Is there a limit to what atrocities human beings are capable of?

Empathy is the capacity to share or recognize emotions experienced by another. The importance of empathy is expressed in all sort of old clichés. Do not judge a man until you walk two moons in his moccasins. Implicit in this old saw, though, is that empathy should not be confused with sympathy, which is feelings of sorrow for someone’s misfortune. Empathy is an important quality. 

Occasionally I encounter human behavior that I cannot even empathize with. It is beyond my capacity to imagine the state of mind – the feelings and beliefs – that drive a person to act as they do.

Yesterday. Peshawar, Pakistan:

[The militants] made their way into the main auditorium where many students had gathered for an event. The militants then made their way to the hall's stage and started shooting at random. As students tried to flee for the doors, they were shot and killed. The military recovered about 100 bodies from the auditorium alone.

I have tried but I cannot share the emotions of the militants. I cannot imagine what belief, what hatred would drive a person to lift a gun, place an innocent child in the sights, and squeeze the trigger. I cannot imagine embracing a god – any god – whose righteousness instructs his adherents to slaughter unarmed children as they flee. I simply cannot gain insight into a brain that works in this way.

I can suppose how it happens. I can imagine a person who is inculcated from birth with hatred. A person whose brain becomes wired in a certain way. But, I cannot even imagine how it must feel to have this brain. I cannot empathize.

Perhaps more amazing is the heinous acts of those who are not inculcated with hatred. Russell Williams comes to mind – the base commander of CFB Trenton who murdered Jessica Lloyd and Marie-France Comeau. In cases like his, not only can I not gain insight into his brain, I cannot imagine how he ever even became such a monster. 

This is the grotesque imperfection of the human animal. We are clearly capable of visiting horrible atrocities on one another. We do it time and time again in small numbers and on grand scales. Most alarming, perhaps, is that apparently thoughtful, decent people are capable terrible, mutilating, abhorrent violence. 

Human beings basic tendency is towards good. Just as we can recount countless acts of evil, we can describe countless acts of good. And, we are all capable of kindness. But, as a creature we are deeply flawed and we will never be free of the darkness that envelopes some of us and drives us to commit acts of utter depravity.

We tend to talk of crime as though it can be prevented and the war on terrorism as though it can be won. Perhaps we can build a world in which the innocent are safe from the violence of the depraved. Certainly this is a laudable goal and we should walk this road even though we may never reach the destination. But, peaceful Utopia is not out there because the human animal is deeply flawed.