Bad people……

There is an idea that we are defined by our extremes; we fall down to our lowest common denominators. In society that means people on the fringe, not walking the talk as we would expect or those not able to for reasons of deprivation. Unless there is rehabilitation can we succeed in this grand project called the human race?

I’m being overly grandiose. Leaving aside the disadvantaged, these individuals I mull are not the eccentrics or those pushing boundaries to move thinking or propensity on. But those who are downright odd, that make us feel uncomfortable for our sanity and physical safety. A podcast called ‘Bad people’ caused me to reflect further on how we define such odd people because the expanse is wider than we first imagine. I believe we’d all class perpetrators as ‘bad’ but what about those who help perpetuate? By that I mean facilitators — promoters whether actively or ignorantly of wrong behaviour by others. Middle class drug users; doctors over prescribing for profit; neglectful or absent parents, arrangers of get rich quick schemes or tax avoidance, enablers of money laundering, sellers of fake hope, opposers of free speech, dampeners of human rights. Admittedly this is a broad church and some of these activities are governed by the laws of society. But amongst there are the hidden pursuits that ghost like ease the path of wrong doing but unfortunately are not so simple to pin down. And then of course there is the realm of psychopathy and our interaction with it.

In a previous post on empathy, I wrote about our fascination with psychopathy and psychopaths because it jars with our expectation of what a decent person is and how we should consort. Nadine Matheson a criminal defence attorney in an article says ‘We’re fascinated because these people are able to tap into and indulge in a part of their egos that the majority of us would happily leave in the shadows’. Our interest in such individuals allows us to indulge in our fears in a controlled way. But returning to the perpetuators rather than the perpetrators, a particular episode in ‘Bad people’ explored when our obsession with evil turns into something much darker and indecipherable. The people who fantasise and revere the monsters who have been tried and proven to have committed atrocities. Perpetuators.

Take these instances. Ted Bundy received fan mail from all over the world. Even at his court hearings females would arrive attempting to dress like the women he had raped and murdered. Bundy eventually married one of his admirers. Richard Ramirez, dubbed ‘the night stalker’ who raped and tortured over 25 women, causing the death of 13 also married one of his devotees who had been writing to him for 11 years.

There is a thriving trade in serial killer memorabilia (murderabilia) from personal letters and paintings they have produced, to skin and finger nails from their bodies. Logically as with other asset classes, I understand that there is a game to be played because as the worth of such items is based on your own personal emotion and excitement it can be valued at what ever the marginal person believes. But there are those who collect for the purpose of collecting. Those who carry out pilgrimages to the places where murders have been committed, those who excuse such evil….

To me these individuals are also the odd, make me feel uncomfortable people who don’t walk the talk. By trivialising, glamourising evil humans does that not offer a veneer of justification? Those who perpetuate are not as evil as those who do, but it also doesn’t seem right. My context is that with such permissiveness around perpetuators from whatever realm of life, the morality and fibre of society is stretched. And unless we decide what is too extreme, it is fractious.

But it is ambiguous. I realise that i’m being acute. We are after all different and these are second order influences on society. Divining whether another’s actions have been carried out from pre-meditation, by accident or carelessness is fraught with mis-steps and ‘bad’ needs to be judged on both a societal and personal scale which results in vagaries. Even then who are we to judge given our own foibles.

The podcast discussed why some people feel nothing amiss with this conduct whilst others are completely reviled which is why we have difficulty in calling out and knowing how to deal with such behaviour. Let’s take the types of relationship I mentioned above which informs that even at the extreme of perpetuating, right and wrong isn’t that clear cut. Research has revealed surprisingly that for some women (and it is normally that way round) it is the ultimate in control. I had presumed it was the weak minded, the easily manipulated off kilter few- not the strong who succumbed to the charms and perversions of such evil stock. There are other multiple motives. Narcissism and the chance for fame and notoriety; the ability to play out a fantasy where you are an equal partner of the accused; being able to romanticise a tragically flawed person — having the chance to rehabilitate. Or the more prosaic reason — it provides a relationship of safety as an incarcerated partner cannot cheat. Sadly there are many women who have suffered abuse and see such alliances as secure

There are many things I do or have done in my life where I perpetuate ‘bad things’, abdicating responsibility for fun or because I can — from the highs I’ve taken to mis-managing my finances to the many white lies I’ve told where I’ve convinced myself they do no harm. Perhaps perpetuating is a sliding scale and our reaction to it should be the same or perhaps I’m trying to exonerate myself. It seems that we need to be aware of our actions, protected from our dark depths knowingly or not to safeguard the fabric of community. Perpetuators should appreciate the consequences of their actions and consciously decide what to do; our higher authorities can step in with that in mind. Otherwise we continually blur good and bad and push the extremes of what society is obliged to accept to the detriment of our morality and ultimately to the grand project.