Author: Alycia

Many people will admit in a heartbeat that there is much evil in the world. Would these same people say that the world itself is evil? Some may, and some may not.

Evil happening in the world

When you ask people to give examples of the world being evil, they may mention things like murder, terrorism, pedophilia, human trafficking, theft, corruption, etc. However, the items on this list are examples of evil happening in the world. Our world does condemn these forms of evil. There are laws against such behaviors. When people are caught doing these wicked behaviors, they are subject to prosecution under the law. Mainstream culture also will condemn these forms of evil. People who do these things are often seen as monsters by the surrounding community. Such people are usually ostracized.

What if, however, it was good behaviors that the community condemned and even punished? On the other hand, what if people who did certain evil deeds received praise by mainstream culture? In such scenarios, we are not just looking at evil happening in the world. What we are looking at is the world itself being evil.

When the world is evil

When mainstream culture and/or the government start to endorse certain forms of evil, that is when the world itself is evil. When people undergo condemnation, ridicule and adversity for doing something good, that is when the world itself is evil.

If, however, you conform to mainstream culture in your thinking and in your actions, it will be very difficult for you to see examples of the world being evil. The reason is that whenever the world around you endorses and praises certain forms of evil, you will be praising it as well. When the world around you condemns people for doing good deeds, you will be condemning those people as well. In other words, you will not notice when the world itself is evil, because you will be evil right along with it.

If you want to see examples of the world being evil, two places you can look are history and television. History contains many easy-to-find examples of the world being evil because many kinds of evil ways of thinking that the world adopted in history are now rejected by mainstream culture. One such example of slavery. In the antebellum South of the United States, mainstream culture viewed slavery as a normal and acceptable practice. Even most northerners did not condemn slavery. The North primarily fought the Civil War to keep the Union together. Freeing the slaves was not the primary reason for going to war. Recall that the treatment of these slaves was quite harsh. They would undergo beatings when they disobeyed their masters. As horrible as these practices appear to us today, back then they were considered normal. Though some people back then were against slavery, they were in a minority.

Television has its own world, which is not exactly the same as the real world. However, the more people imitate what they see on television, the more the real world starts to be like the world of television. As is discussed in the Television article, the world of television shows many scenes that depict bullying and harassment, which are presented as being comical. When you see a scene that depicts bullying in a comical light, you are seeing an example of the world being evil. You are not just viewing evil happening in the world. A world that is good will condemn bullying, not laugh at it. A world that is good will view bullies with contempt. In many movies and sitcoms, however, you will see characters that are bullies, and who are still well-liked by the other characters. Some characters are even sexual predators, and their behaviors undergo no condemnation or scrutiny, as discussed in the Sexual Predators’ Propaganda Through Television.

The world of television also will condemn certain behaviors that are good, such as telling the truth and “being too nice”. Lying is the norm among characters on television, even among the protagonists. I have seen characters apologize for doing the right thing, replace the truth they told with a lie, and then see them all live happily ever after. If you have ever watched The Big Bang Theory, you may recall the scene where Penny shouts at Howard about how horrible he is and how much she hates him (in response to his many unwanted sexual advances). Howard is sad for days afterward, and Penny is made to feel bad for what she had said. She eventually apologizes to him, tells him that she sees a good guy and that she kinds of likes him. Is he a good guy? No, he is a sexual predator. Does she like him? No. If she did, she would not have responded so negatively to his advances. She replaced the truth she told with a lie. In response, Howard regains his confidence, is no longer sad, and continues trying to prey on women like he did before.

Like telling the truth, being too nice also can be bad in the eyes of culture. If you are a nice person, and people decide to take advantage of you because of it, then according to some subcultures, you had it coming. It was your fault for being too nice. These subcultures view niceness as a behavior worthy of punishment and condemnation. Ever hear of the statement “nice guys finish last”? These subcultures often have more respect for the “assholes”. They associate meanness with strength and niceness with weakness. Such an environment tends to be survival of the fittest. Note that survival of the fittest is a sign of moral degeneracy.

What does it mean to walk in darkness?

You may have heard of the light versus darkness analogy where light represents good and darkness represents evil. To walk in spiritual darkness is more than just doing acts of evil that you know are evil and not having any remorse. Truly walking in darkness is when you start to convince yourself that the acts of evil you are doing are actually good, and some of the good deeds that other people are doing are actually wrong and worthy of condemnation. That is what it means to walk in darkness. You do not even know what is right or what is wrong anymore. You cannot even tell who is a good person or who is a bad person anymore. Some people you denounce may actually be good people. Other people you are friends with may actually be bad people who are evil like you are; but because you are in darkness yourself, these bad people look like normal, okay people to you.

When movies and sitcoms are walking in darkness

Normally in a storyline, the protagonist is the good guy or hero, and the antagonist is often the villain or adversary. When good triumphs over evil, it is a happy ending. When evil triumphs over good, it is a sad ending. When a movie is walking in darkness, however, the protagonist can be quite villainous while the antagonist may be the less evil one. The reason is that when we are walking in darkness, we are doing evil and are convincing ourselves that the evil we are doing is actually good. The people who try to stand up to us are good people doing a good deed by taking a stand against the evil that we are doing. In our eyes, however, these people standing up to us are the adversary. In other words, when we are in darkness, the people we see as the adversary are not necessarily evil, but rather are any people who stand in our way.

Movies that walk in darkness will feature protagonists that are bad people who do bad things while the antagonist may be the one doing good. Examples of such movies are Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Bad Teacher and a lesser known movie called Snow Day. In all of these movies, evil triumphs over good in the end, and it is presented as a happy ending.

In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris commits a series of wicked deeds throughout the movie so that he can get time off from school, have fun and not have to bear the consequences. He convinces the student body that he is ill to the point of death even though he is in good health. Some people are collecting money to save him, only to be collecting such money in vain. Ferris convinces his best friend to impersonate his girlfriend’s father to the school principal so that his girlfriend can get the day off. Later, Ferris impersonates the Sausage King of Chicago so that the three of them can eat at a fancy restaurant. To get around town, Ferris steals a Ferrari, which would have counted as a felony. Ferris also uses his computer to hack into the school software system and reduce the recorded number of days he has missed from school. Meanwhile, Principal Edward Rooney is rightfully trying to catch Ferris in the act of pretending to be sick so that he can be held responsible for his actions. Edward Rooney fails, however, with the help of Ferris’s sister who lets a drug dealer convince her that it doesn’t matter whether Ferris is held responsible for his actions. Evil triumphs over good in the end. Ferris gets away with everything he did, and it is all presented as a happy ending.

Now imagine that there is a big snowstorm, and just when the men are finished plowing the streets, some kids come along and throw the snow back onto the streets just so they can get another day off from school. We could figure that such kids are not exactly good kids. In the movie Snow Day, though, the heroes of the story are the kids who want another snow day off from school so badly that they are ready to tie up the man who plowed the streets and use their shovels to unplow the streets, as shown in this video clip. Meanwhile, think of how terrible it would be if the roads were blocked off with snow for an extra day. People would be unable to go to work, unable to go to the shops to get needed food and medicine, and emergency vehicles would be unable to get around. Clearly anybody who tries to unplow the streets would be a villain. Indeed, the Snow Day movie is yet another movie in which the protagonists are the more villainous ones, and the “happy ending” features evil triumphing over good.

Maybe you think I need to lighten up. After all, Snow Day is just a kids movie. The problem is that television has affects on us that we are not aware of. It messes with our psyche and our subconscious. By showing “happy endings” that feature evil triumphing over good, we are being conditioned to experience glee when seeing wrongdoers triumph over good people in real life. We may even do it without realizing it. Is there actually a conspiracy going on in the film industry to condition people to be evil? Regardless of whether there is, this material is on television, and it is affecting people.

When laughing at people harming each other is the norm

Much of the humor in television is centered around characters intentionally inflicting harm on each other and treating each other like crap. Granted, we sometimes laugh at our own suffering, and television sometimes satirizes everyday life hassles. However, when television shows everyday life aggravations being caused by people treating other people badly, then we are no longer just laughing at the satires of everyday life hassles. We are laughing at people treating each other badly.

Some may argue that as long as nobody was harmed in the process of putting together these scenes, laughing at such scenes is okay. The problem comes when these scenes—such as the ones that depict bullying in a comical light—condition our minds to laugh at people harming other people. Eventually, we may start laughing as such things in real life, and without realizing it.

Culture does not care about you

There is an entity that will willingly tell you how to live your life. It will even tell you how to live your personal life. It is culture. When you do not live your life a certain way, the culture around you will judge you for it. You will receive messages that tell you that somehow if you do not do certain things, you are inadequate. Many of these messages come from television. Other messages come from people in our lives, whether it be loved ones or acquaintances.

For example, the jock may get laughed at in the lockerroom because he is a virgin. Although, let us say that this jock does decide to give into these messages and become sexually active. Harm may come because of it, such as contracting of a sexually transmitted disease. If such harm were to befall this jock, then the very culture that told him to become sexually active is not going to take responsibility or feel bad about what happened. The reason is that culture does not care about you.

Culture will tell you how to live your personal life, but not because it cares about you. Rather, culture tells you how to live your life so that it can sustain itself and sustain its power.

Summary

When one’s mind is in darkness, he/she does not see acts of evil the way a normal person would. He/she may see a wrongdoer as a hero, and see the person standing up to the wrongdoer as the villain.

When the whole world sees certain wrongdoings as praiseworthy, that is when the world is evil.

What if I told you that sexual predators are, through television, desensitizing us viewers to sexual predation and conditioning us to believe that sexual predation can be an object of amusement?

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are greatly influenced by what we see on television. In fact, if we deny that what we watch on television affects us, our denial only increases the affect. It is only when we become consciously aware of the affect that television content has on us that we can take the steps to mitigate its affects.

Television has the power to manipulate viewers into doing things that they would otherwise not do. This is why commerical advertisements are so effective in getting us to buy products. If they were not effective, the companies would not be continuing to spend millions of dollars making more of them.

The film industry attracts sexual predators

Sexual predators tend to prey on women and children. The film industry is where people go when they want to appear in TV commercials, movies, sitcoms, etc. Hence, many physically attractive women and beautiful children flock over to the film industry for a chance to appear in one of these commercials/movies/sitcoms.

I had seen someone bring up a good point that where the sheep are plentiful, the wolves will follow. Since the film industry is an industry where attractive women and beautiful children are plentiful, it attracts pedophiles and other sexual predators.

Television production, as a profession, is predominantly male as discussed in this article. Former child actors have testified that in the film industry, pedophiles are everywhere. Not only does the film business give sexual predators a chance to be around prospective victims in large numbers, it also places sexual predators into a position of great power as TV producers. In TV production, competition for a part in a movie or sitcom is intense. Many actors and actresses are trying to make it big, and TV producers have the power to make or break someone’s career.

What most viewers are not aware of is that TV producers, many of whom are sexual predators, use their talent and power to put content onto the television screen that presents sexually predatory behaviors as being normal and even comical.

What kind of a world would sexual predators want to live in?

Television producers determine what goes on the TV screen, and what they choose to put onto the TV screen is a reflection of the kind of world that they would want to live in. They are not stupid. They know that what they put onto the TV screen may be fantasy at first, but the more influence it has on viewers, the more the fantasies become reality.

It does not take much more than common sense to figure out what kind of a world sexual predators would want to live in. Below are some characteristics of such a world:

• Sexual predation seen as a normal behavior and even viewed as comical
• Women’s self esteem is dependent on attention from men
• Women are property, specifically public property
• Stigma against feminism
• Blaming the victim
• Oversexualization of people
• Glorification of sexual promiscuity
• Weak family ties
• No behavioral standards for men, only for women

Obviously, sexual predators would like to live in a culture that sees sexually predatory behaviors as being normal, and even comical. In addition, women are easier to prey on when their self esteem is tied to their sexual appeal. Granted, women throughout history have always wanted to be beautiful and pleasing to men. In the olden days, however, a respectable woman would perceive unsolicited physical touching by male strangers as offensive. She would not want the man to mistake her for being a prostitute. Rather, a respectable woman would expect a man to behave as a gentleman and see her as more than just a sex partner.

