Limits To Human Depravity

There are, in certain circles, it appears, none whatever.  If it is depraved, completely outside the sphere of human normality to abduct, mutilate, murder and dismember a living human being, it is equally depraved to make an effort to view such atrocities when they are posted online, yet many people who doubtless consider themselves to be completely normal, do seek out these gruesome videos and comment on them casually, rating them with respect to their horror-and-gore quotient.

Sinister, macabre gore seems to both repel and fascinate human nature.  People seemingly reluctantly, feel compelled to view these vile acts of sadistic gore.  There are those who celebrate themselves as being sufficiently 'different', enterprisingly adventurous and fearless, seeking the exhilaration to be found in having absolute power over others, to boast that they enjoy mutilation and murder.

And, for good measure, throw in necrophilia to completely round out the spectacle.  Perhaps people tell themselves that what they have viewed is the result of some sick mind sure enough (never quite thinking of themselves owning a sick mind) that is skilled at manipulating the photographic effect to falsify a scene of gruesome depravity, that it is all a clever act committed for shock value alone.

But then, the evil reality of warped and twisted minds of psychopaths who feel no empathy, no compassion for others, who take their pleasure where they can, and that pleasure can only be extracted by committing heinous acts of depravity that would sicken most normal people, only excites them all the more.  People like Mark Twitchell who planned to commit his own disgusting acts of inhuman and vile carnage.

Someone like Anders Behring Breivik, who justified his slaughter of 77 innocent people as a crusade to cleanse his country of a foreign intruder intent on turning Norway into a reflection of the kind of life they fled persecution from.  And, latterly, Luka Rocco Magnotta, a social outcast who himself cast societal norms out of his life in contempt for normalcy, through his personal search of increasingly sordid actions and experiences.

"Those of us who practice within the forensic sciences will tell you: some murders truly are worse than others, some assaults truly are worse than others.  Some crimes absolutely distinguish themselves by intent, actions and attitudes as worse than others." Dr. Michael Weiner, professor of psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, developer of the Depravity Scale

"People have grappled with evil being such an indefinable concept and I can tell you, having conducted this research with such elaborate protocol for about ten years, evil can be defined, you can achieve a consensus about what is an evil person.  Intent to cause emotional suffering; actions that cause grotesque suffering; desecration of corpse after the fact; a crime to seek attention or show off - you have four important elements in this case right there and I've barely got started."

And now that German police have arrested Luka Rocco Magnotta, the quantification of evil may, through his interrogation and eventual trial, receive a further impetus in the attempt to understand just how it is some individuals are capable of performing the most unbelievably grotesque acts of human depravity.