Comments on: Review: Becoming Evil, James E. Waller

By: Katie @ Doing Dewey

Katie @ Doing Dewey — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 06:40:00 +0000

Something I’m worried about is the possibility that people, myself included, might be unwilling to make a fuss. I think Trump will abuse his power in any way we let him get away with and I don’t want to stay silent because it’s polite if that happens. I’m currently donating to the ACLU, but really want to find ways to get more politically active personally so I make sure I’m doing my part to fight the coming insanity. Great, timely post!

By: Alley

Alley — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 03:01:00 +0000

I am SO AFRAID OF THIS and people say it will be fine and not believing that this could happen and OMG IT COULD.

By: Stefanie@SoManyBooks

Stefanie@SoManyBooks — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 16:32:00 +0000

The book’s cover is not incendiary at all (sorry couldn’t resist). While you read about genocide I am getting ready to dive into neoliberalism and economics, not a topic I ever thought or planned on going into. Have you read Philip Roth’s Plot Against America? Good book about how it can happen here. As a child-free by choice middle-aged vegan woman who dreams of living off the grid in the middle of the city I’ve gotten pretty good at resisting peer pressure, not perfect, but I feel pretty solid on that one. I have this weird closet in my basement that I have been thinking about lately and wondering If I could turn it into a secret hiding place for someone, just in case. That I am even thinking about this makes me all kinds of sick and sad. So I am going to gaze at the happy pomeranian for a little while cuz I need some happy.

By: teresareads

teresareads — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 13:33:00 +0000

Interesting thoughts on labeling people evil. I use the word a lot, but always (or almost always) with the understanding that anyone is capable of committing evil acts. But I suppose even there, I’m labeling the act and not the person. It seems like the important thing is not to pretend that “nice” people only do nice things. People who do despicable things don’t come with a warning label.

By: Tasha B. (heidenkind)

Tasha B. (heidenkind) — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 06:58:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, we were discussing future trips we wanted to take, and my boss was like, “I’d like to go to Germany and Auschwitz and learn how the Holocaust happened.” And I was thinking to myself, In a few months we might find out first-hand. But hopefully not. In the words of Mad-Eye Moody, “Constant vigilance!”

By: JeanPing

JeanPing — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 22:13:00 +0000

Oh! I TOO have my reservations about evolutionary psychology.

There was a meme going around the other day with a story about a teacher falsely accusing a student in a really obvious way> Because teacher was scary, nobody said anything and teacher then said, ‘See how easy it is to not stand up?’ THEN yesterday I was driving kids home and 14yo neighbor girl started talking about the bio teacher’s short fuse and random punishments (in this case, sending a girl out because she asked to have info explained again, she is struggling in the class, and then sending another girl out for being disrespectful when she was in fact silent). I totally thought the story was going to end with bio teacher re-enacting the meme, but no, he’s just like that. And the kids are scared of him and don’t know what to do. This is SO irrelevant except, this is how we run classrooms and I’m not even sure what to do except I told her to document document document and be really calm and factual when telling admins (she’s an emoter) which I hope will happen. GAH.

By: Naomi

Naomi — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 21:10:00 +0000

I agree that it’s important not to label people. One of the things I find so interesting about people, and love to read about in both fiction and nonfiction, is our ability to go either way (or both ways at the same time!) (or all kinds of ways!) depending on circumstances.
I find footnote #3 interesting – I think that’s a perfectly good reason to read a book!

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 16:09:00 +0000

Yes. One of the things I tried to teach my children (and pretty sure I succeeded) was not to knuckle under to authority, even mine. An authority needs to establish a basis for their authority, even if it’s “run to me when I yell because there’s a damn good reason I’ll tell you when we have a minute” (I’m happy to report that even toddler Walker responded to that one, because I was on crutches with one of my many knee surgeries when he was 14 months old–this is when an observer at a mall said to me “should have named him Runner”).
And yes, calling someone–even a whole category of someones–“evil” is making them the other–saying “I could never be like that.” I tried to teach this in the sophomore-level class I taught for years when we read The Laramie Project–students would call his murderers–McKinney and Henderson–“monsters” and I would point out what the Catholic priest and the character in the headscarf say in the play, “we are like this.”

By: Kerry M

Kerry M — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:58:00 +0000

One of the papers I was most proud of in my history major was a lengthy foray into the everyday, inconspicuous nature of “evil” (like, we hear of the atrocities that were committed in Nazi death camps, and think, those people must have been MONSTERS, but really, the atrocity-committers went home to their wives and kids and thought that what they were doing was TOTALLY NORMAL because it had been a slow build-up of small atrocities instead of one sudden veer into mass killings). Of course I can no longer find the paper, but I wish I’d come across this book in my research for that.

Regardless, THANK YOU for sharing this. I’m adding it to my own stack of library holds (my library also only has the earlier edition, though, bummer).