Sexual predators want a world where women rate themselves solely on their level of sexual appeal. In such a case, sexual advances are more likely to be welcomed, even when they are inappropriate. After all, why would an inappropriate sexual advance be bad if the woman’s self esteem is dependent on it?

Sexual predators want to have as much power over their victims as possible. When women are seen as property, the women are in a position of lower power. However, if women are privately owned by their fathers/husbands, they would be more protected and hence be harder for sexual predators to access. Therefore, sexual predators will have easier access to their victims when their victims are viewed as public property. When women are public property, they serve as a source of entertainment to any men in their vicinity.

In recent years, there has been some degree of stigma against feminism. Indeed, the modern day feminist movement has been bringing across some toxic messages, which will not be discussed here. However, this stigma against feminism can be used as a manipulation tool to get women to be more tolerant of bad treatment targeted at women. At the very least, it could make women more hesitant about standing up to bad treatment targeted at women, for fear of being called the F-word.

Sexual predators are less likely to be held accountable for their actions when they live in a culture that blames the victim. As is discussed in the article Blaming the Victim, cultures that blame the victim essentially send a message to the perpetrator that the perpetrator can victimize people in certain ways as much as they want and can rest assured that they are safe from accountability. While they have a field day victimizing people as much as they want, the victim gets blamed instead.

Culture is not as likely to view sexual predators as the monsters that they are when people are over-sexualized. Oftentimes, culture views people as sexual beings, as if their purpose on this planet is to maximize their degree of sexual appeal and engage in sexual relationships. When people view themselves as sexual beings, sexual predation does not look as monstrous. On the other hand, when people view each other as being spiritual, intelligent, complex and multi-dimensional beings, anyone who preys on people in a sexual manner appears as a monster.

Sexual predators also like to live in a culture that normalizes sexual promiscuity and even stigmatizes celibacy. In a sexually promiscuous culture, people will often have sexual intercourse within hours of meeting each other. In such a culture, when people go for periods of time without engaging in sexual activity, they feel bad, as if they have failed at life. Such a culture is more likely to embrace sexual predation as a normal behavior.

Sexual predators are generally bad people, which means that they will be prone to engaging in other evil behaviors besides just sexual predation, such as bullying. Therefore, sexual predators, most of whom are male, would like to live in a world where behavioral standards for men are as low as possible, but where there may still be behavioral standards for women. In this way, the horrible behaviors of sexual predators will be more likely to be tolerated. In this world, there may still be behavioral standards for women to follow. For example, this world may expect women to always be nice, and to always smile. Women also would be expected to bend over backwards to avoid the remote possibility of hurting anybody’s feelings. Indeed, people who have a fear of hurting other people’s feelings are generally easier to manipulate.

What kind of television content would promote this kind of a world?

To endorse certain behaviors as being okay, it is not enough to just show characters exhibiting these behaviors. Producers need to add to the scene subliminal messages, which state that the behaviors are okay, or at least not a big deal. They can do so by showing the other characters exhibiting little to no reaction to the behaviors. The victim also would not react with outrage, and may even react positively to the bad treatment.

Humor is a very effective means of delivering subliminal messages. You may notice that many of the TV commercials are humorous. Similarly, TV content that shows acts of sexual predation in a humorous light will be more effective in getting viewers to accept sexual predation as normal.

Pedophilia, however, is difficult to show in a humorous light without backlash from viewers. The public is well aware that any sexual relationship or sexual attraction between an adult and a child is abnormal. However, viewers do accept as normal sexual relationships between grown men and grown women. Therefore, sexually predatory behaviors towards grown women can be shown in a humorous light without as much backlash from viewers. Indeed, TV producers can fool viewers into believing that a man is simply pursuing a woman, and just being a man, when in reality the behavior may be sexually predatory in nature.

Television producers have tried to show pedophiles in comedy scenes. This video and this video show clips from the show Family Guy of the character, Herbert, who is a pedophile and is sexually attracted to young boys, including Peter’s son, Chris. The scenes show Herbert actively pursuing young boys with the intent of getting sexual entertainment, and the scenes are made out to be funny. Many fans, however, thought that the show was crossing the line. Evidently, it is hard for TV producers to get away with presenting pedophilia as being funny.

Women serve as the optimal target group for sexual predation as it is depicted on television, especially when this sexual predation is depicted in a humorous light. TV producers can insert content that sends across subliminal messages, which state that it is okay to sexually prey on women — and with sufficiently low public scrutiny. Some messages may attempt to contribute to the stigma against feminism. One way of doing this is by portraying feminists as being eccentric and easy to laugh at. This scene presents an example.

Television producers can easily oversexualize the characters and glorify sexual promiscuity. They could oversexualize characters by dressing many characters — especially female characters — in sexually provocative attire. They could glorify sexual promiscuity by showing characters engaging in sexual intercourse within hours of meeting each other, and having a long line of sex partners over time. Of course television producers can easily avoid showing the spread of disease and the emotional grief that comes with sexually promiscuous lifestyles.

To stigmatize celibacy, a producer could show characters, who have had a “long” celibate period, as being unhappy and feeling like they are failing at life. Meanwhile, the characters with the most sex partners are happy and living “great lives”.

Promotion of low behavioral standards for men also is relatively easy. Nothing promotes low behavioral standards for men like a smart, attractive, kind woman falling in love with, and marrying, a selfish, egotistical man who is an overall mediocre person. Some scenes could even show good male behavior being condemned. A classic example is a scene where a man shows concern for someone’s feelings, and is called a homo by his friends.

If producers wanted to tell female viewers to value themselves based on sexual attractiveness — rather than how high quality of a human being they are — the producers could insert content that shows female characters valuing themselves based on how many guys want to sleep with them. The content also could show the guys only noticing a woman’s level of sexual appeal, and not taking much notice of what the woman is like as a person.

Television content that promotes the ideal world for sexual predators

The following list shows examples of characters in movies and sitcoms that are vessels through which sexual predation is normalized and presented as comical:

• The nerds from the movie Revenge of the Nerds
• Howard Wolowicz from the series Big Bang Theory
• Georgie Cooper Jr. from the series Young Sheldon
• Douglas Reynholm from the series IT Crowd
• Woody Deane and Horse from the movie It’s a Boy-Girl Thing
• Herbert from the series Family Guy
• Austin the flight attendant from the movie Pretty Ugly People

Note that in most of the examples above, we are led to believe that these characters are just men (or boys) expressing an interest in women, and just being men. Television tends to blur the line between men’s natural interest in women and sexual predation. This article discusses some of the above examples in more detail.

If you watch television at all, then you will notice that many characters on television are over-sexualized, especially women. In addition, we see plenty of television content glorifying sexual promiscuity. Whenever a character has had a celibate period, we are led to believe that the character has been overworked or is a freak of nature (e.g. 40-Year-Old Virgin).

You may also recall television content that shows a physically unattractive, selfish, immature, not-too-smart man with a smart, attractive and kind wife. Examples include Family Guy, The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond and The Anchorman. Such material promotes a fantasy world where behavioral standards for men are very low, but where there are still behavioral standards for women.

In the movie The Anchorman, female journalist Veronica Corningstone meets and falls in love with the famous news anchor Ron Burgundy. While Veronica is smart and physically attractive, Ron Burgundy is obnoxious, selfish, immature, egotistical and sometimes outright mean. At one point, he physically attacks Veronica by picking her up and throwing her over a desk. At other points in time, he calls her a whore and threatens to punch her in her reproductive organs. Despite how crappy of a person he is, Veronica still finds him to be sexually irresistable. While he does redeem himself later by trying to rescue Veronica from the bears den, this redemptive deed would only give Veronica reason to no longer resent him. Such redemptive deeds would not be sufficient to convince any reasonable woman in Veronica’s position to fall in love with him and marry him.

These movies and sitcoms bring across the subliminal message, which states that women who expect their men to be decent human beings are asking for too much and have unrealistic expectations. If you are a woman and you are smart, then you will choose the Peter Griffin or the Homer Simpson or the Ron Burgundy. If you want Mr. Right, you may as well expect to find a diamond in your back yard. Are these messages representative of reality? No. There are plenty of good decent men. The sexual predators would rather that women not know this.

How do we spot sexual predator propaganda material?

Once you know what sexual predation looks like, you should be able to spot sexually predatory behavior on television, even if it is presented as funny. For example, any sexual interest an adult shows towards a child is abnormal. Also, if a male character shows an interest in a female character that is shallow and purely sexual, then the male character may be a sexual predator. If a male character shows interest in a female character that is concerned with what she is like as a person, then it is less likely that the male character is a sexual predator.

Another kind of predatory behavior we sometimes see is stalking, which also can come across as comical in the world of television.

Based on some informal research that I have done, sexual predators’ propaganda material is more likely to be in content that comes from major film companies such as Fox Network, NBC Network and Paramount Pictures. Material that does not promote an evil agenda often comes from movies and sitcoms based on a novel and/or from smaller independent film companies.

Is it ethical to watch mainstream television?

With all of the sexual abuse that goes on behind the scenes, one may wonder whether it is ethical to pay for and watch mainstream television. Whenever we decide to view certain content, we are actively supporting it. Television stations keep track of how many viewers watch each of the shows. Whenever we watch content that has been produced in an unethical manner, we are sending the message that either we are oblivious as to what is going on or we do know what is going on, but we don’t care.

It is for this reason that I have recently decided to stop watching mainstream television on a regular basis.

Some may wonder how evildoers can live with themselves given how terrible they are and given how much suffering they cause. There are multiple explanations, one of which is the evildoer’s self-delusion bubble. This self-delusion bubble is a bubble of delusion that many evildoers create for themselves that continually tells them a lie that they are okay people no matter how bad they are. This bubble of delusion allows the evildoer to look into the mirror and see an angel instead of a devil.

To build and maintain this self-delusion bubble, the evildoer has a large selection of techniques and tactics at his/her disposal. This article discusses many of the ways that evildoers build and maintain this self-delusion bubble.

Denial that their intentions were bad

After it has been confirmed that the evildoer has done a bad deed that has caused suffering, you may hear evildoers explain that they did not realize they were causing so much pain. Here, the evildoer may or may not be telling the truth. Even if the evildoer is telling the truth and really did not know how much pain he/she was causing, it does not mean that he/she is innocent. When evildoers go about their every day business and fulfill their selfish ambitions, they place little to no consideration as to how their actions affect others. Because they think so little about the effects of their actions on others, they are not as likely to know what effects their actions have on others, hence the expression “I didn’t realize I was causing so much pain”.

When people say that they were not aware of the pain that they was causing, we should consider whether these people would have known if they had common sense and common decency. If common sense and common decency are all that would have been necessary to know how much harm others would incur, then there is reason for doubt that the person in question is innocent.

There are other methods evildoers can use to go into denial that their intentions were bad. One method is perversion of the definition of right and wrong. As is discussed in the Subjectivity article, evil flourishes in an environment where the definition of right and wrong is subjective. When the definition of right and wrong is subjective, you can label as “right” any destructive behaviors that you do. No matter how much harm a behavior causes, there is always a way of rationalizing it so that it seems right.

Denial that they cause harm

Another way that evildoers build and maintain their self-delusion bubble is by denying that they are the cause of the harm incurred by others. Even when people around them are suffering because of them, they may say to themselves that these people are suffering because they are human, and all humans suffer. To them, suffering is just a part of life, so why blame suffering on a specific person?

Sometimes when bad deeds cause harm, the harmful effect is delayed. The larger the time delay between the bad deed and the harm taking effect, the easier it is for the evildoer to go into denial that he/she was the cause of the harm. For example, let us say that the evildoer smokes around a child on a regular basis. A little smoke won’t kill them they figure. However, second hand smoke does have devastating consequences, especially for children. When the harm does take effect many years later in the form of an illness such as cancer or macular degeneration, it will be easy for the evildoer to conveniently avoid making a connection between the second hand smoke and the illness. Many factors cause such illnesses, and because there is such a large time delay between the smoke exposure and the illness, it is easy to look the other way and ignore the connection between the bad deed and the harm incurred.

Even when harmful effects are not delayed, they can still be hidden, as is the case with many forms of mental abuse and ill health effects.

Invalidation of the whistleblower’s testimony

When people do acts of evil that harm others, some people do speak up; but the self-delusion bubble can still prevail. There are many methods an evildoer can use to invalidate or discredit the testimony of another person speaking out.

