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People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil | 
| Author: M. Scott Peck
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  145 reviews
Sales Rank: 7298
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 276
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0684848597
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89
EAN: 9780684848594
ASIN: 0684848597
Publication Date: January 2, 1998
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Condition: some shelf wear
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| Customer Reviews: Read 140 more reviews...
 DANGER - This is a life-changing book August 19, 2008
Twenty-five years ago Dr. M. Scott Peck (author of "The Road Less Traveled" series of books) threw down the gauntlet, challenging the psychological and scientific communities to subject human evil to the same rigorous study as other human behaviors. Only within the last very few years has anyone had sufficient courage to take up that challenge.
Ever been relentlessly lied to - or about - by someone? Ever been stunned to realize that someone in your life somehow behaves as though he's the center of the universe and everything and everyone else is somehow LESS? Ever come face to face with virulent narcissism? This book will help you understand. But beware: such knowledge comes at a cost. Gone forever will be any vestage of naivete.
The Ability to Recognize Human Evil is Crucial for Self-Preservation July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Peck, defines human evil. After working with thousands of patients, Dr. Peck finds that there is a common thread between many of them; a life of lies along with complete & total self-absorption. To realize that there are people among us that are truly evil is unsettling, to say the least. However, the ability to recognize evil people is critical and crucial to human self-preservation. The reader must be careful, however, not to "diagnose" all liars and narcissistic people as evil. This is an eye-opening book, but "sheltered" readers may have trouble believing that their fellow humans can be capable of the evil that Dr. Peck identifies with such detail.
a helpful primer on thinking about evil July 11, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
After reading, enjoying, and becoming inspired by The Road Less Travelled I had to take Dr. Peck's writing seriously. People of the Lie was a wrenching departure from his first book, a "nice book", as he says. Even tho I am no longer a Christian and in spite of the Christian overtones of POTL, I found it to be not just fascinating but helpful. It is a thought-provoking book, to say the least, and even "over the top" in parts. Still, to this day, perhaps 15 years after reading it, I think about evil in terms of Dr. Peck's principles. Whenever I encounter chronic confusion and pervasive lies I begin to think about the possibility of an evil personality. There are people I have known whose influences and actions struck me as evil, but their destructiveness was not evident at the time, when they seemed completely normal in every way. And that's one of his main points: we tend to think of evil as "back then and over there", not in the mother of three next door or the church deacon across the street, but that's exactly where it can be. And so often that destruction is visited upon children, so that the results are only apparent after years of awfulness, of crushed and crippled spirits, of destroyed souls. And he cautions us: it's all too easy to hate the evil person, but all of us are capable of evil. I believe he's right. This book is indeed an excellent beginning of a more scientific examination of the nature of evil.
 As Iron Maiden Sang, "The Evil...The Evil...The Evil That Men Do!!!! The Evil...The Evil...The Evil That Men Dooooooooooooo!!!!" April 22, 2008
2 out of 16 found this review helpful
M. Scott Peck is a psychiatrist who's definitely a renegade among his peers because of his thesis behind People of the Lie. Peck argues that Evil is not only palpable, but also even something that can be scientifically measured, analyzed and even classified as a bona fide, legitimate illness alongside cancer, TB, etc.. So certain is he of Evil being an indisputable reality and an actual term for actual illness in men--not merely a concept as the moral-relativist crowd professes--that I will in fact designate "Evil" as a proper noun for the length of my review.
Most of Peck's observations will resoundingly strike a chord with many a reader because of the easy understandability of his explanation of Evil as it manifests among everyday, seemingly average people including you and I. In People of the Lie, peck unmistakably identifies certain, idiosyncratic behavioral traits which define a person as Evil. His arguments for what defines a person as Evil are very persuasive since he lays them out in a severely meticulous and well-reasoned manner, which includes much logical foundation.
The focal point of Peck's thesis (Evil is a measurable quantity in people) is based on the fact that Evil people are people who never, ever, ever accept blame for their own misdoing and simultaneously reject personal responsibility, making them remorseless. Just by that definition alone, Peck clicks with so many readers because so many readers, in turn, do know all too many people who precisely fit this incriminating classification!!!! This only gets worse because, Peck reasons, Evil people don't just stop there; they also hurt others in a manner of lashing out instead of facing their own shortcomings. As the last, main piece of this trio, Evil people are also harshly narcissistic, for the purposes of Peck's definition, insisting that everyone else submits to their will and their will alone in an ideology of utter selfishness. Again, this behavioral trait is so very, very easy to identify in far too many people today that it's just a loathsome sign of how conscienceless society's become.
