Evil Seed

I just read about a gang rape that happened to a young girl on Richmond High School grounds during the Homecoming dance.  She was brutally raped while people cheered the rapists on, and the girl was left for dead under a bench.  The only reason Police got on the scene was when someone overheard a couple of the rapists reminiscing about it.  The Richmond PD will catch the Rapists and the Watchers, they will go on trial, a number of them will go to jail.  Justice will prevail and numerous lives will be shattered.

After feeling outrage, anger, then a soul-sucking depression.  It was easy to decide to lock all the perpetrators in prison and let them rot.  But wisdom dictated that beyond an incendiary reaction, there is a question that must be asked and a mystery to solve.

How did this happen?

This was evil, and everybody involved were people who knew this was wrong.  But it seems unlikely that everybody who participated were Rapists only waiting for the opportunity to commit a gang rape to present itself.  To say the Richmond High Student Body is full of rapists is to say Richmond is full of rapists, or the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area is full of rapist.  Our area has a low violence and crime rate, it is prosperous, well-educated.  Richmond has a history of violence, but it’s not exactly gangland, and these students were not committing a gang wilding.  So, looking at evil dispassionately, I can say these Students were not rapists before that night.  I’ll go further to say these students knew that Rape was bad, that it was an act of violence.  I may even say these were not lost souls on the way to a life of crime and violence, but instead were looking forward to graduating, going to college, working for a living, raising families.

Or like all of us, knowing that there was a wide, well-marked path that is a normal life waiting for us, with a line off to the side that you cross when you hijack a car, go on a mass shooting spree, commit rape and murder, kidnap and molest children or for that matter, step in front of a speeding bus.  We all know that we can do these things in an instance, but most of us just don’t – it’s not an act of willpower to not commit a murder, murder is just an unthinkable act beyond which lays a ruined, wasted life in prison or death row, or losing everything you own and cherish, including a future.

But these kids crossed that threshold.  How did they go from being just a bunch of kids to committing a brutal gang rape nearly murdering a young girl while everybody cheered on?  These are the kind of horrified questions people asked, and never got an answer.  Some people just leave is as a tragic mystery of life.

But it’s no mystery.  Every act of evil has a seed.  The Evil Seed is a single person who plants a suggestion in other people’s heads, and then proceed to build a case for them on to commit an act of evil.  These people are called Sociopaths, and has some very infamous players – Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic, Omar Al-Bashir, the Teenager in Florida who lit another teenager on fire, Jim Jones, Jihadist Suicide bomb-handlers, William Luther Pierce (Turner Diaries).

Sociopaths either use their wiles to trap people into their control, to con or kill people.  Or, when they encounter people who are vulnerable to suggestion, they play God.  By persuading people who are not evil into committing evil.  And success validate their Godhood.  Even better when they can fade into the darkness and walk away, never suspected at being part of the crime.

These sociopaths are not common, but not rare.  And people who can be gulled into acts of evil are plentiful – practically all of you, and I have a potential to do evil.  Sometimes, a sociopath gets a partner, someone who may be a sociopath or psychopath, or very disturbed, or a chronic follower – sometimes that person is a leader of a gang, who takes action and even credit for evil just so they can still appear to be the leader of that gang.  Sometimes, in a cult, they create a physical space isolating people from the world around them, and eroding the sense of right and wrong they learned in that world.

Sometimes, it’s not charisma, but blackmail, that spurs people to cross the line.  Getting someone to commit to some petty theft for example, a Sociopath can threaten to send evidence to the police, exacting an even greater crime as the price for keeping a secret.  Sometimes, a really inspired Sociopath will use groupthink to get people to cross the threshold within the space of 2-3 hours, escalating event after event.

I think the Richmond PD needs to ask the question, who planted the original idea in these youths’ heads.  Then they need to recognize that person is a Sociopath/psychopath.  A dozen lives are ruined, there’s no going back on that now, teens who woke up the next morning realizing to their horror that it’s no dream – they wake up and realize their future is devoid of freedom, hope, opportunity.  They’ve entered hell on earth, and they deserve it.

And you have to wonder…   is there someone lurking out there who will be able to do the same to you?  And do you have the mental ability to avoid that fate?

The skill you need to cultivate now, and most of you hadn’t, is the ability to know when you are being manipulated.  This and other forms of critical thinking are important, as you navigate a life with hidden dangers.  It is also part of Sustainable living, to protect your planet, you must be able to protect your soul.