There Are Cruel People Disguised As Good People

There are cruel people disguised as good people. They are beings who damage, who attack via a Machiavellian emotional blackmail based on fear, aggression and guilt. They seem kind and generous at first glance, but they hide behind hidden interests and deep frustrations.

It is often said that people who hurt others have themselves been hurt in the past. Anyone who has been hurt, therefore, hurts.  However, while there is a true basis for this, there is another aspect that we often find it difficult to admit. Wickedness exists. Cruel people sometimes have biological behaviors that lead them to behave aggressively.

The scientist and popularizer Marceline Cereijido tells us about something interesting: “ The gene for wickedness does not exist, but certain biological and cultural circumstances can favor it ”. The more complex thing here is that we often tend to look for labels and pathologies to put names on behaviors that, quite simply, do not fit in the psycho-diagnostic manuals.

Malicious acts can be carried out without there being any underlying psychological illness. We have all known, at some point, a person with this profile. Beings who “buy” us with their flattery and their intentions. People who look good and are socially successful, but in private, have a dark and very long shadow. Into the abyss of their hearts breathe cruelty, lack of empathy and aggression. 

We suggest that you think about it in this article.

Cruel people and the moral molecule

As we said, today no one has been able to identify the existence of a gene for wickedness. However, in recent years, studies on the famous “moral molecule” have flourished everywhere. To better understand what it is, we’re going to tell you a story that really happened. A terrible story which unfortunately happens too frequently.

Hans Reiser is an American programmer known for creating ReiserFS files. Today, and since 2008, he has been in Mule Creek prison because he murdered his wife. He had no qualms about declaring himself guilty and revealing where he buried Nina Reiser’s body. You should know that this programming specialist has a prodigious intelligence, to the point that he began his university studies when he was still a teenager.

After a quick trial and his entry into San Quentin prison, he decided to prepare his appeal himself. On 5 handwritten pages, he explained that his brain works differently. Reiser was aware of the studies being done on oxytocin and used them as an argument. According to him, he was born with this problem: his brain does not produce the famous molecule of morality. He lacks empathy.

Of course, and as one would expect, this argument did not exempt him from being sentenced to prison his life sentence. But the subject of wickedness has been revived. Today, value is placed on the fact that oxytocin is a hormone that makes us “human” in its truest sense. As people who are respectful and preoccupied with attention, care and empathy towards our fellow human beings.

How to defend ourselves from camouflaged cruelty

In everyday life, we do not always have links with cruel people like the one we talked about. But we are victims of another type of interactions: those of false goodness, concealed aggressiveness, manipulation, subtle selfishness, the most harmful irony etc.

These behaviors could be the result of several things. Lack of emotional intelligence, a low-emotional environment in which the person grew up and even a deficit in the release of oxytocin in the body. All this would perhaps determine the aggressiveness more or less concealed. Anyway, we must not forget that by aggressiveness we do not refer only to physical abuse.

Emotional aggression, instrumental aggression or verbal aggression are less visible and explainable injuries, but more common and from which we must defend ourselves. We explain how.

Cruel people: knowing how to recognize and avoid them

We can all be victims of cruel people. Regardless of age, social status or past experiences. These profiles are found in our family, at work; everywhere, in short. But it is possible to identify them in several ways.

• The dark-hearted person will “enchant” us with the lie. She will use pretty words and noble deeds, but little by little blackmail will arise. Later will come fear, guilt and mental violence.

• Faced with these mechanisms, there is only one option: zero tolerance. It doesn’t matter if it’s your sister, your spouse or that co-worker. The disturbers of calm and balance seek only one thing: to turn off our self-esteem in order to be in control.

• We will have the feeling that there is no solution. That they have us under their control. But remember something: “He / She who is master of himself is the most powerful” . So we have to break the game of domination and aggression with force.

The games of domination and concealed aggressiveness are very intricate. It is necessary to act quickly by dismantling the traps and reacting to the veiled threats. As soon as you feel uncomfortable or worried about certain behaviors, there is only one option that is worthwhile: distance.