Are some people born evil?

At the age of 84, America's grand man of letters Norman Mailer has lost nothing of his appetite for controversy. His latest novel, The Castle In The Forest, tackles the childhood of Adolf Hitler.

The book tells how two-year-old Adolf watched his father whip a dog with 'a look of remarkable intensity for one so small'. And how, as a six-year-old, he went into the woods by himself 'to work on the power of his voice. He would roar at the trees until his throat was sore'. Perhaps the most chilling passage is when Adolf causes the death of his younger brother, Edmund, by deliberately infecting him with measles by kissing him.

But above all, the novel poses a central question: 'When did evil enter Hitler's soul?' And it provides an unequivocal answer: at the moment of conception.

This, of course, is a dotty idea. For a start, the use of the word evil - which is associated with the occult and the Devil - is pure laziness because evil implies conduct that is so bad we can never explain it.

But more importantly, Mailer's novel does raise the issue of whether Hitler was predisposed at birth to be a genocidal tyrant.

Or to put it another way, whether people can be born bad - whether it is inevitable that some individuals will turn out to be murderers or rapists or bullies or thieves and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Coincidentally, a so-called scientific study from the University of Virginia this week reached the conclusion that children may be 'born to be bad'.

But I believe this conclusion to be completely misguided. And I come to this conclusion having spent a lifetime studying truly bad people - I wrote the biography of the north London mass murderer Dennis Nilsen, for example, and came to know him well.

Virginia's experts in human genetics would have us believe that character defects such as criminal behaviour, the desire to bully others and the necessity to tell lies despite all evidence that one has been rumbled are tied up in our DNA.

They have little or nothing to do with influences that may bombard us in our infancy.

Thus, there is precious little virtue in trying to be a good child, because the programming of your personality has decided in advance that you can't win.

Forget about the soul. It's all to do with the ingredients that were thrown in by your parents, and by theirs, and so on ad infinitum. The result is a soup which cannot be unmixed.

Scientists seem to have spent the best part of a century gleefully promoting this idea and repudiating the Romantic notion of the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau that 'there is absolutely no fundamental perversity in the human heart', and that all bad behaviour is the result of society itself.

Today, experts appear to take a perverse pleasure in making sure we know how irredeemably wicked we are. This week's research is just the latest in a long line of simple-minded foolishness.

It is wrong because it confuses two separate categories of inquiry. One is whether children have a predisposition to behave badly; the other is why they behave badly, which is not at all the same thing.

Of course, a child inherits traits of personality from its parents. It also learns much of its behaviour from its parents. These facts are undeniable, and manifested every day in ordinary observation.

We have all encountered terrible parents who spend all their energies in berating their offspring, shouting, forbidding, chastising, screaming their own frustrations with spitting mouths and glaring eyes at infants who are at first bewildered, and subsequently adopt the same negative behaviour patterns as their only way of dealing with the world.

It is no wonder they bully in the playground and attack their peers, physically, violently, as well as verbally. The genes have predisposed them to angry behaviour and the way they have been treated by their parents has encouraged it. They seem trapped.

Yet not all of them succumb to this hideous imprisonment - and this is why the scientists are fundamentally wrong. Some children break free and evolve, in contradiction to the supposed predisposition that should, say the scientists, warp their soul.

In other words, the predisposition may be there; it is what you do about it that makes the difference. The fact that one child may turn into a bully or become a criminal and another not remains a tantalising mystery, and one that scientists cannot possibly explain in simple terms of DNA.

That is why it is the subject of much of our drama, from the ancient Greek theatre to today. And not only drama, but real incident as well.

Gilmore had a brother, Frank, who turned out to be as peaceable and inoffensive in character as Gary was violent and destructive.

Their mother, Bessie, was perplexed, for she brought them up together. 'One son picked up the gun,' she said. 'The other did not pick up the gun. Why?' Nobody has been able to offer her a fully-inclusive answer. Similarly, Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee strangled and dismembered 17 men between 1978 and 1991. Much was made of his upbringing by a self- obsessed mother and largely absent father.

He inherited their lack of human warmth and inability to empathise and see the world through eyes other than their own. He was dangerously disconnected from humankind.

But he, too, had a brother, David, who never did anyone any harm and who now lives quietly under another name. David had the same parents, the same start in life and carried the same cartload of genes and DNA as his brother.