Let us say that you are confronting someone about something terrible that he/she did. If you look too hysterical and upset, this could give the evildoer an excuse to render less valid your testimony. The evildoer may claim that you are being far too emotional to think clearly, and that perhaps you will change your mind about his/her actions when you “calm down”. Of course being told to calm down would likely make you more angry, which the evildoer doesn’t mind.

In some contexts such as in an altercation between family members, an evildoer may invalidate the family member’s testimony by questioning the family member’s state of mental health. Even if the family member has no history of mental illness, the evildoer, in his/her delusion, may figure that the family member simply never had a psychiatric evaluation. Perhaps if this family member saught help and received a psychiatric evaluation, an abnormality would be found. Of course if there were any history of psychological issues, even if it were just generalized anxiety disorder, the evildoer would have a venue through which to invalidate the other person’s testimony. “I think your anxiety issues are getting too out of hand” the evildoer may say.

Both of the examples above — making issues out of the person’s mood and the person’s mental soundness — at the very least have the effect of making it take longer for the other person’s testimony to be taken seriously. For example, if the evildoer claims that you only have a problem with his/her behavior because you are in a bad mood, then you are in a position where you would have to wait until you are in a “good mood” before you are taken seriously. Ironically, even if you are perfectly calm when explaining to the evildoer the wrongness of his/her actions, the evildoer, in his/her delusion, may figure that because you are so calm, the bad deed could not possibly be that bad.

Another way of invalidating the testimony of another person is by claiming that the other person simply has special pet peeves or perhaps idiosyncratic preferences. For example, let us say that a guy named Jerry likes to smoke in his apartment. He doesn’t care if his cigarette smoke gets into the air ventilation system and seeps into the other apartments. When a neighbor complains, Jerry tells himself that the neighbor is just being fussy. In Jerry’s delusional mind, the neighbor just has a pet peeve. Perhaps this neighbor is a health nut who won’t touch processed foods either. What Jerry is conveniently ignoring is the fact that cigarette smoke has been officially labeled as a health hazard by the Surgeon General, and has been banned from all public buildings.

Sometimes acts of evil can be as small as not listening to someone when he/she is talking. Not listening to someone is one of many ways of conveying disrespect, and evildoers don’t tend to have respect for their victims. Let us say that Nancy has little respect for her brother, Craig. Because she has little respect for Craig, she does not pay much attention to him when he is talking. Why would she listen to someone she does not respect when she has better things to do, like fulfilling her selfish ambitions? To justify her disrespect for Craig, Nancy tells herself that Craig is simply unworthy of respect. After all, Craig has been unemployed for the past few years. He has a stutter. He is not married.

In the example above, Nancy comes up with reasons to believe that Craig is unworthy of respect. In this way, she can disrespect Craig as much as she wants, and go into denial that she is doing anything wrong. On top of that, even if Craig were to speak up and complain that Nancy does not listen to him when he talks, Nancy can simply tell herself that Craig has an idiosyncratic preference, where the “preference” is to be listened to. “Craig just wants to be listened to, bless his heart…” Nancy says to herself and others. What Nancy is conveniently ignoring is the fact that we are supposed to listen when someone is talking. It is common decency. Almost everyone who talks wants to be listened to. Therefore, Craig’s need to be listened to is not an idiosyncracy, it is a basic human need.

In some religious settings, a person may try to confront the evildoer and reveal how wrong his/her behavior is with a Bible verse. Even if the evildoer identifies as a follower of the Bible, the evildoer can still find ways to invalidate the other person’s assertions, even if he is quoting scripture. One way is by using John Howard Griffin’s famous quote Every fool in error can find a passage of scripture to back him up. The evildoer may also falsely accuse the other person of taking the Bible verse out of context. Here, the evildoer is leaving the other person with the burden of having to provide a detailed and scholarly explanation as to why he believes that the Bible verse says what he thinks it says.

Imperfections and shades of gray

As discussed in some previous articles, evildoers sometimes blur the line between being imperfect and being an outright bad person. Sometimes they may even remove this dividing line entirely. As such, they will view their bad behaviors not as evidence that they are a bad person, but rather as simply imperfections.

An evildoer may even deny that there are any “good people” or “bad people”, figuring that nobody is completely good or completely bad. While it is true that nobody is completely good or completely bad, some people consistently make an honest attempt to do what is right while other people would rather do whatever they feel like regardless of the harm that others may incur.

Some people may figure that as long as they never robbed a bank, killed someone, molested a child or committed acts of terrorism, they are generally good. Meanwhile, they may still be doing acts of evil on a regular basis such as harassment, microaggressions, slander, sabotage or deceptive schemes. Such behaviors are done with wicked intentions, but usually do not lead to trouble with the law or prison time.

There is another excuse evildoers sometimes use to do evil — just being alive. Take the character Ani from the TV series 13 Reasons Why. Upon her entrance into the TV series, Ani declares that “if you are living and breathing, then you are a liar”. As the TV series progresses, Ani frames someone for murder, allowing the actual murderer to go free. She also tells her mother that she is a member of several clubs at school that do not actually exist. She then writes Clay’s college admissions essay for him and turns in the essay in his name and without his permission.

Did Ani frame someone for murder simply because she is alive and breathing? I don’t think so. Even though we all have told a lie at some point in our lifetimes, it does not mean that we have to continue telling lies until we die.

Assumed similarity bias

Another way that evildoers maintain their delusion bubble is by assuming that their evil nature is more common than it actually is. This article discusses the phenomenon called assumed similarity bias. The article defines assumed similarity bias as the “tendency for individuals to overestimate the extent to which other people’s thoughts, beliefs, values, characteristics, and behaviors are similar to their own”.

When we convince ourselves that our bad behaviors are the norm, it can give us the illusion that the bad behaviors are not that bad. Nonetheless, an evil intention is going to be just as evil when it is common as when it is uncommon. Also, a behavior that hurts people is still going to hurt people just as much whether it is common or uncommon.

When you try to stand up to an evildoer who has adopted the assumed similarity bias mindset, you may hear him/her say things like “you would have done the same thing…” or “everyone is like me, so get used to it”. Even if you convince the person that you are not like him/her, he/she may try to convince you that you are the weird one while he/she is the norm.

Television

Television creates a breeding ground for these self-delusion bubbles by normalizing and even promoting many destructive behaviors. This article and this article discuss the many ways that television promotes evil and entices viewers to laugh at things that people should not be laughing at. Below is a list of behaviors that television normalizes and trivializes:

• Sexual harassment and sexual molestation
• Sexual promiscuity
• Breaking into someone’s home
• Disobedience to authority figures (parents, police, senior ranking officers, etc)
• Habitual lying
• Laughing at people being mean to each other
• Being entertained by turmoil and abuse within another family (also known as scandals)
• Apologizing for doing the right thing

On the other hand, some good behaviors that television condemns are telling the truth, being “too nice” and maintaining one’s chastity.

The list above shows that you can be a pretty rotten person, and yet in the land of television be considered normal. In the land of television, if you sexually harass women, nobody bats an eye. In the land of television, no matter how mean you are to your friend, your friend is supposed to always forgive you afterwards and then continue to be your friend. When people are fighting and/or being mean to each other, you are permitted to laugh and see it as free entertainment. It also is okay for you to lie to your friends and family members all the time. They may not like it, but they will get over it. If you are male, you can view women as mere sexual entertainment. In fact, you are supposed to view women as sexual entertainment because you are a guy.

I suspect that many television producers are bad men. Testimonies from former child actors have stated that the television industry has many sexual predators. Indeed, television is made by bad people for bad people.

Manipulating the conversation

When you try to tell people something that contradicts the lies of their self-delusion bubbles, you may find yourself running up against a wall. First, the person may intentionally misunderstand what you are saying, and you may find that you have to keep repeating yourself. Sometimes, the person will assume that you are joking. Even after explaining to them how unacceptable their behaviors are, you may find them asking if you are joking ten minutes into the conversation. Why would they think such a serious matter is a joke? Because you are contradicting the lies of their delusion bubble, and in their delusions, it is hard for them to believe that you are serious and mean every word that you are saying.

Sometimes, to avoid a truth they do not want to face, people try to deflect the conversation. Changing the subject is what people think of most when it comes to deflecting the converstation. However, there are other ways of deflecting a conversation, such as sarcasm, flattery and humor. Humor in particular can serve as a crafty way of lightening the mood of what otherwise would be a serious conversation. By manipulating the conversation into one that is less serious, the person can maintain the delusion that the issue at hand is not a big deal. Sarcasm, combined with humor, can have a similar effect, only with an extra sting of disrespect. Phrases like “you got me there” and “guilty as charged” are forms of sarcasm that may be used to diminish the weightiness of what should be a conversation that exposes evil for what it is.

Evildoers have networks

Evildoers obviously can make friends with each other and form their own social networks. When they do so, any messages of truth that you try to send their way can easily be refuted within their network. Some things they may say to each other include “she said that to you? Well, she said that to me, too. I wouldn’t take it personally. She says that to a lot of people…”

Summary

Bursting the evildoer’s delusion bubble can be pretty hard. When they decide to erect a delusion bubble that tells them what they want to believe, they will put effort into maintaining it. Simply having an honest talk with them may not do much. They may even believe that being “thick skinned” is a virtue and a sign that they are strong-minded.

The evildoer’s self-delusion bubble is harder to maintain when a larger number of people speak out. The larger the number of people that speak out, the harder it will be for the evildoer to invalidate their testimonies. In addition, the more people shun them, the more they will be likely to change and turn away from their evil ways.

Evildoers often like to put other people down and/or denigrate someone else in the sight of others. Often when they do so, however, they run into the issue of looking like a jerk. When an evildoer tries to put someone else down, he/she may look like a jerk to others, in which case the evildoer would be making him/herself look bad instead of making the victim look bad. This is the jerk dilemma. To solve this jerk dilemma, evildoers devise cunning and crafty ways of putting the other person down as much as possible, and without it looking like they are being mean at all.

Below are examples of techniques that evildoers use to denigrate another person without looking like a jerk to others…

Insults masked as compliments

Evildoers sometimes deliver insults that are disguised as compliments, as is discussed in the article Flattery and Backhanded Compliments. If the evildoer delivered the insult directly, he/she could easily look like a jerk; but if the insult is delivered in the form of a backhanded compliment, then the other bystanders will be less likely to view the evildoer as being a jerk. After all, it is just a compliment, right?

Sometimes the evildoer will deliver an insult at first, then later claim that the insult was actually a compliment. For example, an evildoer may say to you that you are selfish. After denigrating you in the sight of others by calling you selfish, the evildoer may then turn around and say “oh but it is good to be selfish. You have to take care of yourself. Self care is important”. Here, the evildoer is putting you down, but at the same time is manipulating you and others into thinking that this put-down was actually a good-intentioned form of praise.

Passive aggression

A person who genuinely respects you is willing to openly voice disagreement with you in a respectful manner. Evildoers, however, do not tend to have respect for their victims. Therefore, they will not even give their victims the dignity of disagreeing in a respectful manner. Sometimes evildoers will disagree in a disrespectful manner, and sometimes they will utilize subtle forms of passive aggression to denigrate their victims in the sight of others without coming across as a jerk.

Passive aggression is the topic of many articles, and it can take place in many forms. While some articles list examples of passive aggression phrases, below are some phrases that you likely have not seen listed, which can qualify as passive aggression in certain contexts:

• “…what you are feeling…”
• “It is a phase. You will change your mind later.”
• “a little bit of both”

The use of the little word “feel” can be passive aggressive in certain contexts. Let us say that a person is making a basic observation of a wrongdoing or atrocity. In order to discredit the person’s observations in a subtle manner, the evildoer may use subjectivity language such as “…how you feel…”, “I am sorry you feel that way…” or “…what you are feeling…”. These subjectivity phrases have the effect of reducing an objective observation into a mere feeling that only exists inside of the person’s head. This use of the word “feel” puts on a façade of emotional sensitivity, but in reality is a malicious gaslighting term and also qualifies as a form of passive aggression.

Another term that can be passive aggressive is “you’ll change your mind later”. Let us say that Pat is impassionately pro-life and has decided to do activism to rescue the unborn from being killed in the womb. One of Pat’s family members says in a rather faint-hearted manner “you are just going through a phase. You will change your mind”. Obviously this remark would be offensive to Pat. Why would Pat want to change her mind about standing up for the unborn? Why would this be just a phase? Does this family member mean to say that Pat will one day not care about the unborn anymore? We can see here that a seemingly innocuous statement, in certain contexts, can be quite denigrating.

