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Review by Dr Pravin Thevathasan


How Evil Works
Understanding And Overcoming
The Destructive Forces That
Are Transforming America
David Kupelian
Threshold Editions

In this book, award-winning journalist David Kupelian examines the nature of evil: what it is, how it works and the way in which evil ruins our lives. It could be seen as a sequel to his excellent
The Marketing Of Evil.

In the chapter on sexual anarchy, the author examines the way in which sexual abuse in US schools has gone out of control. According to Professor Charol Shakeshaft, 290,000 students experienced physical sexual abuse by a school employee between 1991 and 2000. Compare that with the admittedly appalling figure of 10,667 young people abused by Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2002. Shakeshaft cites the case of Kenneth DeLuca who was convicted of sexually abusing 13 students aged between 10 and 18 years over a period of 21 years.School officials had consistently ignored complaints from the students. In one study of 225 cases of teacher sex abuse in New York State, although all the accused had admitted to sexually abusing a student, not one was reported to the police and only 1 percent lost their licence to teach.

Kupelian writes: "We are living in latter-day Narnia, where we mock and deny the old truths that, unbeknownst to us, still form the very substance of everything valuable we possess today." To put it another way, there is a logical slippery slope from rejecting traditional sexual morality to sexual abuse. The abuse of school children by female children has often not been dealt with as a serious offence. The abusers themselves are damaged souls. Kupelian asks why Mary kay Letourneau became sexually attracted to a thirteen year old boy. Was it because her husband was alleged to have been a serial cheater? Or was it because her father had a secret affair with a former student? The noxious poison of evil works by diffusion. When we turn our backs on Judeo-Christian morality, we fall back on our emotions as our guide. Those who stand up and "rebuke our growing infatuation with our lower nature" are mocked and demonized.

Our celebrity culture is part of the problem. Elvis Presley died because of his drug addiction as did Michael Jackson and a whole host of others. Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner tried to answer the question why superstars are so full of conflict.The short answer is "ego, insatiable ego. Constantly massaged ego." I am fascinated by the many people who seriously believe that the celebrity atheist Stephen Fry has come up with the best reason ever for the non-existence of God: because the innocent suffer and die. These people have presumably not heard of Dostoyevsky or C S Lewis or the Book of Job. Why do we keep being interested in the religious beliefs, or lack, of celebrities when they simply do not have the time to be religious? They are too busy being celebrities.Those yoga loving Buddhist celebrities will be in for quite a shock if they ever meet real Theravada Buddhists who are basically anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. They have created little socialist nests for themselves. Dare I coin the term "Hollybuddhists" to describe them?

I respectfully disagree with Kupelian when he appears to imply that there is something intrinsically bad about using psychiatric drugs. Yes, lots of evil people appear to have taken these drugs. But perhaps they were wrongly diagnosed. Perhaps they were evil and not in need of psychiatry. Perhaps their bad behaviour was brought on because they were bad people and not because they were on medication. Nevertheless, I agree that far too many people than we expect are on these drugs in the US.
Kupelian has written a truly insightful book.


Copyright ©; Dr Pravin Thevathasan 2017

Version: 24th May 2017



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