MY musings:"evil" and "sin" and "resurrection" ...and many other expressions …. are expressions of the religious domain; just like “gene” and “mitochondria” and “psychosis” …are of the science domain….Science separated from Religion."

n  n

One who had read, or known about, “The road less traveled” would argue with Peck: so, discipline is not enough to solve all problems.

Evil itself is a human problem, according to Peck. [And that’s a bit new] Science should address this problem; the evil problem.


“Evil, the ultimate disease”.

In an interview I watched, Peck was confronted with these questions: isn’t “evil” a moral issue? Why taking “evil” as a diagnostic category just like the other medical aberrations/diseases? Why is evil a specific disease?


Peck replied with the distinction made by Jew theologian Martín Buber: there are those “sliding” (into evil) and those who “have slid”. The latter ones “no longer come back”.

He gave the example of a case he had: the man who had made a pact with the devil.

There are evil people.

More interestingly, Peck at a certain point of his life was investigating about this “evil” definition. He asked several members of his family and the definition provided by his (then) 8 year old son Chris, sort of pleased him the most. Chris told father that evil is “live” spelt backwards. Which made father think: [son was right and] “Evil is a force against life”; but he thought also: if we kill it, “we become contaminated”, we become “killers”.

He recalled the words of Jesus on Satan: you’re a killer, a murderer; while Jesus said of himself: I came that they have life and that more abundantly.

In that interview Peck gave numbers: only 2 to 3 % of population would fall on that category: the insane that “no longer come back”.

“Evil interferes with growth …we got to know what our enemy is”; the danger within us.

Peck has, nonetheless, hope in healing human evil. He’s optimistic because the human race has been “improving”.

This is probably one of the scariest books I've read, and the reason for this is due to it being non-fiction and based on Peck's experiences with certain patients. Peck tries to formulate a hypothesis of evil, but doesn't satisfy the scientific method, and even though his examples can be attributed to 'dark' characteristics or conditioned behaviors (learning through modeling, over time), providing a reasonable framework for his hypothesis, much of what Peck states (what constitutes 'evil') would be considered an amusement by scientists. Despite this, the book does strike home as it provides common examples. The patients in this book aren't celebrities in rehab, they're ordinary folk with dark desires, and compulsions. Some of them have no idea about the origin of their destructive behaviors, but as Peck (the psychiatrist) delves into their histories, there are scary patterns that loop back to childhood, that can make a reader explore their own histories, or stumble on people (within their life) who display characteristics that are discussed in the book: sociopaths, narcissists, generally people whose traits transform them into predators.

"Eğer kişi kötülüğü kalbine alırsa nasıl hala iyi kalabilir? Kötülük bile yenilgi ye uğratılabildiğine göre iyilik nasıl ayakta kalacaktır? Geriye anlamsız bir değiş tokuştan başka ne kalacaktır?
Bunu ancak mistik bir dille açıklayabilirim. Tek söyleyebileceğim gizemli bir şekilde kurbanın kazanan olacağı. C.S.Le-wis’in söylediği gibi: “Bir hainin yerine gönüllü bir kurban öldürülürse, Masa çatlar ve Ölüm geriye gitmeye başlar.”
Bunun nasıl meydana geldiği konusunda bir bilgim yok ama bu gerçeğin bilincindeyim. İyi insanların başkalarının kendileri ne kötülük yapmalarına hatta bir bakıma öldürülmelerine izin verdiklerini biliyorum ama buna rağmen hala hayatta kalıp kontrolü ellerinde tutabiliyorlar. Bunun gerçekleştiği her seferde dünyanın güç dengesinde küçük de olsa bir değişiklik olur."

Some of this is good stuff, with clinical vignettes that create affection for the lost and nearly-lost patients. But eventually he does a weird multi-page bellyflop in which he explicitly equates "autism" with "narcissism." It's just a usage problem, but it's a big and easily avoidable one. Next he's got a chapter about demonic possession and exorcism, complete with logical porkers like the observation that statistics show a high correlation between religious belief and "possession." Like the correlation between being interested in sports and knowing sports stories, I guess.

I got through 80% of this book and then gave myself permission to toss it.