I was thinking today that evil is a sort of nervous system breakdown brought on by an inability to relax. The social sense and the gut sense permanently part ways. The true face becomes the trauma face, which is the unresolved and enormously powerful emotions linked to gut energy. The social face becomes a lie. Only in sadism can the true face be shown, and some sense of home, of belonging, be created.
This is getting close to the truth, I think.
And it needs to be said that structural cruelty has been an element of the human experience for all of human history. Bigotry is not the exception in history: it is the rule, the world over. Racism and wars and slavery: all the rule, not the exception. The Greek democracy depended on slaves. Sub-Saharan Africans never invented the wheel because those able to take power used slaves to haul everything.
And India is perhaps the worst. Yes, they are vegetarians and preach non-violence, but aggression, rape and murder continue to be practiced against their version of Untermenschen, on a scale quite larger than any such aggressions in the South at any period. It is far worse than Apartheid ever way. I think only because it is not ruled by white people, and because of the fundamental antipathy towards actual moral reasoning on the part of those who enjoy being outraged about everything else, is this fact overlooked.
Our modern era is a huge experiment. Where do all the unprocessed traumas and their after-maths go? Where does the hate go? Practically, it has gone into the realm of left wing radicalism, by and large. This is not a good solution. But I think we need to recognize the psycho-social dynamic underlying it, which makes the effective use of reason next to impossible with these people.