Something I've been thinking about recently:
Often when someone (or a group of people) commit some heinously evil act, the media (and/or their supporters) will try to promote a narrative of the importance of focusing on why they got to the point where they were "compelled" to that type of action. They (the supporters) will insist that the motivating factors should be addressed if we (society) want to prevent that type of societally destructive behavior in the future, and that just focusing on the actions in isolation doesn't properly account for all those responsible.
You can see this in numerous different situations; here are some examples. In Israel/Gaza, supporters attempt to justify the murderous terrorist actions of Hamas by pointing at the conditions in Gaza. In the case of mass murderers, supporters will often insist on asking why the deranged individual was driven to commit acts of murder, and if more societal support might be possible. In cases of ubiquitous urban crime from street gangs, prognosticators will often point to demographic imbalances as a proximate cause, and ask how to "correct" for societal imbalances which might drive certain demographics to lives of crime.
I've been thinking about the similarities in all these cases, and I'm come to a tentative conclusion: I don't care about the "why", and I don't think society should either. We seem to have fallen into a sociological "trap", where we feel like sociopathic and/or pure evil actions must be motivated or excused by some societal pressures, and that we need to look to address those conditions, rather than addressing the behavior directly.
The funny thing is, I see this same problem with parenting my kids. There's always something which is the rationalization for bad behavior: some excuse, some social dynamic, some rationalization (lack of sleep, lack of vitamins, bad day at school, etc.). Yet, as parents, we know (or learn) that succumbing to the trap of incessant rationalization and excusing of behavior doesn't fix the behavior, because there's always another rationalization or excuse. The way to fix the behavior is to simply not tolerate it, not accept any excuses, and try to instill in your children that no excuses or rationalization justify the behavior: fundamentally, it's your societal responsibility to be a "good person", irrespective of what other people do, or what burdens you may face. If you become an evil sociopath, that's fundamentally not the fault of society: that's on you.
Similarly, by excusing the behavior or terrorists, murderers, and/or career criminals, we're helping propagate a dangerous lie that the individuals are not fully accountable for their actions. To wit, if you are intent on murder or genocide (for example), you are an evil person, full stop. It does not, and should not, matter why you have reached that point, except in so far as maybe society also trying to cut off and/or eliminate other factors which may have driven you to that point (eg: if there is a charismatic leader who has convinced you to be a sociopathic murderer, then it would be in society's interests to eliminate that person as well). But no amount of external factors should shift the blame: people who do evil are evil, and we (society) need to care a lot less about the claimed justifications for evil actions.
We need to fight bad people by eliminating the bad people from society, and setting a precedent that no justifications for evil will be accepted, or even really considered. The only way to hope to try to stop those types of actions in general is to make them societally unacceptable, under any context or justification. The more we allow people to rationalize evil (via tolerance of the rationalizations), the more excuses we allow and perpetuate, and the more evil actions and outcomes we will experience as a result.
And if everyone in civilized society could align on that approach and treatment, maybe we could actually make some progress in reducing the amount of evil in the world.
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