Peck then somehow hijacks his own line of thinking by making a sharp, left turn by insisting that the aforementioned, Evil people are just clinically sick and need professional help. While this book is praiseworthy due to its incorporation of morals to understand the "science" of Evil, if you will, this is one of Peck's many, unpalatable conclusions which actually take his well-founded thesis and misdirect from it. Peck gravely veers off into the proverbial deep end of making an impossibly difficult assertion when he actually writes--presumably with a straight face!--that the best way to fight Evil is by loving it!!!! WTF?!?! Yes, you read that right and in fact should proceed to pick your jaw up off the floor now. This argument is one of Peck's most seriously faulty ones because it guiltily reads exactly like an ultra-idealistic, emotional liberals' methods for tackling anything: just love it! Whether you're an Al-Q*eda terrorist, or merely a ped*phile who preys on kids, or how about just a regular, old serial killer who hunts for fun...Peck's radically liberal "solution" is to just "love" the Evil out of you, bad boy!!!!
Inarguably, Peck's credibility suffers irreparable harm with this totally imperfect assertion because in reality--something liberals have a terminal problem with--it's unworkable and impractical. No amount of idealistic "love" will cure the Islamofascist who's hellbent on killing infidels; the ped*phile who relishes in misusing kids for his own perversions; or the serial killer who has a predilection to kill. Owing to the fact that Peck himself knows how disgustingly idiotic his own conclusion is, he even admits that the only way to fight Evil is essentially by being just as, if not more so, evil as it. In other words, fighting fire with fire, which is 100% true! However, then, rottenly, Peck's liberal idealism seizes hold of his delusional mind again, and he argues that it's better not to take this "risk" as one supposedly becomes the Evil he's fighting if he adopts its tactics to fight it. Good God...here, Peck sounds just like every other Democrat out there who opposes America's right to self-defense through Bush's War on Terror. You know, the widely discredited argument that the US should just be "nice" and change its foreign policy and maybe, just M-A-Y-B-E, the misunderstood terrorists (I mean, "freedom fighters) will leave the US alone.
Peck's thesis also endures harm with the examples of patients of his through the years whom he's diagnosed as Evil. The examples are, quite frankly, asinine bordering on the ludicrous. Judge for yourself: in one case, a fifteen-year-old called "Bobby" had an older brother who committed suicide by shooting himself with his shotgun. His parents--apparently not in merely a sadistic and tasteless joke--then seriously went and saved the suicide weapon and "regifted" it to the younger, remaining son, "Bobby," as a Christmas present! While this can be more reasonably termed "unsympathetic" or "cruel," Peck crosses the line by branding the parents as "Evil." Now, the parents argued that "regifting" was merely practical, and in a sense it is!
Another case involves another teen boy, "Roger," and his parents. "Roger's" dilemma was that he was underperforming in school and getting into trouble. As Peck investigated, he suspected the parents were really the culprits behind the son's outbursts--as Peck apparently finds from time to time--and the "Evil" ones. Peck based this unwarrantable denunciation on the fact that the parents rejected his suggestion to encourage one of "Roger's" only interests--helping disabled or underprivileged kids, or something--because "Roger" hadn't cleaned his room properly. At most, this is an overreaction by the parents and quite vindictive and possibly selfish, too, but for Peck to brand the parents as "Evil" over this is stretching even asininity. If these are who qualify as "Evil" people for Peck's purposes, then what in the hell does he call Islamofascists, child rapists, murderers, etc.?
Another example involves a couple, "Hartley and Sarah." Their relationship to each other was so twisted that it--among all of Peck's' examples--was really the only one that plausibly could be termed a case of human Evil. Their relationship involved a corrosive co-dependence, a symbiotic relationship. The man, "Hartley," was basically such a whipped, liberal girlie-man that he was the submissive one in the relationship while "Sarah" was the overbearing boss. This involved "Sarah" berating "Hartley" constantly to the point where he basically needed to "grow a pair" in the worst way, and it manifested itself through repeated suicide attempts on "Hartley's" part. The absolutely sick part was that "Sarah" would continually get help for "Hartley" merely so she could continue her purpose in life: have him exist as her whipping boy!!!!
One of the final cases involves a completely out-of-control and promiscuous young woman, "Billie." This girl was such a case of damaged goods that her mother actually ENCOURAGED her to sleep around with older men!!!! Further, the mother completely deteriorated the girl's remaining morals by shamelessly discussing with her her own infidelity to her husband, "Billie's" dad!!!! "Billie" was in her early 20s and despite having her own apartment, had a hard time sleeping there for the night; in fact, she'd go back to her parents' home to sleep. In fact, every time the daughter would insist it was time for her to leave, the mother would make excuses to keep her daughter at her home longer. Through therapy, Peck concluded that the mother was "Evil" for this action and also for encouraging her daughter to have trysts, as the net effect of her promiscuity would be to feel cheated by men and come running home to her mother. Now, this is manipulation by the mother and selfishness, but, again...real Evil?
