The challenge of this book is to understand how perpetrators come to do things that others see as evil.
The goals of instrumental evil are generally acceptable ones, such as the desire to have money or power, but they are not normally endowed with sufficient moral force to make people think that it is right and good to use violent means. Idealism can make the methods seem right and good, or at least acceptable.
Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” The.
Just as serious modern literature does not have plain old bad guys, sophisticated movies may also avoid such stock figures.
The myth of pure evil, then, is surprisingly durable and elastic. Even when each side provokes and antagonizes the other, the myth can be invoked. Ironically, the myth fails to acknowledge mutual provocation, but it appears that both sides in a conflict are quite capable of seeing themselves as innocent victims and the other as unreasonably, gratuitously wicked.
Illusions, distortions, and self-deception appear to be integral to the way normal, well-adjusted people perceive the world. Seeing things as they really are is associated with depression and low self-esteem.
We’ve seen parents successfully use a variant of this approach when an infant cries to be fed. Instead of immediately feeding the crying child, the mother lets the child know that the signal has been received but then waits for her or him to quiet down before offering the breast or the bottle. Again, it’s hard to ignore the cries at first, and we realize that to some parents it sounds too cruel to even try. But.
When the dessert cart arrives, don’t gaze longingly at forbidden treats. Vow that you will eat all of them sooner or later, but just not tonight. In the spirit of Scarlett O’Hara, tell yourself: Tomorrow is another taste.
The ones who wrote about what they had already achieved had higher satisfaction with their current tasks and projects, as compared with the ones who reflected on what they had not yet achieved. But.
The result suggests that telling yourself ‘I can have this later’ operates in the mind a bit like having it now. It satisfies the craving to some degree – and can be even more effective at suppressing the appetite than actually eating the treat... the ones who’d postponed pleasure ate even less than the people who had earlier allowed themselves to eat the candy at will.
We can understand instrumental evil as the use of a particular set of means to pursue goals that, alternatively, might be pursued with acceptable means. The key question for understanding this form of evil then becomes: What makes people choose evil means rather than other, more acceptable ones?
The page-a-day folks had done well and generally gotten tenure. The so-called “binge writers” fared far less well, and many had had their careers cut short. The clear implication was that the best advice for young writers and aspiring professors is: Write every day. Use your self-control to form a daily habit, and you’ll produce more with less effort in the long run.
Sleep deprivation has been shown to impair the processing of glucose, which produces immediate consequences for self-control – and, over the long term, a higher risk of diabetes.
Culture is partly made out of information. There are at least two main types of this information. One is a set of shared beliefs and values. The other is shared knowledge of how to do things. Culture consists of both.
Even within a family, the demands of taking care of children may clash with those of maintaining a good relationship with one’s spouse, which may help explain why marital satisfaction declines when a couple gives birth to their first child and goes back up when the last child finally moves out.
Romantic jealousy is another experience in which people become irrationally oversensitive because of implicit blows to their pride.
The problem with adolescents – from the parents’ point of view – is that they have a child’s power of self-control presiding over an adult’s wants and urges.
When psychologists isolate the personal qualities that predict “positive outcomes” in life, they consistently find two traits: intelligence and self-control.
Changing personal behavior to meet standards requires willpower, but willpower without self-awareness is as useless as a cannon commanded by a blind man.
Otherwise, his desk is immaculate. In accordance with the four Ds of his system, everything that has not been done, delegated, or dropped has been deferred to a half dozen two-drawer file cabinets, which contain his alphabetized plastic folders with labels printed by the little machine next to his computer. You might dismiss this all as evidence of dreary anal-retentiveness, but Allen could not be less dour or more relaxed.