Sometimes passive aggression can be very subtle, such as when someone utters the phrase “a little bit of both”. When we think of passive aggression, this phrase does not tend to come to mind, but it can be passive aggressive. Let us say that Judy is glad to have gotten out of a relationship with a boyfriend that she thought was being abusive. Judy discusses how her boyfriend kept trying to convince her that their problems were her fault, but, Judy emphatically states, he was obviously the problem. That is when John replies “well it was probably a little bit of both”. Here, John does not state explicitly that he believes Judy was a part of the problem. Instead, he puts on a facade of impartiality by using the phrase “a little bit of both”. Even though he is not stating that all of the problems in the relationship were Judy’s fault, by just using this phrase, he is diminishing Judy’s testimony in regards to her being a victim in an abusive relationship.

Sometimes a seemingly innocuous little laugh can be a form of passive aggression. Because laughter is a part of everyday conversation, a passive aggressive laugh can easily go unnoticed, but still create a sting in the heart of the victim. Normally when people laugh in everyday conversation, it is in response to a joke or in response to a comment on something. However, a passive aggressive individual may laugh when the other person is, in a serious manner, expressing his/her opinion about something that is important to him/her. This laugh delivers the subliminal message to the other person that he/she is not being taken seriously, and perhaps is not worth being taken seriously.

Voicing disagreement is more respectful than passive aggression

Let us say that John does not agree with Peggy, but because he has no respect for Peggy, he will not voice his disagreement directly. Instead he employs passive aggressive modes of behavior in order to discredit Peggy in front of others. When Peggy confronts John and asks him why he will not voice his disagreement directly, John says that he is kind of afraid of Peggy and is not sure what Peggy would do if he voiced his disagreement directly. Peggy is a sweet person, however, and John has no reason to believe that Peggy would become hostile in response to overt disagreement.

In this example, John justifies his passive aggression by claiming that Peggy cannot “handle” disagreement, even though John has no reason to believe this to be true at all. On some occasions, John claims to be afraid of Peggy, and he expresses “fear” of what may happen if he openly voices disagreement with Peggy. This “fear”, however, is only a pretense, and is most likely a form of sarcastic mockery.

Imagine a little kid in the school yard trying to assert himself in front of bullies. In response, the bullies say “ooooo, I am sooooo scared…”. Are they actually scared? No. Their “fear” is a pretense that is meant to mock the smaller kid. So when evildoers claim to be “afraid” of what may happen if they openly voice disagreement with the other person, this “fear” likely is a form of implicit mockery. Furthermore, claiming that the other person cannot handle disagreement is a derogatory attack on a person’s character that is not necessarily justified. For example, when John frames Peggy as someone who may get hostile in response to mere disagreement, John is putting Peggy’s character into a negative light that is not representative of who Peggy is.

Of course if John just openly voiced his disagreement with Peggy, his behavior would be much less destructive and would allow for better communication to take place.

The aftermath

Even in the aftermath of an evildoer’s wicked behaviors, when it has been established that what the evildoer did was wrong, evildoers will still have more tricks up their sleeve to maintain their outward image of being a nice person.

One technique evildoers may use is the fake lip-service apology technique. The idea is simply to say the S-word a bunch of times, and if they say it enough times, everyone is supposed to believe that they are “sorry” and are not so bad after all. Some gullible people fall for this, but note that there is a difference between regret and remorse. Regret generally means that the person wished he/she had not done something. Remorse refers to sorrow for the suffering that the person has caused to someone else. While remorse is a potential reason to feel regret, it is not the only possible cause of regret. When evildoers feel regret, it can be just regret that they got caught. Regret also may come from the damage to their reputation, and/or from incurring a penalty for the wicked deed. In other words, regret can come in the absence of remorse, and be purely selfish.

The level of sincerity in an apology shows through in the person’s actions. For example, is the person trying to do whatever it takes to make up for the harm done? What is the person’s past behavioral history? Does the person have a history of righting the wrongs he/she has done?

Another technique evildoers use to maintain their nice person disguise is playing the “I’m not perfect” card. Evildoers sometimes like to blur the line between being imperfect and being an outright bad person. Sometimes they remove this dividing line entirely, saying things like “hey, there is some bad in all of us”. By saying “I’m not perfect”, the evildoer is framing the other person as being an unreasonable individual that just expects everyone to be perfect — even though the other person may only be expecting the evildoer to behave like a halfway decent human being.

Other implicit put-downs

Another expression that can be a put-down in many contexts is the statement “you two just have differences”. This statement can represent the truth in some contexts, but in other contexts it can serve as an unjustified attack on someone’s character.

Let us say there are two neighbors named George and Joe. When Joe uses his leaf blower, he blows lots of leaves into George’s yard. He also lets his dog poop in George’s yard. George does not like this. While he is talking to his other neighbors about his problems with Joe, one of the other neighbors, Bill, notes that George is an educated medical doctor who also has a PhD. Joe, on the other hand, barely finished high school and works as a construction worker. Bill decides to tell George that he and Joe just have differences and need to learn to accept each other despite each other’s differences.

In this example, Bill is making a judgmental assumption about George. By stating “you two just have differences”, Bill is implying that George somehow has a problem with people who are different from him. If Bill were to explicitly say to George “you just hate people who are different from you”, Bill may look like a jerk. Bill is smarter than that. Bill instead states that the dispute is caused by mere “differences” and tries to sound reassuring by saying that once those “differences” are worked out, everything will be good. We know, however, that this dispute is not caused by differences, but rather by bad behavior.

Even if someone were to point out how inappropriate Bill’s comment was, Bill has a whole other set of tactics he can use to make himself look innocent, which is discussed in the article titled “I didn’t mean to”.

Another subtle put-down is the interjection of the word Ouch. This little word can easily be used to vilify another person and make him/her look like a big meanie. Let us say you are confronting someone about inappropriate and offensive jokes that he has been making. While you tell him how his jokes bring no joy to anybody and only cause problems, he interjects with the word “Ouch!”. This interjection serves to frame you as the mean one and him as the victim. The word Ouch indicates to you that you have hurt someone in a way that is uncalled for.

Sometimes evildoers will take an expression of wisdom and apply it to the wrong context. One example is the expression “what you see in others is a reflection into yourself”. Evildoers may use this expression to vilify people who are confronting them about their bad behaviors and who are questioning how good they are as a person. By saying “what you see in others is a reflection into yourself”, the evildoer is taking attention off of him/herself and placing it onto the other person.

Summary

The examples presented here represent a plethora of tactics that evildoers can use to make others look bad in the sight of others, and without looking like they are being mean at all. It is like having your cake and eating it too. Sometimes the meanness is so subtle that even the victim does not know that he/she is being treated wrongly. This only serves to increase the amount of torment that the victim is experiencing. As the victim feels the effects of the bad treatment, the victim may not even know why he/she feels this way. Meanwhile the evildoer does the damage and evades accountability.

Physical touch is often used as a nonverbal way of showing affection, which could be sexual in nature, as between romantic partners, or nonsexual in nature, as between friends. A hug, a pat on the shoulder or a stroking of the arm can convey affection sometimes in a more powerful way than words alone. So if you were to see, for example, a woman touching another woman in an affectionate manner, and see the other woman flinch in response, what would be your reaction? Would you think that maybe this other woman, for some odd reason, doesn’t like to be touched? Would you think that maybe this other woman does not like to experience affection from other human beings?

Unsolicited physical touch can occur in different contexts. If someone walks up to you and punches you in the mouth, that altercation would be an example of unsolicited physical touch. In another context, one person may forcibly push another person in order to move the other person out of the way of a moving vehicle. Here, the unsolicited physical touch, we can figure, is warranted. It is meant to save a person’s life. There is another kind of unsolicited physical touch, however, that appears to be a touch of affection. It is not true affection, however. It is a form of disrespect, and sometimes qualifies as abuse.

When people think of unsolicited physical touch, they may think of men inappropriately touching women in a sexual manner. However, unsolicited physical touch can be woman on woman, or even woman on man. The first few minutes of this video show some examples of Justin Bieber being touched in an unsolicited manner by grown men and grown women. In the world of television, this behavior is okay, but in reality it is disrespectful and harmful.

Evil Thought Processes Behind Unsolicited Physical Touch

A mindset that is characteristic of evildoers is the mindset that the world around oneself exists for one’s own sake and for one’s own personal glory. Even when evildoers do not believe that the entire world exists for their sake, they will still believe that their immediate environment and the people in their lives only exist for their own personal use. The good person, on the contrary, will have the mindset that the world around him/herself exists for the sake of all and/or for the sake of God’s glory.

When an evildoer touches another person in an unsolicited manner — whether it be sexual or nonsexual in nature — the evildoer often does so with the mindset that the other person exists for the evildoer’s own personal use and personal pleasure. As far as the evildoer is concerned, the other person has no higher purpose. For example, when the men and women were touching Justin Bieber in an unsolicited manner and invading his personal space, they likely believed that he only served one purpose: to provide entertainment and pleasure. As far as they are concerned, Justin is an aesthetically beautiful entertainment icon that only exists to entertain, and does not necessarily have any other worth. They do not respect his rights to his own personal space. Unless they derive some sort of use out of him, he may as well not exist as far as they are concerned.

The good person sees worth in other people that goes beyond the use that he/she can get out of them. For example, is the shoemaker’s worth as a person only in the shoes that he makes? Is the baker’s worth only in the baked good that she produces? We should be able to see that a shoemaker is not just a shoemaker, but also a father, husband, son, good friend, etc.

Physical touch can be a tool that evildoers will use to try to trick their victims, and casual bystanders, into thinking that they are the victim’s friend. The evildoer may physically touch the victim in an affectionate manner before, during or after inflicting harm on the victim, and all the while showing no signs of remorse for the bad deed. For example, let us say that the victim is speaking her mind on something that is important to her, and the evildoer laughs in response, as if the victim were telling a joke, even though the victim is clearly not telling a joke. The evildoer sees that the victim is offended, but rather than acknowledging any wrongdoing or giving any apology, the evildoer simply strokes the victim’s arm in an affectionate manner. Using this nonverbal body language, the evildoer is essentially saying to the victim “you are not worthy of any respect, and your opinions are not to be taken seriously, but I am still your friend, and I care about you.”

This unsolicited physical touching is sometimes an insult to the victim’s intelligence. It is as if the evildoer is saying “I can do all of the horrible things to you that I want, and no matter how badly I treat you, I still expect you to believe that I am your friend. All I have to do to be your friend is touch you in an affectionate way. You cannot possibly reject my physical affection. That would be horrible…” Obviously, unsolicited physical touching of an affectionate nature does not make one a good person, and it certainly does not mean that the person has no intention of harming you.

Physical contact is not always done out of affection. For example, when we lean against a wall at a public place, we certainly feel no affection for the wall, and we think nothing of touching it. It is just an inanimate object. As far as we are concerned, the wall has no value in itself, and exists only for the sake of providing a barrier between two spaces. When we hug a stuffed animal, we do not feel affection for the stuffed animal as we would for another person, though we may feel a sentimental attachment to the stuffed animal, particularly if it was a stuffed animal that we had as a child.

Women are more likely to get away with initiating unsolicited physical contact with others. One reason is that female friends touch each other more than male friends do. When men are friends with each other, there is less affectionate physical touch than there is among women who are friends. Another reason women get away with this behavior more than men is that culture frowns upon men giving unsolicited physical contact to a woman because such behavior is often viewed as a form of sexual harassment. Not so when a woman touches another woman. Therefore, in my opinion, physical touch, done out of disrespect, and with the façade of affection, is most likely to be done by a female to another female. It also may be done by an adult to a child.

Evildoers perceive aesthetic beauty more than they do true worth

In some cultures and subcultures, young women are expected to value themselves based on how aesthetically beautiful they are. This mindset has very serious implications. The problem with this mindset is that it implies that the young women’s worth is no higher than that of an inanimate object. Think about it. Inanimate objects can be beautiful, so if all that is expected of a young woman is to be beautiful, then the expectations of her are expectations that could be fulfilled by an inanimate object. There is nothing that is expected of her that an inaminate object cannot do.

