Do you believe that a person can just be genetically predisposed to be evil?

[marmar]

Richard "Dick" Cheney makes me think so......

:evilfrown:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. I once asked a psychiatrist that exact question,

and he said, "The bad seed? Oh, sure."

Years later, I asked a Jesuit priest if he believed that evil incarnate walked the earth, and he said, "Absolutely."

Those two answers, from men I respected, brilliant, thoughtful, experienced men, were enough for me......................

[Warpy]

5. I've seen wonderful parents produce one kid who was a sociopath

and I know brain structure is quite different in some of them.

So yes, I think some are born with a predisposition to evil. I think it takes a great deal of work from a very young age to overcome it.

Sadly, few parents are willing to admit the awful truth until it's too late.

[Echo In Light]

37. Such types seem to gravitate to the top of the social hierarchy, so their evil is often masked as...

...good, 'normal' traits to have if one wishes to $ucceed. I've seen the worst, and their various ilk and enablers, held as an example for the rest to emulate.

[Warpy]

39. It depends on where they're born

If they're in the ghetto or lower middle class, they'll end up in prison after a wonderful career as school bully and escalating criminal.

If they're born to great wealth, they'll end up Cheney or some corporate psychopath.

Reward and punishment are as determined by birth class as earning power is.

[Echo In Light]

47. Official Culture - A Natural State of Psychopathy? by Laura Knight

Interesting perspective:

Official Culture - A Natural State of Psychopathy? by Laura Knight

"The conversation continued with a comment from another individual suggesting that one must take into account how effective the "official culture" actually is in the US. It isn't just a question of ignorance, but a question of the long-term thoroughness of the propagandizing that began in the early days of the last century. It was proposed that this propaganda is so complete that not only are most people in the US ignorant of what is taking place on the US political scene, and in the world as a direct result of US policy, they are ignorant of the fact that they are ignorant. They have been inculcated with the view that their view is the only "right" one" and, consequently, they really "don't know any better". In short: "What do you do if you don't know that you don't know something?""

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/official_culture.htm

[Muttocracy]

2. I believe there could be a genetic basis for selfishness, narcissism, insensitivity,

sociopathy, psychopathy, so, yeah, a biological basis for evil, sure.

[Quantess]

3. What if Cheney's parents, for some reason, had given him up for adoption?

Would he still grow up to be the same hideous, necrotized soul of a human if he had been raised in another family?

[doc03]

4. Definitely n/t

[Mari333]

6. I think all babies are born divine and beloved

something happens to people to make them self loathe and fearful. its sad.

[bertman]

15. Nice sentiment, Mari333, but I doubt ALL are born divine and beloved. I think some are

born predators and actually get pleasure from their anti-social behavior. But that's just my theory.

[Mari333]

49. oh,i think all babies are perfect. people just forget how beautiful they are. nt

[Odin2005]

26. Nice-sounding sentiment, but it's wrong and naive.

Some people are just born evil, period.

[Quantess]

28. I'm not sure that you are right, either.

There may be a bad combination of parental inflences and genetic tendencies of the baby. There is such an incredibly complex interaction of social influences, that sometimes just the combination of the baby's genetics and the family dynamics result in a Personality Disorder.

[bertman]

53. Or there may be children born who are genetically predisposed to prey on others.

We are animals and some of us exhibit more predatory animal traits than others. What's to say that some of us are not born predators who have no innate sense of morality or empathy for others? And who are immune to societal influences such as those exerted by the family, government, church, schools, etc.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. In a word, yes. Cheenee is simply one of many. Cheenee is well known because he achieved a lot

[Lisa0825]

8. Nature vs nurture....

Either one, or a combination of both can result in many possibilities, including what (compared to norms) would be called evil. Someone could be born a sociopath genetically, or be abused in ways that shape the psyche very negatively.

[eleny]

9. The Bad Seed

:scared:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

38. lol! You beat me to it!

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. Well, let me put it like this.......

AbsoFUCKINGlutely!

[Sheepshank]

16. Hey, I just noticed.

...Bush Jr's underwear is hanging around his ankles. If that's not sociopathic I don't know what is!

[BrklynLiberal]

11. It sure is difficult to doubt that when it comes to people like him.

[Kaleva]

12. Everyone is born an evil bastard

Not to that extreme but I do think everyone starts out with basic animal instincts and it is the parents along with others who civilize them.

[1]

13. yes. evil is evil. deny that at you risk...

