Book

Great Course Dark Side of Humanity

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What this book knows

Human darkness—cruelty, self-deception, ignorance, grief—is ordinary, not monstrous, and can be met with disciplined moral practice.

Sex: Absent
Work: Absent
Learning: Primary
Religion: Present

obedience-and-authoritymind-and-cognitiongrief

obedience-and-authority

Studies like the famous Milgram experiment suggest that more or less ordinary people will do very bad—even evil—things.
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The more someone endorses binding values—loyalty, obedience, respect—the more they tend to be insensitive to the suffering of victims.
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mind-and-cognition

Self-deception requires holding contradictory beliefs and trying to get oneself to believe something already believed to be false.
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Ignorance can feel like expertise, making it very hard for people to recognize their mistaken views—the so-called backfire effect.
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grief

Grief is an emotional response to loss; we truly grieve the loss of the relationship we had with the person who died.
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Angulimala's story is a story of redemption without forgiveness; he needed to endure their hatred and his pain with tranquility.
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Illuminates

6 published passages · book excerpt · research analysis

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