The Scale of Evil
Forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone has created a scale for decoding a killer’s mind. Dr. Stone’s Evil Scale has 22 levels.
At number 1, the lowest: Those who kill in self-defense.
12: Power-hungry psychopaths who kill when cornered. Example: Jim Jones, the Kool-Aid dispenser of Jonestown.
15: Psychopathic spree killers such as Charles Starkweather, the basis for the mass murderers in Terrence Malick’s Badlands, Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
Side issue: Does art inadvertently romanticize evil? Badlands is beautiful.
17: Sexually-perverse serial killers such as Ted Bundy. According to Dr. Stone he only comes in at level 17 because “he did not keep any of his victims alive for long periods of time in order to prolong their torture and suffering.”
Top of the scale, level 22: Psychopaths who inflict extreme torture on their victims and then murder them. Example: Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer.
Is such a scale useful? Can you measure evil and make comparative rankings? What do you think?
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
July 11th, 2010 at 21:28
Reminds me of the Dexter series of books/shows. I wonder where a Serial Killer Killer would fit in that scale?