[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What makes something evil?
John Bucher, Writer and Narrative Consultant: I believe evil is a deep narcissistic honoring of oneself at the expense of someone else. I believe evil is almost always in every circumstance I can think of, at least right now, is always in relation to someone else. Certainly there are people who do harmful things to themself and certainly there are people who we might say are evil to themself. I would argue though that people that struggle with those sort of behaviors that there’s probably something larger psychologically going on there, that it’s not a clearly thinking rational person who is engaging in that sort of behavior. This gets into the complexities of psychology in many ways because we could also say someone that is truly evil to another person perhaps also has some sort of psychological sickness or issue that they are dealing with, so I come back to the a similar idea that I’ve mentioned before and that is I think what is evil depends on who is asking and who is answering. It’s very difficult to try and create subjective or objective descriptions of subjective experiences. What may be evil to one person may not be experienced that way by someone else. I believe that most of us feel it in our gut that there is something that exists that we would call…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About:
John Bucher is a mythologist, storyteller, and writer based out of Hollywood, California. He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is an author, podcaster, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, The History Channel, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. He has served as a producer, consultant, and writer for numerous film, television, and Virtual Reality projects. He is the author of six books including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers with followings of more than 2 million, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, and cast members from Saturday Night Live. He holds a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology and has spoken on 6 continents about using the power of story and myth to reframe how individuals, organizations, cultures, and nations believe and behave.
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