Following the murder of 16 Afghanistan civilians by an American soldier in March 2012, David Brooks writes that terrible crimes such as this should not surprise us:
Even people who contain reservoirs of compassion and neighbourliness
also possess a latent potential to commit murder.
David Buss of the University of Texas asked his students if they had
ever thought seriously about killing someone, and if so, to write out their
homicidal fantasies in an essay. He was astonished to find that 91 per cent of
the men and 84 per cent of the women had detailed, vivid homicidal fantasies.
He was even more astonished to learn how many steps some of his students had
taken toward carrying them out.
One woman invited an abusive ex-boyfriend to dinner with thoughts of
stabbing him in the chest. A young man in a fit of road rage pulled a baseball
bat out of his trunk and would have pummelled his opponent if he hadn't run
away. Another young man planned the progression of his murder — crushing a
former friend's fingers, puncturing his lungs, then killing him.
David Brooks, "When the Good Do Bad,"
New York Times (19 March 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment