Many people know that I like the ideas of humanistic psychologists like Carl Rogers (see entry of 24 December 2002 for background). They question me quite a bit on the view these people take on evil. Rogers, at least, said that he had never met an evil person in his entire life. Like most of the humanists, he held the basic belief that people are born "good", and stay that way—so long as their true core self is not trampled upon by society and the conditions of worth it imposes upon us (see entry 19 January 2003 entry for quotation; see also entry of 22 July 2003 for what I mean by "self"). However, had Rogers and co. not heard of people like Hitler—or even people who did only a fraction of what he did? What about murderers and psychopaths? What about rapists? Were these people born good? Is there still a core of "goodness" inside of them?

The humanists would attribute their horrible behaviour not to evil, but to something that had happened in their lives that caused them to veer off their normal, healthy developmental pathways. From the humanistic, person-centred perspective, this something would have been lack of such basic human conditions as unconditional positive regard, strong empathy, and congruence in self and others (congruence meaning that a person's behaviour is 100% consistent with what he really thinks and feels on the inside).

My own very strong inclination is to believe that most people's bad behaviour is, for the most part, nothing more than highly defensive behaviour that arises when the basic human conditions listed above are absent. If this is the case, then there is every reason to believe that if these conditions are made available to these people, their bad (defensive) behaviours might resolve themselves. I do concede, however, that there may, indeed, be a tiny portion of people who are either born with an organic brain deficit that makes them "insane" from birth, or who are, indeed, "born evil". The monstrous behaviour of these people may forever remain unchangeable.

If we assume that people's bad behaviour can be minimised if their basic emotional needs are met, another issue arises: How on earth can one provide unconditional positive regard for a murderer or rapist? Can someone have unconditional positive regard for Ted Bundy or Clifford Olson? The common reply goes something like this: "Well, I can unconditionally accept the person as a human being, but not his behaviours. I can love the person as a human being, because I am one myself, but I can hate the behaviours." But the problem with this is the following: The humanistic tradition emphasises looking at human beings as whole entities—as people inseparable from their behaviours. If people are whole gestalts inseparable from their behaviours, how can I possibly say I unconditionally accept someone without accepting their behaviours too?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and I come up with the following. I can, indeed, accept the human being independent of his bad behaviour because his bad behaviour is an expression of the fact that he is a fragmented, unacceptable human being. When we are not accepted for what we are as people (eg, when we are told by our parents that we are not loved unless we do such and such), we come to learn that we are not valuable as human beings. The natural result is frustration or anger, or defensive behaviour that protects us from further assault. The unaccepted person behaves in a bad way not because he was born bad, but because society turned him into a bad person in the first place. Thus, I don't need to accept this person's behaviours in order to accept him as a whole person because his behaviours are, in essence, not really his. They are a natural response to society's own bad behaviour (ie, the result of the conditions of worth that our teachers and parents impose on us).

It is hoped that under the right conditions, conditions of worth can be reversed and bad behaviour can resolve itself—allowing the person's true, self-congruent behaviours to come through (the behaviours that come about as a result of the person's own innate positive nature and positive, prosocial self-direction that is unimpeded by artificial and stifling conditions of worth).

I recognise that all of this sounds lovely on paper and in theory. Real life is a whole other story and I am probably seem extremely naive to a lot of people. But I can't help but think there is some truth to what the humanists think because I have seen in my own life that people who behave in unpleasant ways are often sad, hurt, deeply troubled people. I have also seen that if I accept a human being as a human being, even an extremely hardened and nasty person can ease up and start to behave in a more natural, positive, self-directing way that doesn't involve lashing out at others in order to exact revenge. Of course, offering this kind of acceptance is tremendously hard work and the question arises: How much of my own personal energy can I spend on accepting people in this way, especially considering that it will take more than my own acceptance to reverse a lifetime of self-loathing and deep hatred towards an indifferent and unaccepting society?

(Please see also entry of 19 January 2003 for Rogers's beliefs on people's basic nature).