What Really Makes a "Bad Guy"?

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Just from the subject of this post alone, it may seem inappropriate to post it under "Social Skills And Making Friends", but you guys will see why I did it in the next few paragraphs.

I'm a 22-year-old possible-schizophrenic (who has believed his whole life that he was autistic) and I have...issues, with people (to say the least). I'm very paranoid about them, and have delusions that anyone I meet will someday hurt me in the worst ways imaginable. This has consequently made me harbor and cultivate some pretty horrifying delusions about mass genocide and a "final solution" type scenario with non-autistics/allistics. I feel like I'm slowly becoming a "bad guy", and that eventually I'll even become a villain (not anything fantastical from comic books or anything ridiculous like that - just somebody who hurts a lot of people). I've also isolated myself from others for a long time now (probably since high school, really, when my possible first phase of schizophrenia hit), even from the ones I care about the most - particularly, at this time in my life, my girlfriend and best friend. So I see it as no mere correlation or coincidence that these two things have been co-existing within my life: becoming a villain, and being isolated. That, I think, more than most other things, is what makes a "bad guy".

To illustrate, consider various stories in modern popular culture and their "bad guy" archetypes:
- in Star Wars, the Sith are usually alone and isolated, and even when there's a master-apprentice relationship, the master is usually planning to replace his apprentice with a more powerful apprentice and the apprentice is planning to kill his master and usurp his power. Contrasted with the Jedi, they don't value themselves above other Jedi (and when they do, they become dis-harmonized with the Force and with their peers, as did Anakin Skywalker), and they recognize the need to be part of a collective whole that works together; to have allies; to have team-members; to have friends.
- in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, teams such as the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Guardians of the Galaxy were discordant and unwilling to work together at first, which led to some bad choices in some cases (Pyro joining the Brotherhood, for example) - but that changed in the face of adversity. They found the strength to come together and face these foes, and ended up developing deep-seated bonds in the process; a lot of them aren't merely friends with one another - they're family. Contrast this with the villains opposing these various groups, and you'll see that they don't have these bonds with others; they're alone, and left bitter because of it (Loki is probably the best example I can see of this).

It is my sincerest belief that the people responsible for such stories aren't trying to stigmatize - they're merely being observant. And I am well aware that these stories are merely fictional, so I'll leave you with one last story that's actually true, and that really scares me in particular because of how closely it hits home for me:

I don't think I need to describe what happened, because most here probably already know about Adam Lanza and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, so I'll just cut right to the chase: he was alone, and isolated. No friends. Hardly any family (just his mother). Complete and total disconnect from the world and from people. And this isn't solely because of any mental health diagnosis that he may have had, or any one factor for that matter (because it would be foolish to believe so), and in analyzing his case we cannot hope to prevent all others, but the isolation and disconnect, I believe, are some of the most important factors to analyze. In circumstances like this, I like to consider some of Sartre's writings on free will and choice, and how we should "invent" ourselves. Sure Lanza didn't have the best support as he matured from childhood to early adulthood (in fact, he received quite the opposite, which merely worsened his isolation), but he still had a choice, as do we all. We act as free, autonomous agents, under the will of no other beings, as far as I am concerned.

In recognizing this problem, I think a lot of us (although I can really only speak for myself here) can begin to develop healthy relationships with other people (although it's a process that doesn't happen overnight, and we'll still get hurt, but that's just a part of life). Indeed, it seems the happiest and most moral people have friends - and not just friends for the sake having of friends, so that they can brag about how many friends they have; but, rather, they have these friends because they really, truly love them and support them, while receiving their love and support. My mom's been telling me to "get out of my head" for a while now, and it's really taken on a deeper meaning for me in just the past few weeks, because she's right - I'm in my head too much, completely isolated.

I don't know if this helps anyone, but it was just something I wanted to talk about, because I do want to be a "bad guy". And one of the biggest things for me to do right now to accomplish this is to stop isolating and find some friends*, or even just people I can depend on and appreciate for who they are. This discussion is open for debate, and I hope to hear from a lot of people on it!


