What is a devil? What provision does one need to be called a devil? Nothing is ever black and white most of us will always fall into a dirty grey area. We are tainted by our decisions and values, we forge our life on both lies and truths. We are betwixt beings.
I would argue that 'bad people are as bad as the ones who made them that way. I strongly believe that no human is born bad yet they grow up to be monsters that hurt people and cause wars.
The answer to that comes in the form of our greatest trait as humans. We are social beings. We require a certain amount of interaction to function properly. Our greatest traits though turn out to be our curse, because we are also very influential.
No one can boast that they are self-made because we will always be a culmination of all the people we have ever met, hence, no acts whether good or bad should be considered as a one-man show.
Instead of just scrutinizing their acts and move on, one should dig in and find out what made them the people they are today. Shortfall to do so would leave the real monster out in the world to cause more havoc.
See I learned at an early age that every heart contains darkness, no matter how pure it is. And it is surprising the rate at which the darkness can spread to engulf the whole being.
Now, am not speaking out of my butt, below I will give 3 examples of historical, social, and educational horrors that weren't a one-man show.
1. The Menendez brothers for example, as their legal team argued, kids don't just turn into cold-blooded murders out of the blue, something turned them that way, and in their case that something was allegedly sexual abuse from their father.
2. WW2, arguably the most lethal war the world has ever seen, Was facilitated by the bullying acts of the victors. If I refer to my history notes and my memory serves right Germany was bullied by the big 3 after world war I. In the treaty of Versailles Germany was forced to pay massive war reparations, cede territory, and accept responsibility for the war.
They were forced to pay 132 billion gold marks ( US$33 billion) for reparations. A fine for a war caused by two parties. Now, Germany didn't fight itself, every involved party should have had to pay for damages.
This unfair treatment is believed by the historian to have led to WW2, after all, Hitler probably worked on that anger the Germans were harboring for the victors to rise his army.
3. Still, on the bullying point, let's talk about the 'quiet kids' shooting down their schools, I for one have been lucky enough to never have experienced such a traumatic event. But most of those kids committing such horrendous acts hate said school because of a reason.
Most of the time that reason turns out to be bullying and incompetence of the school authorities to protect the children left in their custody from the vice of other kids.
Those same bullies will go back home at the end of the day, flaunting trauma when they have traumatized a kid for years to a breaking point.
Now don't get me wrong, am not condoning any of these acts because murder will always be one but am arguing that the perpetrators and the root of the problem should all be punished the same.
The murderer and the bully who led to that should all be punished.
Note: I know Hitler is contradictory to all I just said but give me a break, this a just shower thoughts after all.