I remind you that the nasty house at Hogwarts was called Slytherin and were sometimes seemingly tied to Voldemort, Rowlings' stand in for evil. I note this allusion to fiction because I agree with you, that DonJohn is cunning and manipulative. I happen to believe that evil often comes with evil genius, a deep cunning manipulative talent that is reptilian (slitherin?) to many.
We would be lucky if Trump were a stupid hapless idiot. It takes cunning and intelligence to be truly evil, imo. But I also think evil people can be somewhat analogous to idiot savants only evil savants: so badly wounded, maybe in past lives, that they are able to behave in a manner all decent persons consider despicable but to evil savants, well, their measurement of normal is part of their deep woundedness.
I have a few unfinished novels. My favorite one has evil characters, with Dick Cheney my main character model when I first outlined it, who get sent to Love Camps where it is not really a prison. Persons sent to Love Camps are deemed evil and must stay there to be loved deeply and well, to be guided to recover, using the arts and lots of love. The most gifted and respected members of the society in this novel work in Love Camps, for it is work only the most spiritually advanced humans can do. In my mind, I used Waldorf kindergarden teachers (and, I guess, all kindergarden teachers) who are believed, in the Waldorf tradition and Anthroposophy). Love Camp loving workers are like the most supreme high priesteses on the planet, the most spiritually evolved (and sure they can be males but I can use female centered language if I choose to).
In Anthposophy, kindergarden teachers are widely regarded (revered?) to be some of the most special humans whose karma brings them to work with children at one of the most key developmental points in their lives: lots of good things happens around age five and humans blessed to have angel kindergarden teachers often thrive more than others. So in my Love Camps, very spiritually evolved people, people who have worked through all their own shit and likely have already lived many lives, are entrusted to love the evil who are sent to Love Camps. . . It is not easy to see these characters, the evil ones sentenced to Love Camps, as healed so they likely spend their lives in Love Camps -- but this is their choice. They would be given deep nurturing, deep exposure to art, community, love . . . I think, other than procrastination and a lack of faith in my writing talent . . I think what has stopped me from finishing my Love Camp novel (it is about more than the camps!) is I can't imagine someone like Dick Cheney or DonBoy ever being released. Which would not be the end of the world -- perhaps it could be analogous to places that take in previously abused animals and provide them with good care for the rest of their lives. Love Camps would not be prisons, but richly artistic and spiritual places, saturated in beauty. High thread count sheets, superbly healthy and delicious meals. . . . and 'my' Love Camps are a loving response to both death camps under Hitler and prisons with too many black men. We could convert many prisons to Love Camps but they would be like what we think of as prisons except in the sense no one sent to live in one could leave until his or her healing master deemed them no longer evil. DonBoy is so damaged. I can't imagine him ever healing enough to be released from a love camp.
And, as if I have not already diverged far eough off course here, I will share one more story. I believe my mother was evil. She certainly was intensely narcissistic. I did not know this growing up. I remember the first time I ever saw a psychiatrist -- who only saw me for some med mananagement (I was close to catatonic with depression except, as he and my psychologist noted under oath, in my relationship to my then-infant) he was a dear friend to my first psychologist -- after he did his diagnostic intake with me, he said "It wounds like you were not raised in an environment in which you were able to develop self esteem, in which you were allowed to thrive", to which I responded "Gee, ya think?"
So, I grew up, tried to build a life but I am mostly a failed being. Still, I have had some upswings. And I don't think I am evil -- damaged, a broken-winged bird, but not evil. Once, a close friend of mind, also a PhD psychologist (so many of them in this world or just in mine?) asked to spend some time chatting with my mother just the two of them. This friend was, I suspected at the time, skeptical of my harsh judgment of my mother -- I never abandoned my relationship with my mother, I did become increasingly adept at dodging her cruelty but I showed up in her life as much as I could -- anyway, my friend Joni the shrink met with my mom to suss out whether my assessment of my mother was remotely accurate. In hindsight, I am surprised I agreed; I guess I deeply trusted Joni. After their meeting, Joni told me she had been surprised by how cunning my mother was. Spot on assessment of my mom, one I had not considered before. My mom's cunning, used so skillfully to use me as she offloaded the work of raising her endless stream of no-birth-control Catholic babies, preventing me from doing my work of being a child because I was always responsible for her latest babies, was masterful. I had never noted it for an instant, and I had had a lot of therapy by the time my friend Joni spotted mom's cunning, until Joni saw it.
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