If a man and woman want to have a beautiful daughter, and beauty is the only thing that they want in their daughter, then they may as well go out and buy a doll. After all, dolls are not only beautiful, they also do not need all of the care that a child would require. So why do the man and woman not buy a doll? The reason is that they do want more in a daughter than just beauty. They want her to have a soul. They want her to have a personality that makes her unique. They want her to have something that distinguishes her from all other people.

When an older woman invades a younger woman’s space, and touches her in an unsolicited manner, she may justify her behavior by claiming that the younger woman is supposed to take this excessive physical contact as a compliment. She may expect the younger woman to place her value in her physical beauty rather than in who she is as a person. The older woman’s attitude implies that she has no more respect for the younger woman than what she would have for an inanimate object. The older woman believes that the younger woman, like an inanimate object, is there for her own personal pleasure and personal use. As far as the older woman is concerned, the younger woman has no higher purpose.

Manipulating The Victim Into Submission

Evildoers can employ numerous manipulative tactics to get their victims to tolerate their bad treatment. One thing that many evildoers know is that people generally want to be loved and wanted. Evildoers can use this yearning to be loved to their advantage. When their victim complains about invasion of his/her personal space, the evildoer may say something like are you not grateful that someone loves you and wants to be around you? Don’t you like human contact? What is wrong with you?

Evildoers can be very skilled at denigrating their victims in the sight of others, and without it looking like they are doing anything wrong at all. Their denigrating comments are very subtle, yet still effective at making the victim feel like something is wrong with him/her and making the victim look like a grouch to naïve bystanders. When you complain to a person that he/she is touching you too much, he/she may spread rumors that you have an aversion to human contact. Meanwhile, you may like human contact, just not from some horrible person who has no respect for you and who is only pretending to be your friend.

In some contexts, unsolicited physical touch is a nonverbal means by which one person claims another person as his/her personal property, as discussed in this article.

Did you ever have a very strong opinion about something, only to find that some people did not share that same opinion? Did you firmly believe in your mind that those other people, who did not share this same opinion, were objectively wrong?

When there are differences in opinion, it is common for people with a certain opinion to believe that their opinion is “the best one” and that the other opinions are “not as good”. When it comes to political opinion in particular, it is common for people with a certain political view to believe that their political view is “more informed” or “more rational” or “more based on the real world”. Conversely, people commonly believe that the opposing political view is “less informed” or more based on emotion rather than logic. They may also believe that while their view is rooted in the real world, the opposing view is more rooted in theory, or maybe even fantasy.

I would figure that the stronger someone’s opinion is about something, the more likely this individual will be to believe that his/her opinion is objectively right while the opposing opinion is objectively wrong. What people with strong opinions often forget is that what they believe is still just an opinion.

Note that not everything is just a matter of opinion. Morality, or the definition of right and wrong, is supposed to be objective. If we say that morality is just a matter of opinion, then we are creating an environment where evil can flourish, as is discussed in the Subjectivity article.

Politics and morality do not completely overlap, however. Some policies, we can say, are objectively wrong such as the policies implemented by the Nazis during the Holocaust in an attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population. However, when we consider the question of whether there should be a tax on soda pop, we are not dealing with morality anymore. We are dealing with something that is simply a matter of political opinion.

There are some types of policies and political ideologies that many people are firmly opposed to. One topic that generates many strong opinions is the topic of socialism. Many people are firmly against socialism and believe that it can ruin a country. They will, in turn, believe that any people actively supporting socialism are doing harm to society. What they keep forgetting is that their political opinion is still just an opinion.

Some government policies do turn out to be more harmful than helpful. Other government policies turn out to be helpful. Some government policies, such as universal healthcare coverage, can be good in some societies and bad in other societies. Because there is often uncertainty about the end effects of a government policy, variable opinions as to whether to enact a government policy are inevitable. In addition, many government policies are advantageous for one group of people and disadvantageous for another group of people. This is one reason that we see people from different demographics voting differently.

The Evil of Silencing the Opposing View

Some people become so firmly against opposing political views that they start to believe that the opposing views should be silenced. When we start believing that the opposing opinions and beliefs need to be silenced, we can start to walk down a path that leads to evil. While we act to silence the voices of others, and stifle their ability to express themselves, we believe that we are doing good. What we may really be doing is pushing our own ideology onto everyone else that probably has its pros and cons. We may have an arrogance we are not aware of, which tells us that we are right and they are wrong, and it is our job to stop them from spreading their nonsense.

A more appropriate way to deal with people who have opposing views is constructive communication. The two sides should meet and discuss why each one believes the way that it does. However, you may find that even if you explain to another person why you think you are right, the other person may still not agree with you.

People with evil in their hearts often do not acknowledge that other people have the right to disagree with them. In their arrogance, they may attach to the other person offensive labels such as “opinionated”, “stubborn” or “headstrong”. The person may not intend to come across as offensive, but he/she still is asserting his/her view as superior to the other view by attaching these labels to anybody who refuses to agree with him/her. By labeling the person who continues to disagree as “stubborn” or “headstrong”, the individual is essentially finding fault in the other person for refusing to agree. Here, the person is refusing to face the reality that he/she failed to provide a sufficiently convincing argument in favor of his/her view.

Cancel Culture

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, cancel culture is defined as the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure. Cancel culture generally occurs when the mainstream view in a culture attempts to silence the views of the minority. As far as the mainstream view is concerned, the minority view is offensive and/or potentially harmful. Cancel culture is much more noticed by the minority view than it is by the majority view. The majority view may even deny that any cancelling is taking place at all.

This article by Forbes discusses how mainstream values within a culture start to gradually dominate over the values of the minority. The article states that “it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions”. Victims could lose their jobs and/or become ostracized in their professions. For example, teachers in the United States have lost their jobs because they did not address transsexual students by their preferred pronouns. A professor lost his job because he attended a Back the Blue rally in support of police officers. In neither case was there an intent by the individuals to do harm. The individuals were only expressing their views, which did not match mainstream views.

In cultures where left-wing thinking dominates, the right-wing thinkers are the ones who notice cancel culture taking hold. In places such as Nigeria where right-wing thinking dominates, left-wing authors are the ones who notice cancel culture taking hold. Cancel culture does not affect the rich and powerful as much, which is why you may notice rich and powerful people speaking against mainstream views the most.

When cancel culture takes hold, the people are systematically placed into echo chambers where they are fed information that tells them what they already think. As long as a person holds the mainstream view, his/her viewpoint will never be challenged, even if it has its share of vices.

A Real-Life Example Among Individuals

This video presents a discussion about politics and the link between the breakdown of the home and the increased prevalence of the homosexual lifestyle. While I agree with many of the messages presented in this video, I find some evidence of strong bias in favor of right wing conservative political views, and a disrespect for left wing liberal political views. According to Candace and Brandon, the two speakers on this podcast, voting Republican is the “correct” way to vote, and voting Democrat is the “wrong” way to vote. Though this is not stated explicitly, it is implied based on the dialogue going back and forth. Note that the political discussion begins shortly before the 10-minute mark and ends at around the 20-minute mark.

The political discussion begins with a discussion about women’s empathy, which Candace initially describes as a superpower, but ultimately cites this “superpower” as the reason that women should not vote. Candace and Brandon discuss how women’s empathy has been hijacked for evil. Candace describes women as being “wildly emotional”. When Democrats present emotional arguments (rather than rational arguments) in their political campaigns, women are the first to fall for these emotional arguments.

The white male Christian, on the other hand, is described as the backbone/savior of the voting population. This group is statistically the most likely to vote for Republican and conservative politicians. According to Candace and Brandon, black men used to vote the way that white men voted…that is until their families were broken up and they started being raised by single mothers. At that point, according to Candace, “black men became a part of that emotional silly putty that were really voting for policies based on emotion rather than rationality and education”, to which Brandon added “…because they started being raised by women”.

As you can see here, Candace and Brandon—like many people of a certain political view—believe that their political view is the “rational” view while the opposing political view is the “irrational” and “more emotional” view. Note how they attach defects to the groups that are the most statistically likely to vote differently from them—these two groups being women and racial minorities. To women they attach the weakness of being “wildly emotional” while racial minorities are labeled with the defect of being from broken families that are raised by single mothers. According to them, if the black men were not from broken homes, and had male role models, they would no longer be broken emotional silly putty, and would then vote the correct way, which is Republican, or at least vote against any pro-socialism and pro-LGBTQ policies.

Not only do Candace and Brandon believe that women should not vote, they also believe that it is bad for women to influence their husbands’ voting behaviors. In other words, Candace and Brandon believe that women should neither have a voice in government, nor have a voice in their own homes. They say that even if women are allowed to have a voice in their own homes, they will inundate their husbands with emotional arguments, and disrupt their husbands’ more rational thought processes. This reasoning presented here rationalizes the silencing of half of the adult population!

Candace points out that nothing has improved since women have gotten the right to vote. This begs the question: was something supposed to improve? Were we expecting more qualified individuals to enter public office? Were we expecting reductions in poverty, hunger and homelessness and improved economy? Certainly the state of the country is dependent on many other factors besides who is in public office, let alone who is voting.

We must understand the purpose of giving people the right to vote. People are not given the right to vote so that the most qualified individuals enter into public office. People are given the right to vote so that the people decide who is most qualified to enter into public office. If we say that we want the objectively most qualified individual to enter into public office, then we would need to answer the question: who decides who is the most qualified to be in public office? The next question would be: who is qualified to define the group of people that is most qualified to answer the first question?

Furthermore, even if women were truly more emotional than men (which is only one of multiple cultural female stereotypes discussed here), does that really mean that they should not vote? The fact is that some people are more emotional thinkers, and some people are more logical thinkers. This, to me, is simply a personality trait. To say that emotional thinkers should not vote would be highly questionable from an ethical standpoint. Certainly, there are some men who are emotional thinkers, and there must be some woman somewhere who is a logical thinker (maybe it’s Candace). If, indeed, we decide that the world is better when the emotional thinkers don’t vote, then what about the drug addicts and the people with psychiatric disorders? What about the convicted criminals? Would it be better if they did not vote, either?

If we follow the line of logic that disqualifies whole groups of people from voting, then popular sovereignty goes bye bye.

So, should podcasts such as this one be cancelled? Certainly not! Candace says at some point in the podcast that she had been cancelled 16 times, and that should not have happened. If we say that a particular viewpoint should be cancelled simply because it is controversial, offensive, or even perceived as harmful, we are opening up a can of worms that could diminish freedom of expression altogether. Even when a view is perceived as harmful, let’s face it, mainstream thinking has some views that are harmful, too; and only minority views can bring out the follies of mainstream thinking.

Summary

It is in human nature to believe that the other opinion is always wrong. If we did not believe that our opinion was the most sensible one, then it would not be our opinion anymore. There are some exceptions, however. Not everyone is in the honest search for what is true or what is right. Some people’s beliefs are based on wishful thinking or superstition.

Nonetheless, when people are on the honest search for truth or what is right, there will still be some differences in opinion. Even well-intentioned people can fall into the mindset that the other view is not only wrong, but also harmful. This mindset can become evil when these people, who were originally well-intentioned, start to believe that the opposing view needs to be silenced. This can happen when someone has strong political views, and becomes strongly opposed to certain policies. The individual can fall into the frame of mind that the world would be a better place if the opposing view were to be silenced. What would a Republican think that the world would be like if all the Democrats were silenced and held no political office anymore? What would a Democrat expect the world to be like if all Republicans were silenced and no longer held public office? Do they believe that the world would be a better place? Or perhaps the world is best off if both political parties have a voice.

One day I found a greeting card for someone who had gotten diagnosed with cancer. It said something like it looks like cancer has found its match. The message made me envision a boxing ring with cancer on one side and the patient on the other side. The big mean cancer may have killed many people, but it has met its match with this patient, or so was the intended message of the card to the recipient.

Something about this card’s message offended me. It promoted the all-too-ubiquitous fighting-a-battle metaphor that we associate so much with cancer. Here, I am going to explain why I believe that when it comes to dealing with a serious disease, the fighter mindset is wrong.

