Badly Natured — Or: The Art of Being Evil

How inspiring are paintings that say more than thousands of words ever could? Or so the legend goes. 

How remarkable are a thousand words that burn themselves directly into mind and heart? 

How captivating are people who master the art of performance with perfection and conviction? 

How gripping are songs that simply refuse to let you go? 

Without Art, we would not be the species that creates so much unexpected and new within its making.

But has art ever truly been mean-spirited in its nature? Or has it? 
Wait a moment. Here's where it gets interesting — and a little linguistically mischievous. 
In German, the word for art is "Kunst." But the word for a certain kind of something — its nature, its manner — is "Art.» 
So the German word "bösartig," meaning malicious or malignant, literally breaks down into "böse" (evil, bad, nasty) and "artig" (well-behaved, proper — or in another light, "of a certain art"). Evil art. Bad natured. Malignant by design.

And yet, "Sei artig!" simply means "Behave yourself!" — something you'd say to a child, not a villain. 
What a confusing, layered, and rather brilliant range of meaning one single word can carry.

So what does "bösartig" truly mean in the broader world? 
The term has spread itself quite comfortably across many areas of society. 
It describes behaviour — or conditions — that are harmful, damaging, or morally reprehensible. 
In medicine, it even means malignant. Oh my.

But how does the motivation to act maliciously actually develop? 
Is it already embedded in our genes, making humans fundamentally prone to nastiness? 
No. 

Homo Sapiens is exposed to a whole spectrum of possibilities. 
Someone who doesn't notice, for example, that the quality called "empathy" is missing from their own camp will fail to recognize any potentially malicious scheming for what it truly is. 
Oops.

When narcissism blossoms and Machiavellianism flourishes, the garden of humanism stops growing in certain spots altogether. 

What on earth is Machiavellianism? 
Well, that old Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli coined the phrase "the end justifies the means" — and in doing so, opened the door wide for lousy behaviour in politics and business. 
Thanks for that, malicious Niccolò.

Anyone who has spent time around narcissists will have felt uncomfortable more than once. 
According to the archives of the ancient Greeks, a young man named Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection — and in doing so, ignored, or perhaps manipulated, every other existence around him.

Reading these lines back now, the character descriptions feel uncomfortably familiar. 

Do I have malicious and narcissistic people in my circle? 
No. 
Am I watching the wrong films? 
No. 
Am I reading terrible books? 
Hmmm, no. 

Good heavens. 
Am I perhaps narcissistic myself — a quiet devotee of Machiavellianism? 
Well? 
Let me think for a moment. 
Hmm. 
Hmm. Hmm. 
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm...
To be continued — along with a possible answer. Maybe.