Trey Smith
One issue I have debated within myself for the longest time is: Are some people born evil?
The social worker side of me wants to say no. We are all products of our environment. This environment mixes with our predispositions which goes a long way toward determining the type of person we are and will become.
But another side of me wonders.
I bring up this topic because there is a young boy in our neighborhood that worries my wife and I. I believe he is 11 or 12. There is something that simply doesn't seem right about him -- it's his glare. The way he looks at people and animals makes you think that, if he had a gun or a knife in his hands, he would shoot or cut up anything in his path!
He doesn't seem to like our two small dogs because, typical of small dogs, they bark and yap a lot. The other day he was walking by our back fence and, when the dogs started barking at him, the look on his face was pure evil. It was very unsettling, to say the least.
My wife has remarked on more than one occasion that she thinks that, if he felt he could get away with it, he would lustily bludgeon them to death. I used to disagree with her, but I've come around to her side.
It's not just our dogs. A few days ago he was walking through our front yard and I asked him to be careful around some of our new plants. The look he gave me was startling. He seemed to be seething with resentment and anger. He didn't say a word in response; but his glare spoke volumes.
It leaves Della and I to wonder if we are watching a natural born killer grow up.
It is hard to know what is in a person's heart. I have been wrong about people so many times. Perhaps invite him in for herb tea and warm muffins and have a conversation.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that people are born evil or good; these are categories we assign later according to an individual's behavior. I do think that we are born with different personalities that give us tendencies toward certain behaviors. Some think this is hereditary to a degree. I have a relative who married a man who turned out to be an alcoholic and abusive. He slapped her around and even threatened her with a knife. She divorced him when their son (let's call him Mike) was young, probably around 2 or 3. Even though the father had little or no contact with Mike after that, Mike grew up to be like his dad. Mike was violent towards his mother, once pushing her down and breaking her leg. He also developed a drinking problem. And when he married, he also abused his wife so that she started divorce proceedings. Before the divorce was final, Mike had several too many at the bar one night and swerved off a road, rolling his car several times in a field. He was still alive when they finally found him (he had been thrown from the car, and they didn't know how long he had lain there), but died on the way to the hospital. He left two small children, who I hope will not follow in his footsteps. I am not saying that someone is doomed to become carbon copies of their ancestors, but just that they might have something in them that could tilt them in that direction. Similar to how some cancers can run in families, but that doesn't mean everyone in the family will develop that cancer. Some think that your genes are more important than environment, as some people never seem to change even if their environment changes. See "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker for more info. Do you know much about this boy's family?
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