Terms of Engagement for Grappling with Evil

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	• People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil M. Scott Peck Touchstone, 1998 - 276 pages average customer review:based on 145 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Thoughtful

This was a very thoughtful look at the problem of human evil. His ideas are unusual, but groove with what I was suspecting all along. For example, he thinks the best way to find evil people (should you want to) is to trace them back from their emotionally disturbed children and relatives. During the section on exorcisms (!) I was gripping the book in fear but unable to turn away.

Even if you have read books on psychopathy, etc. don't miss this one because it will give you a whole new perspective.

Great insights-weak diagnostic crieria

I found "People of the Lie" to be compelling reading. A psychotherapist myself, I found strong resonance with with many of Dr. Peck's insights and conclusions. His elaboration of group dynamics was fascinating, especially his insights into the regression and dependency that occur in groups, as well as into how specialization can lead to immoral and destructive behavior. His prediction, written in 1983, that in twenty years, our all volunteer armed forces will again become involved in foreign adventures was eerily prescient.

As a therapist, I appreciated Dr. Peck's insights into how difficult it is to treat patients who demand unconditional love while operating out of a paradigm of power and control.
However, the cases he chose to illustrate as evil were not particularly complelling in their destructiveness. Charlene was exasperating and annoying, difficult, to be sure, but evil?

His diagnostic criteria were also lacking-where is the aggressive, meglomaniacal evil personality of the Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Husseim? Where is the personality of the Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer? Can't evil be served straight up as well as under cover?
I recommend "People of the Lie" as a worthwhile, provocative read for the insights the reader will glean into human and group behavior.

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Indispensible if you've had the problem

This book may not be for everyone. It has to do a very specific kind of person whose whole life is one continued effort to reverse moral and spiritual reality, and whose every word and deed is therefore a lie. If you've had to deal with such people the book is extremely helpful because it helps you put into perspective experiences that are likely to seem extraordinarily shocking and radically at odds with what you're used to in people. If you haven't had such experiences the book may just seem odd and pointless. It's not the type of situation it's easy to grasp or even credit unless you've been there. That of course makes the book all the more helpful for those who need it.

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Terms of Engagement for Grappling with Evil

This book will be of comfort and use to people who have been forced to deal with extremely difficult, demanding, selfish and self-deluding people of a type often referred to loosely as "narcissists."

Peck starts with the viewpoint of a Christian, prone to forgiving people, offering them care, and in the worst case hoping that one's love will overcome any entrenched selfishness. What Peck came to realize, and why he wrote this book, is that sometimes people are so selfish, and so intent on wreaking havoc in other people's lives, and yet at the same time so completely in self-deluding denial that their selfishness is causing harm to others, that one needs to label them "evil" and deal with them in a different way.

Peck observes that it is advisable if possible simply to avoid such people, who have a knack for dragging others into their vicious games. He expresses optimism, thought, that such people can (in the rare cases in which they seek or tolerate treatment), be helped. The essential prerequisites of success in that effort, Peck asserts, are a loving spirit, knowledge of how and when to categorize them as "evil", and nearly limitless energy and ingenuity to confront the lies told by such people to themselves and others. But he admits that his book is only a tentative start towards a way of categorizing and treating these people.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, page 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

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