I’m writing this in Texas where I’m finishing up a four-week teaching tour. En route, the Evil Princess and I listened to the audio version of Dr. Michael Stone’s book “The Anatomy of Evil.” It was, by and large, a goodread listen. Stone does an outstanding job of exploring the neuroscience of violent behavior.
Replete with case studies, the book is a litany of man’s inhumanity to man. For those who study this sort of thing, the author lists almost two dozen “categories of evil” based on actions, diagnoses, interviews and of course, known behaviors and prior histories. This makes the book a litany of atrocious, mostly murderous acts.
There is lots to learn from this book. You can’t defeat an enemy you don’t understand.
I have only two real criticisms. One is the author’s belief that banning high-capacity firearms would be a good thing; I profoundly disagree. Lawbreakers, by definition, tend not to be deterred by new laws for them to break.
The other is that the author never once mentions something that screams out to people like me and most who read this blog: The vast majority of these monsters’ victims would very likely be alive today had they been armed and capable of fighting back in self-defense.
In one of his many “Prey” books, novelist John Sanford has one his characters (either Jenkins or Shrake for fans) respond to a wise crack by saying something like “I’ve never been over gunned. One time I was under gunned, then I reconceptualized.” You can make the same comment about ammunition.