It is how the child learns to manage his inheritance that matters, how to shape it and restrict it when necessary.

Dahmer, paradoxically, did make an effort, and spent many years grappling with the murderous monster within, of which he was all too aware. But he lost the battle.

Others, like mass murderers Frederick West and Dennis Nilsen, never tried, because they did not realise that it mattered - they were, like the engineer of the Nazis' Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann, morally blind.

Nobody would pretend that it is easy to behave well, or that the influence of genes is negligible. It requires struggle.

Vice is the easy option, whereas virtue denotes difficulty and sweat. As the great Roman philosopher and dramatist Seneca wrote: 'Nature does not give a man virtue, the process of becoming a good man is an art.'

The art is in using one's genetic inheritance to advantage. People such as the scholars responsible for this latest study get mixed up between aggression and hostility.

For example, if a child inherits the aggressive gene, he might transform it into ambition and enterprise, leadership, artistic creation, love, self-fulfilment, all beneficent in outcome.

On the other hand, another child with the same genetic disposition to aggression might become a hooligan.

It is often said that Beethoven, remote, sullen, morose, superior, driven, might have become a dangerous psychopath if he hadn't written music.

Norman Mailer's suggestion that Hitler was evil at the moment of conception may be his attempt to explain conduct so bad that it defies comprehension.

But in reality, it is a ridiculous notion that, if taken seriously, excuses the behaviour of perhaps the most appalling individual in history.

While I don't care much for Mailer it should be pointed out that the USA was founded by a people who were generally Calvinists. Calvinists believe that people are NOT fundamentally good at heart but rather fundamentally bad. That's why the US government was created with has all kinds of checks and balances built into it.

As pointed out in the article its the french revolution (rousseau) that came up with the idea that the men are basically good and that its society that's bad -- and society that makes men bad.

The calvinists believe that men have no righteousness of their own. (all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)Rather Jesus imputes his righteousness before God to those who believe in him.

The French have come up with the opposite formula. What they do-- and what the communists & democrats have learned to do-- is figure out their own worst evil and impute that evil to the opposition.

In Sum: Jesus imputes his Righteousness to those who believe in him.
French Dems, commies impute their evil to their opposition.

Consider the case of Gary Gilmore - the American murderer who killed a hotel clerk in Utah, then killed a student the following night, and was fatally shot himself a year later by a firing squad - which was chronicled by Norman Mailer in his 1979 book The Executioner's Song. Gilmore had a brother, Frank, who turned out to be as peaceable and inoffensive in character as Gary was violent and destructive.

Consider that I have dark hair and blue eyes, my sister has blond hair and blue eyes, my brother has brown hair and brown eyes.

That argument holds no water. Just because one child in a family has a certain genetic trait, the fact that a sibling doesn't have the same trait does not prove that genetics is not real.

If we have no problem with believing our genetic makeup determines our height, our hair and eye color, our hand usage, our foot size, our intelligence (or lack of),our sense of humor, etc. - why is it such a stretch to think it might not also determine our sense of right or wrong?

I firmly believe that nature trumps nurture most of the time. Of course there are always exceptions but you very often hear about cases where identical twins are adopted into two totally different environments yet end up with striking similarities in their behavior.

Most old sayings have a kernel of truth in them. One of these is "Blood will tell".

Hitler failed the entrance exam to Art School. Problems with figure studies. the Art School suggested he seek admission to a school for architecture [his buildings were quite good. Since Hitler dropped out of school, and had no diploma, he could not apply to architecture school.

Hence the axiom that humans are inherently evil - very little encouragement is needed for most people to cross the line.

I don't think we are inherently evil per se, just easy to tip one way or the other (precariously balanced?). As we grow, we develop more conviction, furthering us away from that edge, in one direction or the other. The truly evil probably develop in that direction. The sheep that follow remain near the edge, forever easy to manipulate.

For a start, the use of the word evil - which is associated with the occult and the Devil - is pure laziness because evil implies conduct that is so bad we can never explain it.

Satan laughs at us, when we ignore his power. He reigns over the earth, after all. When we draw characatures of the devil painted in red, with horns, pitchfork, and a menacing grin, Satan is entralled in rapture. For the devil wants us to discount him, to pretend he isn't as dangerous as he is. He is EVERYWHERE. And to mock his existance puts us in peril.

