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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Would you secretly kill someone to get the things you want the most?

By David McElroy · January 4, 2015

Push the red button

Are you a good person? Or a bad person? Are you capable of theft? Deception? Murder? Is it a black-and-white question? Or is the answer a lot more gray — for all of us?

One of my favorite podcasts of 2014 was a spinoff of This American Life called Serial. In 12 episodes, the show explored a 15-year-old murder case, seeking to answer the question of whether the right man is in prison for the crime. (If you haven’t heard the show, I recommend it.)

In one of the final episodes of the season, the reporter spent a tremendous amount of time going over and over the question of whether the guy in prison seems like a killer or not. She seemed tormented by the need to know whether the man she had been interviewing could possibly have committed the murder.

She seemed obsessed with answering that question. Was this guy capable of murder?

I think she was asking the wrong question, so let me set it up in a different way. Let’s talk about you instead of the man sitting in prison for a murder which I suspect he didn’t commit.

Let’s say there’s something you want badly. I don’t just mean a new television or a boat or even a fancy house. I’m talking about something you’re emotionally committed to. Maybe it’s a woman who you’re in love with. (Or a man.) Maybe it’s some money that you think is rightfully yours. Maybe it’s some position of prestige or power that you believe should be yours.

With all of those things, let’s say that you want the person or thing, but there’s one other person standing in your way. Would you kill that person to get what you desperately want?

Now, let’s further refine the question. Let’s say that some omnipotent power gives you a big red button. You have been given a magical power. You can kill someone of your choice just by pressing this button. Nobody will ever know. The death will be immediate and painless. The other person will simply cease to exist. But with that person out of the way, you can have the thing or person that you desperately want.

Would you press that big red button?

Most of the people I know would like to say they wouldn’t do it. We want to believe we are “good people” — whatever that means. But I think a lot more of us would do it than would be willing to admit it, even to ourselves. Since we know that isn’t possible, it’s easy for us to feel good about ourselves by saying we wouldn’t do something so evil.

I started thinking about this a few years ago, because there was something I wanted badly at the time which I could have had if one person had simply ceased to exist. As I examined my thoughts and passions, I started to ask myself whether I would kill this person if I had the chance and if I knew I couldn’t possibly get caught. It was easy to wish somebody would die — and then feel the horrible guilt of the wrongness of it — but it’s another thing to ask whether you’re capable of killing.

I never could answer the question, but the very fact that I couldn’t say for sure told me something about dark corners of my own soul that I prefer not to explore.

As far as most others are concerned, I’m a “good person.” I try to help others when I reasonably can. I try to follow a strict moral and ethical code for myself. But the more I explore this question, the more I’m aware that every “good person” has evil that he keeps hidden — and every “bad person” has good that others probably prefer not to see.

When I was a child, a friend and I had access to a locker room where athletes’ clothes were stored while their team practiced, but nobody knew we had access. While nobody was in there, we went through the pockets of some of the players and stole money from them. It wasn’t a lot of money, probably enough to buy candy or drinks for ourselves. It probably wasn’t even enough for the victims to be certain that money was missing.

But we were thieves. We still saw ourselves as “good boys.” Nobody around us would have suspected that we were capable of such things. Even to this day, I suspect this is the only time I’ve ever mentioned it to anyone, because it was one of my shameful secrets.

There have been a few other times in life when I did things that I knew were wrong, despite the fact that I’m a “good person” with good morals and a Christian faith that many people would assume would stop me from doing wrong. But I’ve had the ability at times to justify what I wanted to do — despite clearly knowing it was wrong.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot again lately. The question on Serial frustrated me and I found myself wanting to yell back at the reporter. I wanted to say, “Of course Adnan is capable of having killed Hae. We’re all capable of doing dark deeds, even if we don’t think so.”

There’s something else I’ve wanted lately — needed very badly, in fact — that I think I could have if one person were dead. I certainly haven’t been plotting a murder, but I’ve wished this person might die. I always feel terrible when I think that — even for a moment — and I’m left wondering just what I might be capable of.

I’m not sure I want to know.

Despite all our progress, humans are still essentially savages who are driven by passions. We don’t like to see this, especially about our own sinful selves. Underneath the thin veneer of civilization, there’s tremendous potential for evil, even though we prefer to present another image to the world — even if we act as though it’s “those other people” who are capable of evil things, not us.

What is it that keeps me on the straight and narrow path of morality? Is it my own moral and ethical code? Is it my belief in a God who I don’t want to disappoint? Is it our strong cultural and religious training about right and wrong? Or is it simply the fear of being caught and punished?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. I truly want to believe that I’m good. I want to believe I’m moral and ethical. I want to believe that I wouldn’t hurt other people. I look around me at people like you and I want to believe the people I love are also “good people” who wouldn’t do anything wrong.

But I have to question everything — about you and about myself and about everyone else — because in a dark corner of my soul, there lives a cold, calculating part of me that would be willing to press that red button.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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