This was a comment in the NY Times re: the horrendous situation in Gaza:
But this is who we are. This is humanity, it’s genetic. We seem to be hardwired to cause pain to each other. Has it been any different over the past centuries and millennia?
When I see this kind of suffering inflicted on others I am also inclined to think of the perpetrators as evil. In this case, those perpetrators were once themselves (or there relatives were) the victims of a similar evil. So it seems that we are all “hardwired to cause pain to each other”; sometimes we’re the perps and sometimes we’re the victims. But we also see people who seem to be hardwired to cause joy in other people. These are the people who are bringing aid to the victims of the evil perpetrators, as well as the people who produce the art and science that enriches and improves the life of others.
So are some people hardwired for evil and others for good? Are there two kinds of human nature? I think PCT explains the existence of both good and evil. What is hardwired into us is the propensity to CONTROL our experience/ perception. It is our controlling nature that accounts for what we do that is good and for what we do that is evil. Our controlling nature is responsible for Shakespeare’s plays, Mozart’s piano concertos and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” as well as Jesus’ crucifixion, Hitler’s holocaust and the current government of the US. Paradoxically, we are hardwired for BOTH good and evil because we are hardwired to CONTROL.
This is all explained in a fantastic book by TIm Carey and I called Controlling People: The Paradoxical Nature of Being Human.
I’d be interested to hear what others think of this idea.