Evil is a necessity which some are born into, some are pushed into and some succumb to.

I tend to believe that, if there is a God, I could see circumstances in which some evil people - like Hitler - are chosen to do a needed bidding.

It sounds horrible but, in a grand sense, it's logical.

Hitler had a 'gift' for finding the right people for the job he wanted done. And most were not from the slums.

Himmler was the godson of one of the Bavarian princes, and his father was a school administrator. Himmler attended college and technical school.

Heydrich spoke seven languages, was an Olympic class fencer, flew combat missions with the Luftwaffe, and was a very good violinist [his father was a professor of music, with his own conservatory]. Both Himmler and Heydrich had siblings, none of whom were criminals.

Speer, who ramped up German war production as Minister of Armaments was a trained architect [and gave Fritz Saukel to slave labor quotas Saukel was tried at Nurenburg for filling]. Kammler, the SS general who was resonsible for building projects, including the camps was an architect. So, I believe, was Col. Blobel, the CO of unit 1005, and the officer responsible for the Babi Yar massacre.

SS officers involved with the Einsatzgruppen included a plethora of lawyers, a former Opera singer and an ex- minister. Heydrich's staff was loaded with lawyers.

Human beings are born with a sink of depravity within them that will result in ANY of us being a monster like Hitler or Pol Pot or Mengistu, given the right circumstances. What should shock us is not that there ARE gruesome creatures like Nero, Felix Dzerzhinsky, or Idi Amin, but that there are not MORE of them.

The sad thing is that today no one has read "Human nature in its fourfold state" (Boston) or Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" or Jonathan Edwards, or Luther's "Bondage of the Will" or ANY of the classical works that deal with the effects of fallenness and sin on the human soul. As a result, we have a secular society which is genuinely perplexed over what is clearly evil, yet it has no grounds for classifying it as such. Moreover, we have a liberal, humanistic church which echoes the man-centered voices of our age in affirming that people are "basically good" and that all we need is a bit of a nudge to sanctify ourselves. Therefore, we don't need grace. Therefore, we don't teach it, but focus on silly silly exhortations to be "better" Christians (more bible reading, more prayer, give more, more evangelical duties).

As a result, we are just as aghast as the pagans when true evil shows its face...., and no wonder, for we are pagan in our theology of the human condition

"For lack of knowledge My people are destroyed" says the old book. Too true.

We are all born sinners, which can be equated with 'bad'. However, FREE WILL allows us to choose a righteous path for our lives OR the evil alternative.

Once somebody can give me a definition of the (thoroughly unbiblical) concept of "free will," then I will be happy to engage in how the bible teaches there is no such thing. Rather, the bible teaches that we are genuinely responsible for our actions, yet our will is completely enslaved to an evil nature. It does not attempt to reconcile these two ends of a paradox. Unfortunately, our biblically illiterate church of today has shown God exactly how to resolve the dilemma by throwing out the biblical teaching of the depravity and enslavement of the human will...... Nice work if you can get it.

But [Daumer] had a brother, David, who never did anyone any harm and who now lives quietly under another name. David had the same parents, the same start in life and carried the same cartload of genes and DNA as his brother.

Nope. Brothers don't have the "same cartload of genes." On average, siblings share half their genes. But it can be less than that, or more. Children of the same mother also don't develop in the identical prenatal environment.

My opinion: this guy doesn't know what he is talking about. Yes, there are some people who are, as the saying goes, "born to hang."

On the day I was born,
the nurses all gathered 'round 
And they gazed in wide wonder,
at the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up,
and she said leave this one alone
She could tell right away,
that I was bad to the bone!

This is a serious subject. And I think it is entirely open to question. The one thing I am reasonably certain of is that if a person has no conscience, which such people as serial murderers don't have, they can murder without feelings of guilt. I would posit the view tha why some people don't have consciences ought to be the study of inquiry.

Not all sociopaths are violent, and commit crimes, however.

I challenge you to produce a true sociopathic adult who hasn't committed one or more serious crimes.Yes,it may well be true that not all of them are killing,raping,kidnapping,molesting,etc....but those who aren't are defrauding,selling drugs,stealing the life savings of little old widows,etc.

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