Customer Reviews

Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Oakley's "Evil Genes" is a compelling mix of science, history and personal experience. The catalyst for Oakley's book is the sudden death of her sister, Carolyn, an attractive woman who often acted with shocking disregard for the people around her. When Carolyn learned that her mother's boy friend was planning to take her mother on the "trip of a lifetime" to Europe, Carolyn quickly "came to visit" and ended up being the replacement girl friend who actually made the trip. Her mother died not too long after that disappointment. When Carolyn came home to vist her family after a long estrangement amid seemingly heartfelt pleas for forgiveness and reconciliation, she went to town to run some errands and wasn't seen again for five years. It later turned out she had decided to go home with a man she had met at a store. Carolyn's diary entry on the occasion of her father's death sandwiched the family's tragedy in the midst of the mundane: "cleaned up the dried parsley I acccidentally spilled. Barb called--Dad died. My request for periodontal care seemed self-serving; but apparently this will be handled through a trust fund."

Clearly, Carolyn was different from other people in her sense of the importance (or unimportance) of those around her. But why? Was it because of her upbringing? Because of a genetic predisposition toward a borderline personality disorder? Because of the polio she had suffered as a child? Or was it some combination of these factors? These are the questions that Oakley explores and struggles to answer in her highly readable book.

The science in "Evil Genes" reveals that the "successfully sinister" (also known as Machiavellians) don't just act differently from most other people--sophisticated brain scanning techniques show that their brains process information and emotions in a completely different way. Oakley weaves these fascinating findings with historical evidence to study several famous "successfully sinister" personalities like Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao, Slobodan Milosevic, and Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. The subtext is that people like this are all around us and that, while some are failures because of their personality defects, others manage to combine their Machiavellian personalities with valuable skills to become very prominent--and very dangerous. They are all the more dangerous because they are firmly convinced of the righteousness of their narcissistic and self-serving causes: Oakley suggests that despite the millions of deaths and other cruelties he inflicted, Chairman Mao probably believed until his dying day that he was a deeply moral and essentially good man. The fact that evil people often don't grasp that they are in fact evil is a cold comfort for the rest of us.

From a genetic and evolutionary perspective, where do these people come from? According to Oakley, borderline personalities seem to be rare in hunter-gatherer societies--accidents happen to those who are conspicuously self-serving. Oakley suggests that settled society allows the successfully sinister to prosper and multiply--historically, for example, polygyny favors the Machiavellian, both the men who ruthlessly use their power to eliminate rivals and control harems and the women who rise to the top in the resulting competition.

Oakley does a great job of exploring the "successfully sinister" personality. An equally interesting question, and one to which she devotes comparatively little attention, is why the rest of us put up with such monsters. Hitler was able to take and maintain power because the people around him were, for the most part, willing to keep him there; likewise with Mao, Stalin, Milosevic, Castro, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Ladin, and a seemingly endless list of others. And these people were loved and admired by many who simply turned a blind eye to their evil. What is it about the successfully sinister that often lulls the rest into complacency? Their charm? Their willingness to eradicate all opposition? Something else, perhaps a felt need for such people in certain times of crisis?

Interesting questions, I think, but they'll have to wait for another book for answers (or attempts at answers). In the meantime, Oakley's "Evil Genes" is a real eye-opener.

Three or four times a year I come across a book so compelling that I bubble over telling friends about it and impulsively read passages aloud to my long-suffering husband. Evil Genes is such a book.
As the book description says, Barbara Oakley began getting really interested in what makes people evil when she read her dead sister's diaries. For many people this would be the end of the story, but, being an engineer, and therefore analytically inclined, and a linguist, and therefore verbally inclined, Ms. Oakley delved into what the latest in psychology and brain science can tell us about what goes on in the brains of really evil people. And then she wrote about it in a way that laymen like me can understand.
I probably learned more about brains and mental pathology in this book than in any single other book I have read. I can now impress my friends with terms like "polygeny" and "gaslighting." The information provided is sufficiently advanced that I even told a psychiatrist friend things he didn't know!
In addition to the pure science, however, the book contains fascinating analyses of the minds of leaders like Chairman Mao and Winston Churchill (not that she implies Sir Winston was evil) and concludes that a touch of deviance might be helpful for personal success.
Anyone with an interest in science or history is likely to find Evil Genes an unusual and fascinating read. Let me warn, however, that this IS a book of science and presents what is known at the present level of the science; it does not offer uninformed speculation. Some other reviewers seem disappointed at the lack of conclusions; they will just have to wait until science catches up with our desire for answers.

