[mckirk]

Hmm, I don't quite agree with that characterization of Jordan Peterson. I believe his main point when talking of these prison-guard horror stories is to "embrace your shadow", as in: Realize that you might not be as far away from being dangerous as you would think, if you just thought of yourself as a good person. Considering the numerous crimes against humanity that have been carried out by people as soon as the "veil of civilization" showed a few cracks in the past, I don't think it's an unreasonable aspect of human nature to remind people of.

I believe the concept of the shadow stems from Jung's work, and I admittedly don't know precisely in which context Jung applied it. But ostensibly, being mindful of the dangerous paths one can be lead down if you don't take care to stay in balance seems like a reasonable thing to teach people, without it instantly degenerating into a "you are a sinner and need to atone"-routine (as you seem to see it).

[billti]

Totally agree. I thought this closing statement on this recent BBC article [1] hit the point home:

  "Sometimes the women are portrayed as exploited victims. At other times as sadistic monsters.

   The truth is more horrifying. They were not extraordinary monsters, but rather ordinary women, who ended up doing monstrous things."

I think we have enough data-points by now to know that any large group, regardless of race, gender, country, sexuality, etc., has a much larger percentage of people capable of doing horrific things that we would like to believe.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55661782