Evil acts not evil people: their characteristics and contexts

Abstract: The problem of evil has vexed philosophers and theologians for centuries and anthropologists, sociologists, psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists in more recent times. Numerous theories have been proposed but there is still little agreement on such basic questions as the nature of evil, what constitutes and motivates an evil act, and how we resolve conflicts between individuals and groups in which evil acts are being committed. I am proposing that evil should be used as an adjective, and not as a noun. As such it should be employed to qualify acts of persons rather than their character. This change would enable us to eschew foundational explanations of evil and, therefore, to examine evil acts in their contexts and so better discern their nature and motivation. I will contend that evil acts begin when an individual makes, or members of a group make, assertions about the ‘naturalness’ of their own acts and, correspondingly, the ‘unnaturalness’ of the acts of others. I will suggest that this results from the anxiety that ensues when they cannot adequately signify their experience of these acts. When this occurs, those so treated are dispossessed of their ‘personhood’, allowing members of the ‘natural’ group to violate their ‘boundaries' with impunity. These violations can range from the relatively innocuous such as being ignored to the extreme such as genocide. I am asserting that all these acts should be termed evil as they derive from the same semiotic process of ‘naturalizaton’. I will discuss ways of preventing individuals or groups from embarking on the process of ‘naturalization’ and describe the types of contexts that might reduce or eliminate the commission of evil acts by those already engaged in their perpetration. To demonstrate these ideas I will use examples from my personal experience, from analytic theory and from the ‘troubles' in Northern Ireland.     

The phenomenology of children's influence on parents

Starting from the core systemic premise that humans influence each other, this paper focuses on child influences in the bidirectional parent–child relationship. Following a co‐constructionist approach on bidirectionality, meaning constructions of children and their parents concerning child influences are explored. The authors used in‐depth interviews separately with children and their parents. Phenomenological analysis shows similarities and differences in children's and parents' thinking. Both stress the difficulty and existential dimension of the subject and refer to this influence as mainly unintentional. In particular, children disentangle influence from power. Children focus on the responsiveness of their parents. Parents emphasize the overwhelming effects on their personal development. The importance of making room for constructive child influences in family therapy is acknowledged.     

Standing between two worlds in Harlem: A developmental psychopathology perspective of perinatally acquired human immunodeficiency virus and adolescence

Perinatal HIV infection in the US continues to evolve from a fatal pediatric illness to a chronic medical condition of childhood and adolescence. Although navigating this period is influenced by multi-leveled deprivations commonly experienced by low-income minority families, HIV alters the timing and experience of developmental milestones for many adolescents with perinatal HIV. This selective review of the growing developmental psychopathology literature and the authors' clinical work at a pediatric HIV program in Harlem, NY provide an overview of how developmental psychopathology offers an integrative framework that elucidates how autonomy, peer relationships, and self-concept evolve among 13–21 year old adolescents. This paper highlights the importance of considering influences of both perinatal HIV and the culture of poverty on adolescent development, and of adopting multilevel interventions and research to address how interactions among biologic, environmental, and HIV-related stressors (serostatus disclosure, medical treatment adherence, illness stigma) influence the development of adolescents with perinatal HIV.     

Input monitoring and response selection as components of executive control in pro-saccades and anti-saccades

Several studies have shown that anti-saccades, more than pro-saccades, are executed under executive control. It is argued that executive control subsumes a variety of controlled processes. The present study tested whether some of these underlying processes are involved in the execution of anti-saccades. An experiment is reported in which two such processes were parametrically varied, namely input monitoring and response selection. This resulted in four selective interference conditions obtained by factorially combining the degree of input monitoring and the presence of response selection in the interference task. The four tasks were combined with a primary task which required the participants to perform either pro-saccades or anti-saccades. By comparison of performance in these dual-task conditions and performance in single-task conditions, it was shown that anti-saccades, but not pro-saccades, were delayed when the secondary task required input monitoring or response selection. The results are discussed with respect to theoretical attempts to deconstruct the concept of executive control.     

