The Frivolity of Evil

In my Brilliant Career, I've had to read through court records of all reported cases in all Supreme Court jurisdictions of Australia for 5 years. (The things you do when you're checking the retrieval of data from a legal database).

Apart from the interminably boring corporate law cases, much of what I saw confirmed what Theodore Dalrymple, a Doctor practicing in "No Go" zones of the UK, has written in a recent article.

It's yet another article on the web that deserves not to be forgotten : The Frivolity of Evil.

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

Please go read the whole thing.