it.

    But what he saw on those two separate occasions led him into a deeper investigation of demonic possession, and his latest book (referenced in the thread above) is apparently all about that.

    Peck is a psychiatrist. He’s also just a man, trying to find his way. I think that’s why The Road Less Traveled has remained on the NY Times bestseller list for … uh … 30 years or whatever?? Because he writes from a very personal place, he shares himself, he does not lecture. The books are quite redemptive, even though I find them upsetting, on some level, to read.

  54. red says:

    testing? comments? my site appears to be crashing.

  55. red says:

    The crisis appears to have passed … there was some server crashing or something. Maybe the devil didn’t like the convo going on here and messed up my blog.

  56. Ken Hall says:

    Maybe Old Nick didn’t, but I did. I wrote a comment that was way too long for the comments section, so I made it a post of my own. The discussion here, particularly between you & Bryan (and thanks for sharing, both of you), reminded me of the Boethians and the Manicheans. I recommend to you, if you haven’t already read it, J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, by Tom Shippey. It’s just a small part of the book, but it’s excellent.

  57. Peter says:

    I don’t know why I haven’t been to this site for months, coming here makes me stretch my brain. Perhaps it’s my own inherent laziness. Please forgive my jumping in as if I own the place, I’m well aware that I don’t.
    My line of work, although I’m now retired, brought me right up to facing both the criminal and the evil, as well as their victims. While the line between the merely criminal and the evil is blurry and we can argue just where to place it I am a firm believer in the existence of the truly evil. Any old police officer has seen both.
    The merely criminal share certain traits with the evil, self centeredness, a sense of entitlement to that which they have not earned and a present-time orientation, although it’s not just a matter of degree. The merely criminal can cause every bit as much suffering to0 the victim as do the evil, so that’s not the difference.
    I think the difference is in the attitude toward the suffering of those victims. To the criminal, the suffering of the victim is incidental. He (usually he) wnats something, say that big screen TV, cash register full of money, whatever, and takes it. It is no concern to him that the victim may be underinsurred and will suffer real hardships or, if the victim causes trouble and is injured or killed, that’s not important to the criminal, it’s incidental.
    The evil? The suffering of those victims is the point. The cash register or TV are incidental.
    A criminal may kill someone in a robbery but the point of that robbery is still the financial gain. A serial killer most often takes something from the victim but as a keepsake or trophy.
    See the difference?
    As to where it comes from, that’s a job for someone smarter than me. I will note that every child molester I’ve ever heard of was abused as a child. Usually the child molester will fixate on children the age that (s)he was when first molested. So, this particular type of evil seems to be made, not born.
    Equally, every serial killer I’ve heard of was abused as a child. Again, made not born, it seems.
    This, to me would settle the question entirely, except for two things. The first being that if every child molester was in fact molested as a child, who molested that first kid?
    The second thing that bothers me is that all abused kids don’t grow up to be serial killers. Nor do all sexually molested children end up as child molesters.
    There is also the fact that I don’t know about *all* serial killers and child molesters, nor *all* abused and molested children. Still, my sample size is big enough that I would suspect that exceptions would be rare.
    So, why don’t all abused children become serial killers? The capacity to resist evil is a good working theory that deserves further exploration. If, there is the capacity to resist evil, it follows that evil exists.
    I suspect that someone really smart could have said that in two sentences. What I would hope is that someone a lot smarter than me is looking into the abused children that DON’T become serial killers, as well as those that do.If Peck, or someone equally bright, and courageous, can figure out the difference we would be a long way toward understanding the concept. Perhaps even defeating it.
    As for me, Shiela, you’ve stretched this poor ol’ brain to the point I need two aspirin and a nap.

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