The One

Terracotta Army, Xi’an, PRC

Photo by Robert  Stokoe

Who would you consider the most-evil man alive? How about in history?

We all know Hitler was bad, but Hitler ran a whole country, an opportunity most of us will miss out on. Yet in our own way, in our own context, and with our limited resources we can become pound for pound just as evil as he was. The building blocks for great evil are open and available to all humans, we can commit our own tiny atrocities against people both far and near to us.

In truth, you’ve probably never even heard of the most-evil man alive, and he is also oblivious to the fact that he’s the one. Instead, there’s a fairly high chance he thinks he’s a good person. That’s because the road to great malevolence begins with a lack of self-awareness.

It’s easier to be bad when deep down you believe you’re good. You can take any action or behavior and make it seem normal, justified, and necessary. The means serve the end, and sacrifices become expected. You must refuse to see your own villainy, but rather, imagine yourself the hero in an unfolding drama. Your enemies are innately bad and unreasonable, but most importantly, nothing at all like you. Do not allow yourself to see a piece of them in you, erect a wall of cognitive dissonance separating them from the parts of yourself you’d rather not look at. This is a solid first step towards becoming uniquely bad.

Next, you’ve got to feel that you’ve been wronged. Whatever pains and difficulties you’ve experienced (many of them quite legitimate) need to be protected and nursed. Do not allow yourself or anyone else to relieve you of those grievances. Water and tend to your feelings of being wronged like they were precious flowers in a garden. Make it a habit to regularly engage in activities which increase a sense of entitlement. Listen to those voices which feed into your narrative and block out any different ways of looking at your circumstances, the world, and you.

Then, you’ve got to consistently choose bitterness over thankfulness. Do not see any of the good things in your life, and those which are unavoidable should be minimized to the furthest extent. Stay away from gratefulness, as it will inevitably cause you to lose focus. Put responsibility for your feelings and actions into the hands of your enemies. Blame them for the entire situation you’re in. In fact, pile all the world’s problems and ills upon them, knowing that if only they became like you, all would be solved.

With the above-mentioned items under your belt, you’ve now laid a firm foundation for being evil. There’s only a few more steps towards elite cruelty.

Add to it all a profound lack of empathy. Willingly choose not to put yourself in other’s shoes, and insulate yourself from ever experiencing the reality of others. Caricaturize your enemies, make clowns, imbeciles, and heathens out of them. It is so much easier to throw the baby out with the bathwater when the baby is an alien species. Don’t see the elements of truth in what they’re saying, take their most extreme actions and statements as justification to disregard all that they are. Assume the worst about their intentions, see their kindness as manipulation, see their caring as an attempt to control. Above all, never be gracious or patient, never give them benefit of the doubt.  Tell yourself that they’ll never change. They are innately bad and merely do evil for evil’s sake. This belief will make it far easier to destroy them, whilst still maintaining your own sense of goodness.

It’s also helpful to geographically remove yourself from the suffering of others, and to tell yourself that distance and comfort are something you’ve earned. Our crimes against humanity are so much easier to execute when we don’t have to see them being carried out.

Finally, refuse to die.

Refuse to die in all the little ways that are natural and inevitable. Do not cede power, privilege, and comfort, instead amass and reinforce these. Build your tiny empire, be the king of your conquering universe. Do not die to self, but worship legacy and prestige. Hold on to youth for as long as possible, and artificially lengthen it if you possess the means.

Refuse to die, because to die is to make room for others and newness. And of course, you will die physically, but even in this you can refuse to comply. Hold on to this life for far too long, do not begin the process of giving what you have away. And when the end finally comes, take as many people down with you as possible. This is what the greats have always done. Be like the terracotta emperor, who upon his passing demanded the entire court be executed and buried alongside him. They were then preserved for all time, so that future generations could also worship their greatness. You may not be an emperor, but we are still able to do the equivalent in our own small ways.

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There’s no one choice that takes you from good to evil. It’s the small decisions we all make, every single day: to choose delusion over self-awareness, bitterness over gratitude, cold-heartedness over understanding, isolation and blindness over being connected, and eternal life over self-sacrifice.

When you put all these together, how could the most-evil man alive ever realize it’s him? Insulated from pain and justified by anger, he’d be shocked to hear the news.

So, pound for pound, who would you consider the most-evil man alive? It could be a warlord, a dictator or a tyrant. Or you may be stunned to find out it’s you.