What do Suicide Survivors Tell Us They Need? Results of a Pilot Study

Few studies have examined the natural coping efforts used by suicide survivors, or have identified specific problems and needs survivors experience following the death of a significant other by suicide. In the present study, we used a newly developed needs assessment survey to examine four areas of natural coping efforts: practical, psychological, and social difficulties; formal and informal sources of support; resources utilized in healing; and barriers to finding support since the loss. Sixty-three adult survivors of suicide were recruited from suicide survivor conferences and support groups. Results indicate that participants experienced high levels of psychological distress since the suicide, including elevated symptoms of depression, guilt, anxiety, and trauma. Participants experienced substantial difficulties in the social arena (e.g., talking with others about the suicide). The majority of the sample viewed professional help as beneficial; although many informal sources of support were also valued (e.g., one-to-one contact with other survivors). Depression and a lack of information about where to find help served as barriers to help-seeking behaviors for our participants. Participants who reported higher levels of functional impairment were more likely to report higher levels of psychological distress, social isolation, and barriers to seeking help. Future research with a longitudinal and more inclusive sample is needed to build on these preliminary findings and to provide a solid foundation for evidenced-based interventions with survivors.     

THE CENTRALITY OF INCARNATION

What we urgently need at the beginning of the twenty‐first century is a christological vision that can shape and inform a new and powerful way of helping humankind to interpret their place within the universe. A christological vision that is unintelligible and uninteresting can have a profoundly deleterious soteriological implication: the orbit of God's saving grace will not be wide enough to encompass the universal place of humankind. Arthur Peacocke's move is clear and to the point: Only when the foundations and universal scope of God's grace are fully established for all of creation, only then can the importance of God's specific work in Jesus the Christ be established.     

Education for the prepared mind

A theory of education requires a theory of the mind that is to be educated. Modules are the central feature of the mind of the infant. Innate learning devices, modules, prepare the infant with the following competences: language, number, theory of mind, spatial navigation, music, etc. We propose that the child be taught what evolution has prepared the child to learn. This program requires adding both modular—e.g., Theory of Mind, morality, art—as well as domain-general competences—e.g., analogies, causal analysis—to the curriculum. The program further requires revamping the presently inappropriate teaching of certain modular competences. Finally it requires correcting “evolutionary errors”—modular competences that were not ideal (see Galileo); or that, though once beneficial, have become harmful in the modern world (see imitation). This proposal is taken from [Premack, D. & Premack, A. (2003). Original intelligence. New York: Macgraw-Hill].     

CREATED CO-CREATOR AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE

Abstract There is a crisis of interpretation experienced by those making critical‐care decisions and creating health‐care policies and by the patients and families who make life‐and‐death decisions. For example, at both the beginning and end of life, new technologies are changing the way we define life and death. We can prolong life or hasten death in ways that we could not earlier have imagined. This crisis of interpretation demands new ways of thinking and doing. My task is to explicate how the created co‐creator can be used as a springboard to help link theological concepts with feminist concerns about two issues: interpreting the culture and practice of medicine in a new way, and explicating the ambiguity of decision making when considering issues of life and death.     

A Pandemic of Terror and Terror of a Pandemic: American Cultural Responses to HIV/AIDS and Bioterrorism

Abstract. The cultural construction of American societal responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and terrorism is addressed. The use of metaphors of war, survival, extinction, and of those related to God in public narratives is analyzed. Issues of gender, sexuality, money, and power are also discussed within the context of the religion‐science dialogue. Suggestions are made about a possibility for a global ethic of survival based on an ethic of care.     

Construct Validity of Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices for African and Non‐African Engineering Students in South Africa

We test the hypothesis that the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices has the same construct validity in African university students as it does in non‐African students by examining data from 306 highly select 17‐ to 23‐year olds in the Faculties of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of the Witwatersrand (177 Africans, 57 East Indians, 72 Whites; 54 women, 252 men). Analyses were made of the Matrices scores, an English Comprehension test, the Similarities subscale from the South African Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, end‐of‐year university grades, and high‐school grade point average. Out of the 36 Matrices problems, the African students solved an average of 23; East Indian students, 26; and White students, 29 (p<.001), placing them at the 60th, 71st, and 86th percentiles, respectively, and yielding IQ equivalents of 103, 108, and 118 on the 1993 US norms. The same pattern of group differences was found on the Comprehension Test, the Similarities subscale, university course grades, and high‐school grade‐point average. The items on the Matrices ‘behaved’ in the same way for the African students as they did for the non‐African students, thereby indicating the test's internal validity. Item analyses, including a confirmatory factor analysis, showed that the African/non‐African difference was most pronounced on the general factor of intelligence. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by correlating the Matrices with the other measures, both individually and in composite. For the African group, the mean r=.28, p<.05, and for the non‐African group, the mean r=.27, p<.05. Although the intercepts of the regression lines for the two groups were significantly different, their slopes were not. The results imply that scores on the Raven's Matrices are as valid for Africans as they are for non‐Africans.