[LuvNewcastle]

14. I'm not sure if I believe in good and evil.

I think people have interests and goals. What they do to accomplish those goals or further those interests determines whether we allow them into society or shun them. For instance, a man might like collecting women's hair. If he sweeps it off the floor of a salon and makes wigs out of it, then we say that he has a nice (if strange) hobby. If he cuts off women's heads to get the hair, he's put (as he should be) in prison. I think a lot of what we consider good and evil are just acceptable and unacceptable ways of accomplishing a goal.

[Narkos]

19. Huh?

[csziggy]

17. Absolutely, and recent studies are showing distinct links

Between genetics and biology contributing to psychopathic behavior.

Twins Study Finds Genetic Cause For Psychopathy
New research on the origins of antisocial behaviour, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, suggests that early-onset antisocial behaviour in children with psychopathic tendencies is largely inherited.

<SNIP>
The bad kids who feel no remorse are genetically bad.

Preliminary findings from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) indicate that within the early-onset group there are at least two etiologically distinct groups of children. Antisocial behavior in 7-year-old children with callous and unemotional traits is under strong genetic influence, whereas antisocial behavior in children without such personality traits is primarily environmentally mediated.

Such findings of etiological differences are prompting the search for risk genes, as well as highlighting the need to study environmental risk within a genetic framework. It must be emphasized that high heritability is not equivalent to immutability. Better understanding of gene-environment interactions can come to inform successful prevention programs that target young children. These prevention programs may well be different for etiologically distinct subgroups of children at risk for violent and antisocial outcomes.
More: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002792.html

[CoffeeCat]

18. Both genetics and environment come into play...

...but I personally believe that a bad environment can be more powerful than bad genetics.

If you take a child who is gentically prone to have sociopathic traits--but he is raised by truly caring, decent
human beings who actually parent and help the child and teach them--then I think there's a significant chance
that this person could grow up to be a decent human being.

However, if you take a child who doesn't have sociopathic genetic tendencies---and raise him with years and years
of horrendous abuse, no love, no nurturing and constant trauma---you can easily create a sociopath or a psychopath.

Abuse is powerful. Not all abuse victims become abusers. However, children who endure a lot of trauma may not even
have sociopathic tendencies, but they end up as sociopaths. Children have limited coping skills because they can
not escape, articulate or reason as an adult. So, their responses can be as primitive as disassociating or "going away"
to the point where they are numb. They can also shut down their emotions. This leads to complete emotional shut down,
because feeling is too painful. Pretty soon, they lack emotions--and they lack the ability to feel emotion for others.
This is one of the necessary traits of the sociopath. They don't feel and they don't understand the emotions of others.

I imagine--if you took a child who did have socipathic genetics and they also had a traumatic childhood--that this is
the exact recipe for creating a serial killer or a brutal CEO or a warmongering neocon.

That's my 2 cents.

[napoleon_in_rags]

20. genetics + evil: two terms that no mixy.

Otherwise Nazi pseudoscience results. Evil is moralistic religious idea genetics is scientific. Scientific terms like "psychopath" are valid though, especially for old Dick. :)

[Iggo]

21. I don't believe in evil.

But I'll make an exception for Dick.

[Double T]

22. Absolutely.

The greatest concern is WHY/HOW do extremely evil sociopaths/psychopaths rise to positions of power and authority where they create tremendous upheaval and destruction.

[Joe the Liberal]

23. You mean like evil genes?......

because I think it's possible, as far as Cheney goes, there is no question that guy is one evil sonofabitch.

[Triana]

24. psychopathy is hereditary so, yes. n/t

[Odin2005]

25. Yes. It's called Sociopathy.

You can't cure them, you can just lock them up or kill them.

[Onceuponalife]

27. NO

[MagickMuffin]

29. I think we ALL have some form of good vs. evil

Some people evolve some don't. We ALL have free will and consciousness to help us evolve. Either you want to evolve or devolve. It's up to each individual.

Cheney fits in this group. ARE WE NOT MEN: WE ARE DEVO!

I grew up in a large family. I know that I could have chosen to be an "evil" person, but I decided at an early age that isn't who I wanted or desired to be, so I'm not. However, my siblings chose the other path. They have some issues to work out. Needless to say I severed my ties to them, because I didn't want to be around them any longer.

[cali]

30. no. evil is a silly concept. and largely a religious one.

