Evil

"I had problems with this book. A lot of problems. First off, “evil” is a subjective term, a point the author makes but then offers as a solution to just… not call anything or anyone evil, ever. I don’t agree. Some acts are truly evil, and I believe some people are truly evil. This book failed to convince me otherwise. I believe we can try to understand the factors that lead to evil acts/people AND still call them evil. <br/><br/>She starts off the book saying we shouldn’t refer to people who commit murder as “murderers” because on the other 364 days of the year, they didn’t commit murder… That’s truly laughable. Imagine a sexual assault survivor reading this and being basically told, “they’re not a rapist, they only raped you once!” Unreal. While the point she attempted (and utterly failed) to make was that we tend to dehumanize people who commit crimes, I truly believe there are consequences for certain actions and labels that come with them. I will absolutely call Ted Bundy a serial murderer and rapist, even if he didn’t murder/rape people on the majority of his days. What a truly ridiculous argument.<br/><br/>Continuing on…<br/><br/>My main issues were in the chapter about sexual deviance- mainly with how she wrote about zoophiles (people who rape animals). You cannot “have sex with” an animal. Animals are not capable of consent. She even points that out, yet still refers to it as “sex”, not “rape”, and quotes zoophiles who claim they rape animals out of… love. I could’ve thrown this book right then and there, but I angrily and begrudgingly carried on. What a mistake.<br/><br/>She also had the audacity to extrapolate that “most women have rape fantasies” from ONE study of only 1,000 people. Excuse me? (And the “rape fantasy” she used as an example was more of a cheating / forbidden love fantasy scene akin to what you’d read in any of your run of the mill erotic romance books. There is a HUGE difference between fantasizing about someone you know and trust overpowering you in the heat of a sexual moment vs fantasizing about rape, and she does not acknowledge this nuance at all). On top of this, she blames EVERYONE for perpetuating sexual harassment and rape culture. Well, good, I guess, because at least she acknowledges she is part of the problem too.<br/><br/>Oh, and don’t get me started on her holier than thou attitude, how she doesn’t judge anyone for anything and meat eaters are living a life of denial. She seems to dismiss the fact that humans are omnivores because she thinks being vegan makes her morally superior. (Also, not all of us get our meat from factory farms. Many of us actually care about how the animals are treated and support our local farmers, not to mention the amount of animals literally bred for human consumption that could not survive in the wild. But I digress.)<br/><br/>This book offers nothing new if you have an elementary understanding and interest in psychology /criminal psychology. The Milgram experiment, Stanford Prison experiment, Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect… it’s all classic Psych 101. It started off intriguing but quickly took a turn into weird, uncomfortable, and over the top empathetic. I also take issue with the term “science” in the title, which was incredibly misleading. This was psychology, at best. There was very little even neuroscience, let alone science. A different term would’ve been more accurate.<br/><br/>Yeah, I’d skip this book if you have a basic understanding of criminal psychology. It is rife with decades old studies and her own opinions, not science. You won’t learn anything new, and it’ll probably just make you angry."