Peck's already badly injured believability takes a further downturn when he impudently strays into the territory of, I kid you not, exorcisms!!!! Reading People of the Lie, I perceptively suspected that Peck was the oxymoron called a liberal Christian, and this comical chapter on exorcism confirmed it!!!! I take as my all-purpose guide to exorcism Malachi Martin's seminal Hostage to the Devil; conversely, the kind of foul BS Peck writes regarding exorcism is so asinine that it's factually wrong. For instance, he claims to have encountered two patients of his whom he believed to be genuinely possessed, yet their behavior and the ritual of exorcism they underwent completely violate what Hostage to the Devil describes in bona fide possession cases. Moreover, what he asininely conjectures in a theological context about God and Satan is pure fantasy/wishful thinking. In example, Peck theorizes--in keeping with his overall liberal motif of loving the heck out of Evil to cure it/beat it--that one way Satan could be decisively beaten is by reaching out to it and trying to "love" it. Seriously. He goes on that Satan--being a creature of absolute impurity--would then reject the offer of love and simply retreat, or something completely ludicrous like that.
Despite the overwhelmingly many trends-of-thought that make Peck guilty of some serious misjudgments, his absolute, most unpardonable chapter is the second-last one entitled: Mylai: an Examination of Group Evil. Shrewd readers will perceive that Peck's plot here is to arrogantly condemn the entire US military in Vietnam of massive, institutionalized Evil. This chapter is beyond the pale, anti-American, vicious and should earn Peck a complete boycott just for the audacity alone of dragging the institution of the US military through the mud as he does! This chapter was so difficult to get through because it's about 40 pages of Peck lobbying bitter broadsides at the US military and soldiers! Here's his censurable "reasoning": what occurred with the Mylai massacre wasn't merely the isolated incident sane Americans all know it to be, but, rather, was only one of many, other, undocumented massacres in Vietnam. Peck further exposes how liberal and anti-American he is by misusing the same old liberal accusations against the military: he alleges that the way the military is established with its specialized training among different soldiers means it's predisposed to breeding a culture of Evil. Peck alleges that soldiers are dehumanized in war zones to the point where the vast majority of them forget their training and/or conscience and are more likely to commit atrocities. Peck alleges that the US involvement in Vietnam was one of the WHOLE COUNTRY being in bed with the concept of Evil, and accuses the US of being the aggressor there! Doesn't this sound familiar to Democrat/lib thinking in this post-911 world, where libs charge the US with being the killer, the aggressor and the instigator of violence against the Arabs?!?! Of course it does! Predictably like the good, little, typical lib Peck is, he then insanely and idiotically offers retarded, liberal "solutions" to the "problem" of Evil caused by having a national military. Are you ready for what the hell he proposes? He proposes disbanding the whole US military and creating something like a Peace Corps which wouldn't fight wars, but just help out in trouble spots around the world. MY F***ING GOODNESS! When I read this, I basically blacked out from the understandable outrage. Again, also note how scarily close Peck's vile thinking is back when this was published (early 80s) to the Democrats/libs of current times.
The conclusion is that People of the Lie starts out with a very interesting and demonstrably true thesis: that Evil is real and exists and manifest in people. However, as I've incontrovertibly outlined by the use of nothing but hard facts and airtight examples from this book, Peck irreconcilably destroys his credibility with asinine examples, totally false, theological conjectures, and the worst of all: absolutely liberal, elitist scorn and hatred of the US military as an institution which breeds the very epitome of Evil itself. For that chapter alone, his book deserves a widespread boycott and nothing but condemnation because he's ruined any and all semblance of respectability.
An Apoocalyptic Acheivement April 5, 2008
This book is a must read for anyone experiencing grief or unsettling issues from any relationship whether it be professional, familial or other.
I had a boss from my previous corporate job at OfficeMax. This guy was hired as a Sales Manager after I had served two years. This man turned out to be the epitome of evil as characterised and described in this book. The guy exhibited all the ghastly personality traits of the definitive evil person described in Peck's book.
To recount the true essence of the personality; the man was pushy, bellicose, abusive and often belittling in the presence of coworkers. Unfortunately he was somehow able to elude scrutiny or corrective action due to a incompetent Personnel system misguided by indifference and poor management.
The reason why we need to make parallels of the evildoings described in this book is to draw our own personal experiences in order to understand the essence and manifestation of evil in our everyday lives. Peck also discusses the banality of evil in which ordinary and seemingly good people passively ignore the evil in front of them. Ultimately the true travesty of evil is allowing it to persist. Read this book, it will help you cope when faced with the adversity of evil people.
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