Meike's Reviews > Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side

As this is a "popular science" book, I didn't expect to be confronted with rigorous academic postulations and intricate arguments that can only be understood by insiders, but this was way too shallow for my taste (and I am not an expert in any of the fields Shaw discusses). I really wanted to like this, but unfortunately, I didn't learn much, and Shaw's impulse to talk about herself and preach to her readers didn't help either - not because her statements are somehow wrong, but because they are often referring to things so obvious (don't be afraid of mentally ill people! Don't perpetuate the suppression of women! Don't discriminate people because of their sexual orientation!) that I'm wondering who the reading audience for this book is. I know that there are people who cling to hateful and cliched ideas in oder to marginalize others, but will they pick up this book and have an epiphany?

The basic problem of the book is probably that the concept of "evil" is so broad and partly subjective (what would you consider as evil, what merely as bad?) that Shaw is busy covering a lot of ground at the expense of depth: She talks about the concept of "evil" in the context of technology, power, the office, sexuality, murder, rape culture, the Nazis, terrorism, paedohpilia, slavery, sadism... and yes, she herself states that this exploration is based on her own interests regarding the concept of "evil". While there are some scientific studies that I had never heard of and that I found very interesting, many cases she refers to are already well-known (how often do we have to read about the Stanford Prison Experiment?).

So all in all, I was a little underwhelmed by this book. And hey, all German speakers out there, if you want to get an impression what this book feels like, you can watch this clip in which Shaw (who is German-Canadian) does a "creepiness test" with late night host Jan Böhmermann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_mzL...