This book has so much promise but is marred by a preoccupation about the exact psychological and DSM terminology for the various versions of psychopathy. The science and social science research is important, but dominate the book to an unfortunate extent. I found myself skipping page after page of detailed parsing of borderline versus antisocial disorder. Maybe the author will come out with a revised edition that is better organized or edited for the general reader. For the general reader, The Sociopath Next Door is a good option.

I give Evil Genes an A+. First off, forget the whole nature-versus-nurture debate and all the baggage about eugenics and whatnot: that's just not the *point* of this book. Oakley isn't preaching here, she's presenting the reasonable point of view that inheritable faults in brain development can, together with environmental influences, result in personality disorders and other processing problems that may, in turn, lead to inexplicably and gratuitously evil and destructive behavior. However, I read the book cover to cover, and I never got the impression she was making the case that there's a "schizophrenia gene" or a "rapist gene" or anything like that, and I certainly didn't get the feeling she was arguing that we ought to excuse criminal behavior because "my evil genes made me do it." What Oakley does is present a well-founded case that genes and combinations of genes can ultimately cause brains to get wired wrong or to develop chemical imbalances that result in faulty processing. Oakley's case seems reasonable to me. If you pick up Gray's Anatomy, you see there are loads of physical variations in the construction of our bodies... an extra bone here... an extra nerve or artery there... and I see no reason why brain construction shouldn't have similar physical and chemical variations resulting in a spectrum of psychological dispositions. Oakley isn't writing a PhD thesis here. What she's doing is mixing a goodish dose of interesting and accessible science with some fascinating inside stuff about public menaces interwoven with Oakley's memories of the trail of destruction left by her own erratic older sister Carolyn. I just couldn't put the book down. Here are a few random sentences on pages I dog eared (some of these are from sources, not Oakley herself):

* Indeed, psychopaths know intellectually what is immoral--they just don't have a feeling of immorality about it.
* The hypothalamus controls the "four F's": 1. fighting, 2. fleeing, 3. feeding; and 4. mating.
* I've learned one of the most valuable lessons I could ever learn--that deep-rooted emotional reasoning can often trump logic.
* Densely populated areas, apparently, are the equivalent for psychopaths of ponds and puddles for malarial mosquitoes.
* "Gaslighting" involves the denial of a borderline...that certain events occurred or certain things were said. The borderline may deny another person's perceptions, memory, or very sanity.

If my review didn't convince you, sample the front matter and first chapter. You won't be able to put the book down. I promise.

Oakley picks up where Andrew Lobaczewski left off. In political ponerology Andrew Lobaczewski implored others to continue research into the nature of evil/psychopathy. Because of her personal experiences, and most likely without knowing of Lobaczewski, she has responded to his call.
Using data from brain imaging, genetic analysis and cutting edge forensic, neurological and behavioral research along with her personal experiences, Barbara Oakley shows how psychopaths make our lives a living hell. The borderline, narcissistic sociopathic personality has a charm that turns us into easy marks and they can't help it. She shows why being aware of the method to their madness, for that is what it is-a biological disease- will save the world much grief. Highly recommended