A major issue with the fighter mindset is that it glorifies violence. In order to “fight”, you need an adversary. This adversary does not need to be a person or any living being for that matter, but you still need something to serve as your adversary. Otherwise, there is nothing for you to fight against.

Once you have defined your adversary, your goal is to kill and/or destroy this adversary. When your target is destroyed, then you have won.

The fighter and the problem solver

Let us say that you are a handyman and you are trying to deal with a leaky faucet in your bathtub. If you were to adopt the fighter mindset, then your adversary would have to be the faucet leak. As a fighter, you intend to destroy your adversary. So how do you destroy a faucet leak? Well, maybe you can take a thick towel and wrap it around that faucet. As you wrap the towel around the faucet, you imagine yourself suffocating your enemy to death. You can only hope that the towel will remain securely wrapped around the faucet and be able to prevent any additional water from coming out.

Another battle tactic you may employ against this faucet leak would be to destroy the faucet altogether. After all, you cannot have a leaky faucet if you do not have any faucet at all. As you can see, however, destroying the faucet is a really bad idea when it comes to fixing a faucet leak.

A more appropriate mindset for dealing with a faucet leak is a problem solver mindset, not a fighter mindset. While the fighter aims to destroy an adversary, the problem solver aims to find a solution to a problem.

When we try to find a solution to a problem, our initial inclination would be to determine the cause of the problem. For example, leaky faucets are most commonly caused by a worn-out washer or gasket, a loose O ring or corrosion in a valve. When we spot the cause of the faucet leakage problem, a solution to the problem becomes easy and inexpensive. You can solve the problem, and without having to destroy anything.

The glorification of violence in medicine

When we think of violence, medicine is not the first thing that comes to mind. Is not medicine supposed to be what we turn to when we want to recover from injuries that are caused by violence? Nonetheless, modern medicine often uses very violent methods in the treatment of serious diseases. Take cancer for instance. The three types of treatment for cancer are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, which correspond respectively to cut, poison and burn.

Cutting, poisoning and burning are all violent. Surgery involves cutting out tissue, and sometimes involves the removal of whole body parts (think of destroying the faucet). Chemotherapy involves immersing the body’s internal organs in poisonous chemicals that are meant to kill cells, specifically cancer cells. Radiation therapy involves exposing the body’s tissue to high-intensity radiation, which is intended to cause cell damage. These therapies are supposed to kill cancer cells, but they tend to kill a lot of healthy cells, too. This is why people who go through cancer treatments suffer so much and get so sick.

An article entitled No More Militaristic and Violent Language in Medicine discusses the excessive use of military language in medicine. When it comes to serious diseases such as cancer, the fighter mindset can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Considering the horrific side effects that cancer treatments cause, overtreatment is quite harmful. Even the “journey” metaphor is not always good, since journeys can sometimes lead to horrifying destinations.

The superior efficacy of non-violent approaches to cancer treatment

When we have a problem solver mindset in dealing with cancer, we will be more likely to consider why our cancer occurred in the first place. Are there toxins in our environment that we are exposing ourselves to on a regular basis? Are we getting enough nutrition in our diet? Are we too stressed out all the time? Answering these questions is important when it comes to solving our cancer problem.

Fortunately, there are some studies in the science literature that demonstrate the superior efficacy of nutrition-based therapies for cancer. A study by Hildenbrand and colleagues compared 5-year survival rates of patients on Gerson therapy to survival rates found in the medical literature. The Gerson therapy diet was lactovegetarian, low sodium, low fat, low protein, and involved hourly consumption of fruit and vegetable juices, and coffee enemas as needed for pain. Of the 153 patients enrolled in the study, 14 patients had stage I and II melanoma (no cancer spreading), 35 patients had stage III melanoma (regional cancer spreading) and 104 patients had stage IV melanoma (cancer spreading to distant organs).

Of the stage I and II cancer patients who underwent the nutrition-based Gerson therapy, 100% were alive after 5 years compared to 79% who underwent conventional (violence-based) therapy. Of the stage III patients who underwent the nutrition-based therapy, 82% were alive after 5 years compared to 39% who underwent conventional therapies at another selected cancer center (Fachklinik Hornheide). Of the stage IV patients who underwent the nutrition-based Gerson therapy, 70% were alive after 5 years compared to 41% who underwent conventional therapies at the Fachklinik Hornheide cancer center. One can presume that the dietary approach investigated here is minimally toxic, and presumably less toxic than the average American diet.

A problem solver may also consider looking at what kind of an environment in the body allows cancer to grow. For example, cancer tends to grow in a hypoxic (low oxygen) environment. Healthy cells, on the other hand, thrive in an oxygen-rich environment. Cancer cells also need a more acidic environment while healthy cells need a slightly alkaline environment. While the human body can easily handle excessive alkalinity, it cannot as easily handle excessive acidity. Therefore, a problem solver would try to make the body of a cancer patient more alkaline and oxygen rich.

A study by Hatfield and colleagues showed that when mice with cancer were exposed to 60% ambient oxygen, the death rate was 0% after 40 days of tumor growth, compared to a 100% death rate for the untreated mice with the same cancer.

What if a cancer patient simply switched to a much healthier lifestyle? How effective would this be in treating cancer that is already there? Such a question was investigated in a study by Ornish and colleagues, which showed improvements in the prognosis of prostate cancer patients following intensive lifestyle changes compared to prostate cancer patients following conventional (violence-based) guidelines. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) was used as a marker to track disease progression. PSA was found to decrease in the experimental group (indicating disease reversal) and increase in the control group (indicating disease progression). The serum from the experimental group was found to inhibit cell growth by 70% (indicating increased resistance to cancer growth) compared to only 9% inhibition of cell growth in the control group. Generally, the higher the change in lifestyle, the lower the PSA was.

According to a follow-up study by Frattaroli and colleagues, of 49 prostate cancer patients following conventional violence-based treatments, 13 underwent radical prostatectomy within 2 years. Of the 43 prostate cancer patients following intensive lifestyle changes, only 2 underwent radical prostatectomy at 2-year follow-up. These results indicate that when prostate cancer patients follow intensive lifestyle changes instead of conventional cancer therapies, their chances of having to get the prostate removed decrease dramatically.

When you sit down and eat your raw salads, and drink your fruit/vegetable juices, do you feel like you are fighting a battle on a battlefield against some great and powerful foe? I doubt it. However, if you are sitting in a chair and being fed poisonous chemicals from an IV bag that are meant to kill cancer cells, and when you endure those side effects, I suppose you would feel like you are fighting a great battle. It just so happens that when it comes to treating cancer, “fighting” is not necessary as is shown in the science literature.

The hypothetical story of Jen and Jill

Jen and Jill both get diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer cancer. They have similar past health histories, but they have two different mindsets. Jen has the fighter mindset while Jill has the problem solver mindset. “I am going to fight this thing!” Jen says to herself. She is ready to go out into the battlefield like a brave soldier, ready to take on the big enemy. Jill, on the other hand, is pondering how to solve this cancer problem. Certainly genes play some role, but what about other factors?

Because the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body, Jen has decided to follow the doctor’s recommendations to undergo chemotherapy and radiation therapy. She loses all of her hair, and experiences numerous other serious side effects. Because there is so much cancer in the colon, Jen undergoes surgery to get the colon removed, and now has to use an ileostomy bag for the rest of her life. She keeps fighting, though.

Jill does some reading, and finds that according to demographic studies, colon cancer is linked to meat consumption, and perhaps also to dairy consumption. Many information sources also state that cancer risk is reduced when people eat more fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates. Although Jill already has cancer, she figures she could still reduce the risk of the cancer continuing to spread by eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. Over time, she starts to follow a predominantly raw food diet. Jill also knows that her job has been pretty stressful. Jill figures that maybe her many years working in her stressful job contributed to her risk for cancer, so she quits her job and decides to opt for a less stressful job.

Jill considers trying chemotherapy and radiation therapy. She does some reading and finds out that these therapies are known for suppressing the immune system. While it is meant to kill cancer cells, it also kills healthy cells and greatly weakens the body. Jill thinks that such treatments do not seem to be conducive to healing, and decides to only go on these treatments when other methods for addressing the underlying cause do not work.

Back to Jen. After going through rounds of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, Jen is told that there are no more detectable tumors in her body. She is now in remission. Great! Her fighting has paid off.

Meanwhile, Jill has found that the raw foods diet that is high in fruits and vegetables has paid off. The cancer has stopped spreading, and the tumors are shrinking. Jill also is feeling pretty good because of all of the nutrition she is getting. Jill never would have been motivated to eat this healthy if not for the cancer. This cancer may have been a blessing in disguise after all. Furthermore, unlike many other cancer patients, Jill has not lost any hair and has not suffered from the horrific side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Back to Jen. Jen thought that she was in the clear, but a year or so later the cancer has returned. This time, the tumors are resistant to the chemotherapy treatments that Jen did before. Jen continues to fight, however. She decides to enter into some clinical trials on experimental drugs. These experimental drugs cause grave side effects. At some point, Jen’s body cannot handle the trauma anymore and Jen dies with an infection. As Jen’s friends and family gather at the funeral, they speak highly of Jen, and how much of a great fighter she was. Indeed, she fought all the way to the end.

Back to Jill. Because Jill addressed the environmental causes of her cancer, her cancer is not as likely to return. Also, because Jill has not opted for the conventional cancer therapies (why would she? her special diet worked), she is not immunocompromised. Therefore, her immune system remains able to adequately fight off not only infections, but also cancer cells.

Note: the story of Jen and Jill is only hypothetical. Not everyone who does what Jen did will have the same horrible fate, and not everyone who does what Jill did will have the same success. The point of this story is to illustrate how different the outcomes can be when we adopt the fighter mindset versus the problem solver mindset. When we adopt the fighter mindset, we are setting ourselves up for a lot of trauma to the body as the body is made into a battleground.

Why would the licensed medical professionals promote violent treatment methods?

Doctors and nurses can be nice people who care about their patients, but the health care industry is not designed to restore people to good health. It is designed to be a money-making business. Think about it. How many times in your life has one of your doctors given you useful advice about living a healthy lifestyle? When you went to the doctor with a health issue, how often does the doctor present to you anything besides drugs and medical procedures?

A 2010 documentary entitled Cancer: The Forbidden Cures discusses the numerous attempts made by the cancer industry to prevent minimally toxic and effective cancer treatments from being made available to patients. Why would they do this? The reason is that these treatments are a threat to the profits of the pharmaceutical companies.

The fighter mindset makes money because a fighter mentality can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. In contrast, many of the non-violent methods of treatment are so effective that they are a threat to business. The pharmaceutical companies do not make money when patients adopt intensive lifestyle changes. They especially lose out on profit when these intensive lifestyle changes are effective in treating cancer that is already there.

Can you adopt both the fighter and problem solver approaches?

One may ask why can’t I be a fighter and a problem solver? Could we combine the fighter mindset and problem solver mindset so that we can reap the benefits of both?

My answer to this is that our heads only have so much space, and any head space we devote to being a fighter will leave less head space available for problem solving. Problem solvers and fighters have two different goals. The more focus we place on one goal, the less focus we will be able to place on the other goal.

Understandably, some cancer patients like to adopt both lifestyle changes and conventional cancer treatments. I am not a physician, but I believe that in some cases, there is no benefit to undergoing conventional cancer therapies at all. This article discusses how conventional cancer treatments are often ineffective, and sometimes doing nothing has a higher success rate.

Dr. Otis Brawley, then Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society, stated that “We’re finding that about 25 to 30 percent of some cancers stop growing at some point, that can make some treatments look good that aren’t doing anything. Until doctors figure out how to identify which patients have cancers that won’t progress, the only option is to treat everyone”. Chemotherapy, on the other hand, was found to have a response rate of only 2-4% according to Dr. Ralph Moss, while alternative therapies have life-long cure rates of over 30%.

Summary

If I had a serious disease, and someone called me a fighter, I would not take that as a compliment. It does not mean that I am smart when it comes to going about solving the problem. It does not even mean that I am doing the right thing. It just means that I am willing to go through some large amount of adversity to get to some goal. The means of getting to the goal may still be misguided. The goal itself may not even be appropriate.

The fighter mindset can be counterproductive because it generally aims to kill and/or destroy something, and killing/destroying does not necessarily fix the underlying problem.

