Quotes About Perpetrator

he identified with the aggressor and took on the active role while the boys represented himself and became the passive victims. In my opinion, Simons committed suicide on a psychological level every time he killed one of those boys.

Outrage is conditioned not by the nature of the atrocity but by the affiliation of the victim and the perpetrator. Should the state be accorded more leniency because, legally speaking, it has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force? Or, conversely, should we hold soldiers and cops to a higher standard than paramilitaries?

Outrage is conditioned not by the nature of the atrocity but by the affiliation of the victim and the perpetrator

As Baumeister puts it, "If we as social scientists restrict our focus to actions that everyone including the perpetrator agrees are evil, we will have almost nothing to study." It is surprising to see how often the worst people in the world—rapists interviewed in prison, say—see themselves as the real victims. They are wrong to see themselves as innocents, but we are wrong as well to see them as different creatures from the rest of us.