I've never been so relieved to finish a book. This book was a massive disappointment, as I might have discerned from the cute title. The author starts out with an interesting thesis--one I very much wanted to learn more about--which is that personality disorders may have a genetic cause. She has done extensive reading on the matter, but her book wobbles all over the place. She spends chapter after chapter describing infamous dictators--Hitler, Mao, Stalin--but the tie-in with her theme is tenuous. She does not delve into the possible genetic causes for their purported personality disorders, aside from a little backstory about Mao's bad behavior in childhood. She gets sloppy and repetitive, referring to almost everybody as Machiavellian or quasi-Machiavellian or some such, and seems to forget that the book is supposed to be about genetic inheritance. She's also a careless and undisciplined writer who throws in annoying colloquialisms in some, but not all, sections:
"And if communism's grand progenitor, Stalin, was different than (sic) many dictatorial wannabes, it was only in his intellect and, perhaps most importantly, his `rolodex of a memory.'"
Not only is her prose sloppy, but she doesn't complete thoughts: she writes about Winston Churchill's "hyperinflated ego" as a component of his success, but then places a footnote about Churchill's "talentless son Randolph," without tying up her premise, which is presumably that Randolph inherited some, but not all, of his father's egotism, or that he had a different set of genetic or environmental characteristics--or what? The author is obviously proud of her own biography, and lapses into show-offy, folksy language, then veers back into the scholarly. There's much too much technical description about the brain and which areas correspond with which characteristics, which just slows the book down and adds nothing to the thesis.
Also, the illustrations in the book are low-resolution and sloppy, yet the book itself is beautifully typeset and printed; it seems that the whole enterprise is afflicted with some "psychopathic inconsistency."

Have you ever been curious how a few select individuals manage to manipulate their way to the top? Before I read "Evil Genes" I wondered if people who rose to success from their devious behavior had luck on their side or maybe they were born to be different from most people? If these are questions you've asked yourself, then this is a book for you. The author explains her theories about Machiavellian behavior and manages to drop the names of quite a few celebrities, politicans and historical figures to prove her point. A fascinating read!

An interesting, scientific look at the idea that some people are just genetically or pathologically pre-disposed to be bad. Made all-the-more interesting because the author ties her discussion to the life and death of her own sister and her long history of sociopathic behaviours.

The neuroscience is intimidating for the lay person, but is actually not-too-hard to follow once you concentrate on the meanings of the terms and follow the discussion with care. The descriptions and discussions of semi-sociopathic behaviours such as 'gaslighting' and deliberate misdirection are informative and will make you think twice about the behaviours that one sometimes sees in others.

If you've formed the opinion that some people are just 'born, to be bad', this book contains a lot of material that tends to support that view.

The depth of the medical research behind this book, the poignance of the story of Barbara's Oakley's family, and the revolutionary statements that emerge make this book a corner stone book, as well as a great page turner. It is destined to change established believes. The style
is elegant and the author has a keen ability to explain complex concepts with simple easy to understand perspectives. The accuracy with which the author describes everyone's feelings is excellent. When I closed the book, I left with the impression that I finally understood what can turn a person who seemed friendly and charismatic into an "evil mind."

This is a good book, and it is based on abundant scientific studies. While I don't buy into the "strong programme" of sociobiology -- whereby behavior is 100% genetically determined -- this book helped me understand a family member and various colleagues with deep psychological problems.

Note that Machiavellianism is not equivalent to Machiavelli as a historic character. The "-ism" as acquired cultural meaning that transcends M's intentions. That's how it is: ideas are like babies we raise and turn loose into the world: they grow & take on a life of their own.

For years, I tried to fathom how so many borderline sociopaths can become so professionally successful. Oakley provides good insights into how this occurs.

Sadly, there does not seem to be any "fix." While we can understand bullies and mean people in the workplace, it would be nice to DO something about the problem. But Oakley explains, to some degree, this problem too: many people simply do not/will not join hands with others to stand up against evil. Most of us have a genetic (and environmentally reinforced) tendency to back down from conflict, fear criticizing others who might then attack us, and -- worst of all -- ally with others who are strong, bullying personality types.