*I guess I should clarify some things when I say "find some friends": I have friends in Alamosa, CO (my aforementioned girlfriend and best friend), but I'm in Fort Collins now, and I've got no one except my mom, and I'm trying to find work (I created another post a few days ago on that subject, which you guys can check out in the "Work" forum).

You live in a very scenic area; I'm envious of you. If I had your scenery, I'd be the best guy in the world!

There are many aspects of being a "bad guy."

The main one is: wanting to commit mass murder just for the thrill of it.

That is not being a bad person, it is being a sick person. There is a difference.

You can, definitely, be bad and sick at the same time.

I kind of see badness, or evil, or whatever you want to call it as being inherent in the act itself (I suppose a little like what David Hume believed). Those who commit the crime are not innately bad themselves (I committed a multiple-charge misdemeanor when I was 20 that ended up separating me from my girlfriend for a summer, but I don't think I'm bad because of it). I'd even be as bold as to say that there are no good people either - there are only good actions; I don't really feel like a good person when I've done a good deed - it just feels like I've done a good deed out of which I get satisfaction, nothing more. For me - and this is something I wouldn't have said in the past, but now I believe may have some validity to it - it really just comes down to mentally healthy vs. mentally unhealthy. Being mentally healthy appears, to me at least, to propagate these good actions, and being mentally unhealthy does just the opposite. When people like us do well, I think it can be attributed to us trying to be mentally healthy and fixing our propensity for bad actions. So the sociopath who enjoys seeing other beings suffer and who will use others to their own selfish ends does so not out of some innate evil that is simply a part of them, but because they really are "not quite right in the head", and their actions speak for them. I kind of think they can be helped, though - it's not impossible, just really f'ing difficult! I guess in feeling like I'm becoming a "bad guy", I don't feel that I'm becoming evil, I just feel that I'm losing touch with people, and so that will lead me to committing worse and worse acts over time, which is why I want to be mentally healthy.

I find that to be a sensible philosophy of life.

Others might find it too simplistic--of course, there are flaws in it (just like there are flaws in everything!)

But "mental healthiness" is a good philosophy to live by.

Well I just thought about it some more on a walk through the neighborhood, and it occurred to me that Hume didn't actually believe that actions or behaviors were even innately good or bad, but that they were simply deemed good or bad by those reacting to them. So murder could be seen as good or bad depending upon the person reacting to it, and any behavior could be seen that way for that matter. I also thought a bit about biological evolution, and how it might be disadvantageous to murder other members of a species (like psychopaths do to other humans), but then I thought about how psychopaths might not necessarily murder indiscriminately (or even at all, for that matter), but rather just "the competition", and that even if they murder their mates (as they might sometimes do), they might do so after their mate has already had children to pass on their genes, so in a way it could actually be advantageous for them to murder, but then again this is pretty unfounded speculation, as I haven't supported it with any evidence based on research - it's merely conjecture at this point. Still, food for thought. I just don't like the idea that there are "good people" and there are "bad people" - doesn't seem to fit with reality. Some of the best people are capable of doing bad things, so if they were truly good by nature, that shouldn't happen; the converse seems to also be true, that some of the worst people are capable of doing good things, and yet that shouldn't happen. And consider this: a hypothetical person born in a state of catatonia who dies that way, never to leave that state at any point in their life. Are they a good person or a bad person? How can anyone tell? Because they haven't done anything good or bad, logically it would follow that they aren't good or bad. So it is in the behavior, or possibly even just our reactions to those behaviors, that the goodness or badness lies - saying that, by nature, they are good or bad then appears to be arbitrary. At least, those are my thoughts on it. Wow, I really veered off-topic here...this was supposed to be about social skills and making friends as it pertains to being a "bad guy", right?

A "bad guy" is someone who steals people's credit cards and maxes them out so they don't have any money left on their credit card, that ruins lives.