When we look at good versus evil, we see that evil follows certain patterns in thought processes and in actions. Earlier posts — Subjectivity, Who is Right or What is Right? and Lying — point to a pattern specific to evil: aversion to objective truth/reality.

One reason for evil’s aversion to objective reality is that objective reality has a way of revealing how horrible evil really is. The Bible states in John 3:19-20 “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed”.

Another reason for evil’s aversion to objective reality is that objective reality/truth often interferes with the wicked schemes of the evildoer.

Note that the goal of the evildoer’s scheme is not necessarily to do harm. Often the evildoer simply aims to get something that he/she wants, and regardless of whether anyone else gets hurt in the process. However, if objective truth says no, you do not have a right to get this thing that you want, then objective truth becomes the evildoer’s adversary.

This is why evildoers lie so much

The aversion that evildoers have to objective truth is the reason that evildoers lie so much. Lying and deception are the evildoers’ way of diverting the attention and awareness of others away from objective truth/reality and onto an alternate reality that they have manufactured that meets their corrupt agenda.

Sometimes the evildoer will rationalize and claim that he/she is only telling a lie to spare someone’s feeling or “protect” them. Here, the evildoer figures that we cannot possibly call him/her evil if he/she is only trying to protect the other person from the ever-so-brutal truth.

In reality, this brutal truth is the liar’s enemy. The liar does not want to be the bearer of bad news, and he/she knows that if the other person were to receive this bad news, then he/she would be hurt and there would be a moral obligation on the part of the evildoer to show compassion. Evildoers do not want to have to show compassion. They would rather lie and deliver false good news so that the other person is happier, at least in the moment. Then the evildoers can move on with their merry day.

Another reason evildoers like to tell people what they want to hear is that being the deliverer of good news makes one more popular. When we form an association between a person’s face and good news, we start to want to see that person’s face again. Knowing this, evildoers want to only bear good news, even if it is false news.

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”
― Thomas Sowell

When you truly care about someone, you will tell him/her the truth, even if it hurts in the moment. You know that it will be in the better interests for this other person in the long term.

Evildoers pretend to want the truth

While evildoers tend to have an aversion to objective truth, they are more than happy to pretend to want the truth. They may even project their aversion to truth onto others, accusing others of “not being able to handle the truth”.

Sometimes evildoers will pretend to adopt evidence-based thinking. What they are really doing is cherry-picking the evidence—sometimes false evidence—in favor of what they want to believe. They are prone to finding evidence for what they believe when it isn’t there. Meanwhile, they also turn a blind eye to any evidence against what they believe (or want to believe).

Indeed, when you hear the phrase “there’s no evidence that…”, it is a red flag that the speaker is not necessarily the evidence for both sides. The phrase “there’s no evidence that…” is often laced with the burden-of-proof logical fallacy. When someone uses this phrase, he/she tends to mean “I am not consciously aware of evidence for A being true, so I beseech you to acknowledge that A is false”. Problem is, who ever said anything about evidence that A is false?

When someone claims that he/she has “not seen any evidence” for something, he/she may be telling the truth. He/she may really not have seen any evidence for such-and-such a thing; but there is a catch. He/she may have done little to no research, which means that no matter how much evidence there is for such-and-such a thing, he/she would never see it.

One group of people that often pretends to adopt evidence-based thinking is corrupt medical professionals. Some medical professionals are prideful and like that sense of power and control they have over their patients. They know that their patients depend on them to provide medical care for them and write out their prescriptions…that is UNTIL the patients find out about intensive lifestyle changes that could potentially fix their chronic medical conditions so that they do not have to get as much medical care anymore.

These corrupt medical professionals would not want the patients to fix their chronic health problems with these lifestyle changes that do not require a prescription, so the doctors may try to convince the patients that “there’s no evidence that lifestyle changes are effective in treating or reversing heart disease/cancer/diabetes/etc”. Has the doctor seen the evidence? Maybe not, but this is not because there isn’t any evidence. The doctors may not have taken the time to read the science literature about lifestyle changes in disease. Therefore, no matter how much evidence is documented in the science literature, these doctors are not going to see it. After all, why would these corrupt medical professionals actively seek out evidence for something that they do not want to be true to begin with?

Medical professionals work very hard to become medical professionals. They need to get high grades in school, spend a fortune to go to medical school, and then work a number of years as a medical resident with long hours and low pay. After all of that time, money and energy, some medical professionals want to be rewarded with reverence and a sense of power. They become prideful and want their patients to view them as gods in white lab coats who come in to rescue them from any ailment. While a medical professional who is a good person will find it to be intrinsically rewarding to restore patients to good health, a corrupt medical professional will view a healthy patient as one less paying customer that he/she has power over. If there is evidence in the science literature (which there is) that intensive lifestyle changes can reverse many chronic diseases in ways that drugs cannot, then such evidence becomes a potential threat to the corrupt medical professional.

Even when a patient proves that the evidence is in the literature, the corrupt medical professional may pull another trick and claim that the work of these researchers has been “discredited”. Normally, “discredited” refers to something that has been proven false, but sometimes people will say something has been “discredited” not because it was proven false, but rather because not everyone agrees with it, which of course does not mean that it is no longer credible. What other people would disagree with the research on lifestyle changes? Other corrupt medical professionals…

How evildoers evaluate an accusation

When an accusation is made, evildoers will care about the following:

• Who made the accusation?
• Who is the target of the accusation? Is it me? Or is it somebody I don’t like?
• How serious is the accusation?

Not included on this list is whether the accusation is true. To the evildoer, the truthfulness of the accusation is an afterthought at most. This is a manifestation of indifference to objective truth/reality. Of course if the evildoer is the target of a serious accusation that is based on truth, then the evildoer’s attitude towards objective reality will go from indifference to aversion. Here, the evildoer has a secret to hide, and objective reality becomes a threat. If this little secret is exposed, then the evildoer may be held accountable for his/her wrongdoings, and he/she does not want that.

A reasonable and good person will evaluate an accusation based on whether it is true or false. A good person would try to avoid making a false accusation. At the same time, a reasonable person would be willing to make an accusation when there is reason to believe that the individual in question really did do a bad deed that needs to be brought to the attention of others.

Of course the truthfulness of an accusation is tied to who the target of the accusation is and what that person is being accused of. The point is that given the choice between a true and serious accusation made against the evildoer versus a false accusation made against a person that the evildoer does not like, the evildoer will condemn the true accusation made against him/herself moreso than the false accusation made against the other person.

When you make an accusation against an evildoer, even if the accusation is true, the evildoer will often try to discredit it. For example, the evildoer may accuse you of playing the blame game, saying that you are “just blaming him for stuff”. Here, the evildoer does not necessarily care about whether he is truly culpable. It does not occur to him that if something is his fault, then blaming him is the right thing to do. He makes up his own definition of right and wrong. He believes that if he is the target of the blaming or accusation, then the blaming/accusation must be morally wrong. If, however, another person is “getting blamed” instead of him, then in his eyes it becomes okay, even if that other person is not at fault.

“Convince me!” “Change my mind”

At times, an arrogant, smug individual may challenge you to “convince him” of your silly view. He sits there and puts on the façade of the attentive listener. Is he really going to listen to you? Only enough so that he can use any excuse under the sun he can find to invalidate your view, even if it means distorting your view into something it is not.

In such a scenario, this arrogant, smug individual does not care about truth. He does not aim to learn anything from you, nor does he want to. What he really wants is attention. Your attention feeds his ego. He also is attempting to put himself on a grand high pedestal, with you at the bottom systematically being tricked into caring about what he thinks. He knows you want to be heard, and he is dangling the influence you want to have on him right in front of you like dangling a carrot in front of a horse. He knows that once you care about what he thinks, he has some degree of power over you. He also gets pleasure in feeling that he is the center of your world, and not just the center of his own world.

Most of us remember learning in school about the enslavement of black people prior to the United States Civil War. Society had established that these black slaves were the property of the white families that they worked for. They worked all day with no pay. In the eyes of society, their sole purpose was to serve their white owners.

Now imagine someone walking up to a group of these slaves and giving them the following explanation as to why they actually should thank the white man for all he has done:

You slaves may complain about having to work hard all day under the sun while the white man gets to work less and enjoys more luxurious living accommodations; but have you seen the great things that the white man has done? All great works of literature come from the white man. All scientific and technological innovations in our society come from the white man. If, heaven forbid, you get sick, there are white doctors who can help you get better. Not to mention, the white man has provided for you everything that you have, including the little houses you live in, as well as your clothing and the food that you eat.

Certainly if not for the white man, our society would have so little compared to what it has now. I see none of you writing great works of literature or inventing things. None of you are medical doctors or lawyers. What a sad world it would be if only you black people were in it. There would be no technological innovation, no great works of literature, no medicine…nothing! So I say you should appreciate all that the white man has done, for he has done a lot.

How offensive is that?! It would especially be unfair to make this statement to a group of slaves that are not legally allowed to learn how to read, let alone write. In the context described above, these slaves are being told that they should thank their oppressors for all of the great things they have done, which the slaves were not doing and could not do simply because of the oppression coming from these same oppressors. We know that if not for the enslavement by the white man, these black slaves would have been doing all of the great things that the white man has done. Since slavery became illegal in the main developed world, (and despite some ongoing systemic racism) black people have made great contributions to all facets of society.

Should women thank men for inventing things?

When we think of the greatest inventors in history, we tend to think of men. In addition, most of the famous scientists in history are men, such as Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilei, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Thomas Edison and Max Planck. So, does this mean that women should feel indebted to the male sex for being able to advance science and technology? Or perhaps in an alternate reality where men do not exist, women would have been making all of the same scientific and technological advances.

Around the year 2000, shortly after the controversial remarks made by Larry Summers about women in science, I read an editorial that remarked about how all of the major mathematical, scientific and technological innovations came from men; therefore it would be reasonable to assume that men are inherently better than women in mathematics, science and technology. I was surprised at the grave ignorance of these authors, who seemed to overlook the large gap in educational opportunities between males and females throughout history. Many of us recall watching movies that take place in the olden days, and noticing that sometimes only boys were in the schoolhouse. For much of history, only boys went to school. Even when girls were educated, the last area that they would learn about was science and mathematics. Even an accomplished upper class girl would excel in music, dance and literature before she would learn science.

It is common knowledge among educated people that women were men’s property throughout much of history. In their book Married Women and the Law: Coverture in England and the Common Law World, Tim Stretton and Krista Kesselring discuss the legal doctrine of coverture. Below is an excerpt of a review of the book:

Coverture was the legal doctrine that decreed that, upon marriage, a woman’s property passed into the hands of her husband. All her real property (land) came under his control, and while he could not sell it without her consent, he took all the income and profits from it. All her other property, including her future earnings, became his outright. Under coverture a married woman could not enter into a contract, make a will, or bring or defend a lawsuit on her own. Coverture was law throughout the common-law world for about 700 years, and vestiges of it remain. Did you know, for instance, that the custom of taking a husband’s surname on marriage derived from coverture, when, as Sara M. Butler puts it, a woman became “Mrs. Him”? This is one of the many insights that this comprehensive collection provides.

Note that in the marriage ceremony, the bride walks with her father down the aisle to the groom before the bride and groom are married. The ritual of marriage is set up this way for a reason: when women married, the father passed on ownership of his daughter from himself to the groom. By walking his daughter down the aisle to the groom, the father was asserting his approval of the passage of ownership from himself to another man.

This article presents a summary of how women were owned as men’s property across cultures around the world, and throughout history. Often when one nation defeated another nation in war, the winning nation would steal the women from the losing nation as spoils of war. Even today, women are treated as property sometimes, and their utility is in the form of sexual entertainment, as discussed in the excerpt below:

Today we see the same male behavior in modern wars. The Imperial Japanese used Korean “comfort women” to service their soldiers. Nigerian militants seized hundreds of young women from a Chibok school to distribute as sex slaves and wives to their soldiers. The ISIS caliphate slaughtered Yazidi men but kept the Yazidi women for the same sexual purposes. The leaders of these contemporary tribes acted exactly like our primitive forbears when they distributed the spoils of war to their modern warriors. In the United States, women who serve in the army may still be treated as property. Sexual predation toward female soldiers constitutes a major problem not only among the active duty forces, but also within the academies training future officers.

