It is comfortable to think of "evil" as a separate entity, unconnected to us. We tend to place ourselves on the 'good' side of the Manichaean and simplistic moral division between 'good' and 'evil' and see evil as an external force, perhaps personified in the Devil. Externalizing unpleasantness (such as cruel impulses or even unhappiness) is tempting, but it is inconsistent with the realities of the human mind.

We don't need to go far to find evil. We all have a dark side inside our very selves.

To the Dark Triad personality traits of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism, some have added sadism, although 'evil' can also be conceptualized along two simpler dimensions: selfishness and sadism. Sadism is (luckily) rare: it has been estimated that only about 6 percent of us have sadistic traits, but most of us are selfish, particularly when our interests come into conflict with the interests of others. In fact, one could safely say that selfish traits have a prevalence of 100 percent. It is undoubtedly our most frequent moral shortcoming.

Sadistic individuals and those with violent impulses thrive in wars and places ruled by warlords and dictators that encourage violence. They seem to come out from the woodwork, emerging from their previous unremarkable........

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