The Evil That Men Do: Psychoanalytic Meditations on Wickedness

“There’s so much cruelty in the world,” a middle-aged social worker said to me several years ago. “Meanness always existed,” she added. “But it has reached unparalleled and intolerable levels. It is sickening and nearly unbearable.” Many of us feel horrified and demoralized by the appalling things people do to each other every day in our “Age of Rage”—from school shootings and church bombings to concert massacres and killings at protest marches. Neither Donald Trump nor foreign terrorists caused this; a variety of historical, economic, political, and psychological forces have led to the uncivil war in the United States. But Trump has both provoked and capitalized on economic inequality and financial hardship, mistrust and disillusionment, fear and loathing between citizens, political parties, genders, and races, which has only heightened the wickedness and animosity we all have to contend with.