This article discusses how in the middle ages, education was primarily for young men, and it was frowned upon for a young women to pursue an education. While the upper classes received more education than the lower classes, boys received more education than girls.

There are multiple factors that influence how likely a person or group is to make great contributions to science and technology. One major factor is the status of the person or group in society. Common sense would tell us that a group of people who are labeled as property under the law are not as likely to receive an education, and are therefore not as likely to participate in the advancement of science and technology.

Admittedly, men and women do have innate differences. That being said, is it possible that men are inherently more interested in science and technology than women are? It is hard to tell because there are so many other confounding factors, even today.

Should farmed animals thank the farm for their existence?

Today, most of the meat, dairy and eggs at the grocery store comes from factory farms. Factory farming is an unethical practice in which animals in very large numbers are raised on a farm in overcrowded, unsanitary and often inhumane living conditions. They say that the majority of antibiotics go to factory-farmed animals because of the unsanitary living conditions. The animals also are bred and given hormones to make them grow at an unnaturally large rate so that they can be slaughtered sooner and sold for food.

This website from the Humane League discusses factory farming, including what happens on factory farms. Examples include chopping the beaks off of chickens, and cutting the tails off of pigs. While cats and dogs have some rights, these animals have next to no rights. Male baby chicks can be suffocated in black trash bags in large numbers and dumped into the garbage, while a few of them are still alive. No legal action is taken.

However, if factory farming did not exist, then these factory-farmed animals would never have been born! So does this mean that the factory-farmed animals owe a debt of gratitude to the factory farm system, which is the only reason that they were born? Many folks would say no, and would consider anyone to be a horrible person who would even think that these animals should thank the factory farm system for anything.

Should the poor thank the rich for all of the great things that they have done?

The poor tend to rely on the rich for jobs. In addition, the rich are more likely to contribute to advances in science and technology. They are our politicians, our doctors and the leaders of our large corporations. So should the poor be thanking the rich? The poor do not advance science and technology. The poor do not run large businesses. The poor do not create jobs.

So why do the poor not do any of these things? The biggest reason that the poor do not do any of these things is that they are poor! When you have too little money to feed yourself and provide shelter for you and your family, you are not going to be able to start or run a business, let along run a large business. Yes, owning a successful business could bring you out of poverty, but you would have to start the business first, and starting a business requires large amounts of money, and involves the risk of failure. In other words, those deep in poverty run into the problem of needing money in order to bring themselves into a position where they can make money.

When the poor are paid very low wages, they remain poor. They continue to lack the money that is necessary to make more money. The environment they are living in, which makes it hard to work one’s way out of poverty, is created by those in power, who are rich.

Blaming the victim is an evil in culture that benefits not only the blamer of the victim, but also the perpetrator, and all at the victim’s expense. When we blame the victim, we are wittingly or unwittingly creating an environment where evil can flourish. Essentially we are sending a message that implies that people can do evil and not have to worry about being held responsible. Instead, the victims will be responsible. Such a message may as well permit evildoers to have a field day where they can give into their evil desires, and in the aftermath, the focus will be on the victim.

If a prospective victim is doing something stupid at the time, most likely due to some lapse in judgment, then the bad guys will especially get a free pass to do whatever they want; and they can rest assured that the victim will be blamed instead.

Victim blamers may not want to admit these implications of their message, but let’s just say that when they blame the victim for the wrong done against him/her, one thing they are not necessarily thinking about is the willful act of evil of the perpetrator. Victim blamers also do not give as much thought into what punitive measures should be taken against the perpetrator to obtain justice.

The American Psychological Association defines “blaming the victim” as the following:

a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals or groups attempt to cope with the bad things that have happened to others by assigning blame to the victim of the trauma or tragedy. Victim blaming serves to create psychological distance between the blamer and the victim, may rationalize a failure to intervene if the blamer was a bystander, and creates a psychological defense for the blamer against feelings of vulnerability

Victim blaming happens for a variety of reasons. The excerpt above gives three reasons for victim blaming. One reason is to create a psychological distance between the victim blamer and the victim. This psychological distancing may help the victim blamer to cope with a tragedy that has occurred. Alternatively, a person may blame the victim in order to rationalize his/her failure to intervene. In this way, the inactive bystander feels less responsible for the harm and suffering that has occurred. The third reason is an unwillingness to acknowledge one’s own vulnerabilities. In some instances, such as in the case of rape, women like to blame the rape victim because they do not want to face the reality of their own vulnerabilities. Deep down, they know that this rape victim could have been them. By blaming the victim, they can deny their own vulnerability.

When the perpetrator blames the victim

Let us say that a woman named Sally works in an office setting where George is her supervisor. Throughout the few years that Sally has worked at this place, George has bullied Sally. George does not have very much respect for Sally, and as such, he likes to belittle Sally sometimes just for the sake of amusing himself. George does not take Sally’s opinions seriously, and sometimes George questions Sally’s competency in front of Sally’s colleagues, even though George has no reason to believe that Sally is incompetent. Sometimes, George pushes Sally into working long hours, often when such long hours are unnecessary for getting things done on time. George just likes to overwork Sally because it makes him feel like he is a “hard-core boss”.

One day Sally decides to explain to George that if he continues to be mean to her, she is going to quit. George’s response? “Well Sally, you should have spoken up!” Here, George is explaining to Sally that when he or anyone else is being mean to her, it is her responsibility to let the other person know that they are being mean and to tell them to stop. Because Sally went all that time without standing up to George, George believes that his disrespectful behavior towards Sally was not wrong, and continues to not be wrong until Sally speaks up.

While speaking up is the right thing to do when someone is being mean to you, a failure to speak up does not excuse the mean behavior. By saying that Sally is at fault for not speaking up, we are implying that Sally is responsible for George’s bad behavior. Indeed, in many contexts, blaming the victim implies that the victim is responsible for the perpetrator’s behavior, and thus the perpetrator is no longer responsible for his/her own behavior.

There are some cases where a person offends another person as an honest mistake. For example, say Todd likes to give a thumbs up to his colleague Akshad. Akshad is offended because in his culture, a thumbs up has the same meaning as the middle finger in Western culture. Is Todd or Akshad at fault when Akshad is offended? In this case, neither individual is at fault. Todd had no idea that in Akshad’s culture, a thumbs up has a derogatory meaning. Akshad would have to speak up, or else Todd may keep giving a thumbs up.

In the case of George and Sally, George’s meanness and disrespect towards Sally was done with bad intentions. George knows how to act nice. Even preschoolers learn how to act nice. George is just choosing to be mean. However, by blaming Sally for “not speaking up”, George has relieved himself of responsibility for his actions. The responsibility is on Sally. Indeed, the perpetrator’s blaming his victim qualifies as additional victimization.

Other examples of the perpetrator blaming the victim

Once again, victim blaming is convenient for the perpetrator because it gives the perpetrator a way out of responsibility for his/her actions. Perpetrators can blame victims in a variety of contexts.

For example, say an older woman is consistently treating her teen-age niece with disrespect. Her teen-age niece does not like this treatment and speaks up. Others seem to notice this woman’s disrespectful treatment of her niece as well. In response, the older woman claims that she finds difficulty respecting her niece because her niece is an air-headed silly-heart. The older woman may even say that her niece is unworthy of respect altogether. Here, the older woman is not admitting to any wrongdoing. She is deflecting blame onto her victim for being “too hard to respect”. By deflecting blame onto her victim, she can put on a facade of blamelessness.

In some circles of people, there is the fetish for female self-sacrifice, where the women are expected to be self-sacrificing and are called horrible people whenever do anything in their own interests. Such a circle of people likes to have their female victims in a state of mind where they feel guilty if they even so much as go out to the hairdresser salon and get a hair cut. A young man within such a circle of people may try to coerce and manipulate the women into bending over backwards to meet his greedy desires; but then later on he may make the claim that these women are sacrificing themselves because it is in their nature. They are women. It is just what women are like. Such a claim is a form of blaming the victim. In this context, the female victims are being blamed for being slaves in their own homes.

Another example: Jane is cooking the holiday meal for some relatives. She puts dairy into the food even though Bob, one of the relatives, told Jane that he cannot tolerate dairy. He gets sick afterwards and spends the afternoon in the bathroom. What is Jane’s response? Jane exclaims that Bob is just a delicate flower. So many things just seem to make him get sick. Here, Jane is blaming her victim for getting sick. She is claiming that the victim got harmed, not because of anything wrong she did, but rather because of the victim’s own personal defect.

Blaming the rape victim

When people hear the phrase “blaming the victim”, the most common thought that comes to mind is rape. Rape victims are known for being blamed for the trauma that has befallen them. Sometimes it almost seems as if it is not only a crime to rape someone, but also a crime to get raped.

When people blame the rape victim, they will generally claim that the rape victim did something stupid that predisposed her to getting raped. For example, she drank too much, or she was dressed in sexually provocative attire. To some people, sexually provocative attire sends the message that the woman is calling for sexual attention. In their minds, the woman has no business complaining about unwanted sexual attention. However, what constitutes sexually provocative attire? The standards for what constitutes sexually provocative attire can vary from culture to culture.

In my opinion, a universal definition for sexually provocative attire is attire such that, when worn by a woman, causes a man to potentially be sexually aroused when he looks upon her. Certainly when a woman is wearing a mini skirt and a skimpy tank top, a man with a normal level of sex drive will become sexually aroused when he looks upon her. However, there are many other kinds of attire besides mini skirts and skimpy tank tops that are sexually provocative. The image below features a woman wearing a business suit. Note how the skirt and top reveal the outline of the woman’s figure. Certainly if a man were to look upon a woman in such attire, he would potentially become sexually aroused. Therefore, the women’s professional business suit would fit under this universal definition of sexually provocative attire.

The image below is another example of sexually provocative attire. Like the women’s business attire, the T-shirt and pants show the outline of the woman’s body.

So what outfit is not sexually provocative? The image below is an example. Here, the Saudi Arabian women have their entire bodies covered except for their eyes. Also important, the clothing hangs off of the body in such a way that the women’s figures are hidden. If a woman wanted to refrain from sexually arousing men in her vicinity, this outfit would be suitable.

As we can see, when people council women to refrain from dressing in sexually provocative attire, they are asking for a lot more than they think.

Blaming the rape victim causes additional harm to the rape victim. Many rape victims feel ashamed for having gotten raped, and I suspect that a major reason for these feelings of shame is the high prevalence of victim blaming. Victim blaming also causes more rapes to go unreported, and can prevent people from seeking justice.

Additional reasons for victim blaming

In this article, Dr. Feldman, a professor in the department of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, discusses some reasons for why people blame the victim, even when they are not the perpetrator. Some reasons he mentions are “ignorance, meanness, or a smug sense of superiority”. A major reason he mentions is that people like to think that the world is more good and more just than it actually is. People do not like the idea of living in a world that is dangerous and unjust. It makes them feel scared, helpless, vulnerable, anxious, etc. As a psycho-protective mechanism, people try to maintain a delusion that the world is more good and more just than it is. They delude themselves into thinking that bad things only happen to bad people, or to people who are just being stupid. By distancing themselves from the victim, they no longer have to face the reality of their own vulnerability, or the reality that the same thing can happen to them at any time.

As discussed in the article, victim blaming is still wrong. It undermines the seriousness of the criminal’s wrongful act and it can cause additional trauma to the innocent victim. What I find to be ironic is that while people are blaming the victim in order to delude themselves into thinking the world is more good and just than it is, they are making themselves one of the reasons that the world is bad and unjust. Indeed, blaming the victim goes against justice. Justice dictates that the perpetrator be held responsible for the crime, and not the victim.

Dr. Feldman goes on to cite research showing that the most known protective measure against victim blaming is empathy. When we try to imagine ourselves in the shoes of the victim, we are much less likely to blame the victim for the harm that has befallen him/her. Conversely, those who have tendencies to blame victims tend to have less empathy for fellow human beings. What does this mean if you were to meet someone who always seems to blame the victim? In my opinion, this victim blaming is a red flag that the person is less likely to have empathy for fellow human beings, and may be a toxic person with whom to be in a relationship. While blaming the victim tends to indicate a reduced likelihood to be empathetic, lack of empathy make people more likely to be sociopaths and criminals. Many studies show a substantial link between lack of empathy and violent crimes. Indeed, if you do a search for “crime and lack of empathy”, you will get many results.