[rucky]

41. Yet we all know it when we see it. n/t

[varkam]

50. I think that, were one to examine the annals of human history, one would have to qualify...

that statement significantly.

[varkam]

51. +1. One man's evil is another man's piety. eom

[Iggo]

31. What's the opposite of 'good'?

Wrong! It's 'bad'.

Now, what's the opposite of 'evil'?

[eridani]

32. I think that people can be born with damaged empathic distress response

Biologically, most of us feel each others' pain. However, there are times when we need to suppress empathy, like in self defense or other emergencies. Really, you don't want your emergency room team to feel your pain. You want them to treat you like a malfunctioning meat machine until your vital signs are stabilized--after that they can reconnect the empathy function.

If suppressing empathy sometimes is necessary for survival, it would seem to be inevitable that there will be a few who are entirely too good at it. Other than being born that way, it can probably also be beaten out of you at an early age.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[LeftishBrit]

34. There does seem to be a role for genetics in psychopathy

But I don't think it will ever be as simple as 'X has this gene; therefore he will be a psychopathic murderer'. Perhaps fortunately, as that would pose serious ethical problems in terms of how to deal with it.

There are probably lots of interactions between genes and environment. One interesting study by Canli and colleagues suggested that people are more likely to become violent criminals if they have one form of a gene rather than another AND are physically abused as children than if they EITHER have the other form of the gene, OR are not abused. Probably many other similar situations will be discovered.

As regards Cheney - the mind boggles as to what combination of genes, environment, and awful luck, produced THAT!

[LooseWilly]

35. I used to believe in "nurture over nature".

Then my son turned out to be a virtual clone. Maybe a little better adjusted... but otherwise...

So now I take "nature" very seriously.

I don't know that I subscribe to "genetically predisposed to evil"... I prefer the phrase "genetically predisposed to be an asshole", or "genetically predisposed to be a self-serving prick", or any of a number of similar permutations.
I do believe the predisposition can be fought against... and even largely triumphed over... if some "nurture" influence comes along to make the individual want to struggle against the "predisposition"... but let's face it... there aren't many upbringing situations that are so "nurturing" that they can convince an individual to struggle against a predisposition to be a "self serving prick", for example.

[Hannah Bell]

36. no.

[Mudoria]

40. Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Auschwitz... etc etc

From Alien 2:

Newt: My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.
Ripley: Yes, there are, aren't there?
Newt: Why do they tell little kids that?
Ripley: Most of the time it's true.

Plenty of two legged monsters have inhabited Terra.

[applegrove]

42. I think some creeps are born with parts of their brains not functioning and

some develop that way due to injury or some environmental factor. Doesn't matter why. Just stay away from evil like this. Simply being near it diminishes one's life.

[JitterbugPerfume]

43. yes

I believe some people are genetically deficient. I have lived to long and seen to much to believe otherwise

However nurture does play a part in it

[dysfunctional press]

44. i think that it's 'nuture' over 'nature' when it comes to people's personalities.

we're a product of our environment and upbringing. and that's not to say that it's strictly the parents that are involved in the molding- there are LOTS of influences.

[varelse]

45. I think all humans are potentially evil

and that some of us are born lacking the capacity for empathy, just as some are (very rarely) born without the ability to sense pain.

[mykpart]

57. "Lacking the capacity for empathy" is a great definition for

what the OP refers to as "evil." Whatever you call the condition, I think there is a point of no return; that is, after choosing evil over good enough times, a person becomes permanently addicted to "evil."

[walldude]

46. Did you ever try to squeeze into a pair of Calvin Kleins? Those jeans are evil...

all really bad kidding aside, the answer is yes. I have 3 kids all raised with the same values but they are all completely different. Some things... just are.

[shanejfilomena]

48. it's social engineering

period

[LWolf]

52. No.

But then, I don't really believe in "evil." Just a continuum that includes various levels of fear, hate, and greed, as well as empathy, love, and respect.

I do think that, genetic or not, people can be born with brains that are wired to make them more susceptible to anger, for instance. I know that some personality traits SEEM to be present at birth.

There might be a genetic component, but I believe that environmental stimulus is a greater factor.

[centristgrandpa]

54. idiot...

Dick less cheney is an egomaniac whose evil ness is self imposed...

[BlooInBloo]

55. Nope.

[AZBlue]

56. I think you can be genetically predisposed to a mental illness that would lead you to do evil things

[ContinentalOp]

58. Wow, do that many people here really believe in evil?

:crazy: