What if cruelty isn’t always monstrous, but simply a result of misaligned perspectives?
The question of what causes human evil—cruelty, indifference, and acts of harm—has haunted philosophers, mental health workers, and theologians for centuries. We’ve blamed ideology, trauma, biology, and social conditions. But one profoundly underexplored cause is surprisingly simple: a lack of empathy rooted in misaligned perception.
When we lose the ability—or the willingness—to truly inhabit someone else’s experience, we lose touch with their humanity. And that loss isn’t neutral. It’s the soil in which cruelty grows.
How I Came to See It
At 18, I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer—a gripping, firsthand account of Hitler’s ascent, the Holocaust, and the devastation of World War II. Shirer detailed, with haunting precision, how one of the most advanced civilizations on Earth descended into authoritarianism and atrocity.
But it would take more than thirty additional years—and therapeutic work with survivors of Hitler’s camps, Franco’s Spain, the Balkan wars, and Venezuelan repression—before I grasped something deeper: fascism doesn’t begin with tanks or fiery speeches. It begins when people stop seeing each other as fully real.
Around the same time, in 1990, I was introduced to Connirae Andreas’s work on “Aligning Perceptual Positions,” which offered a profound framework for understanding how empathy breaks down—and how it can be consciously restored.
Today, I see unsettling echoes in the U.S.—political polarization, rising demagoguery, truth decay. The signs are familiar. And the cause? Often, a failure of empathy. Not just emotionally, but perceptually.
Misaligned Perception Positions: A Silent Epidemic
From early childhood, we’re taught to point to our eyes, ears, mouth. But rarely are we taught how to actually use our perception. We aren’t trained to step into our own experience with clarity—let alone someone else’s.
This leads to misaligned perceptual positions. A few common examples:
- Seeing yourself constantly through others’ eyes, leading to self-doubt and people-pleasing
- Hearing other people’s voices inside your body—internalized criticism or emotional fusion
- Feeling other people’s emotions as your own, blurring boundaries
- Getting stuck in an analytical observer mode that cuts you off from connection
When perception is distorted like this, empathy breaks down. And when empathy breaks down, people become easier to dehumanize.
The Other Position: The True Birthplace of Empathy
Most people believe empathy is imagining what you would feel in someone else’s shoes. But that’s still you. True empathy starts by first stepping out of your own perspective—moving into the Observer position—before entering the Other’s viewpoint. This crucial step prevents you from projecting yourself onto them and allows their experience to stand on its own.
From the Observer Position go into the Other by:
- Seeing through their eyes
- Hearing through their ears
- Feeling their emotions—not just guessing, but sensing
When this shift happens, something changes. You don’t just understand another person—you experience them. And when you can feel someone’s pain as if it were your own, harming them becomes nearly impossible.
Sadly, most people operate from a distorted Self position clouded by ego, trauma, or projection. Others get stuck in Observer mode—detached and cold. Evil often arises from this stuckness: the inability or unwillingness to leave one’s own perceptual box.
Evil as a Perceptual Breakdown — and the Role of Narcissism
What if evil isn’t primarily ideological or pathological—but perceptual?
This is where narcissism enters the conversation in a powerful way. Narcissism isn’t just vanity—it’s a profound distortion of self-perception and a failure to perceive others as psychologically real. Narcissists often live in a hyper-inflated or hyper-defended Self position, and they project this version of themselves outward in search of constant validation. But because they lack access to the true Other position, their relationships are not based on mutual empathy—they’re transactional, exploitative, or manipulative.
A narcissist may talk about understanding others, but their empathy is often shallow or performative. They don’t actually experience others; they interpret people only in terms of how those people affect their own self-image or supply. In extreme cases, this perceptual vacuum enables emotional abuse, gaslighting, betrayal, and cruelty—because the narcissist isn’t truly connecting with another mind. They’re reacting to a projected character in a movie they’re directing.
In therapy, you often see this in how narcissistic individuals recall events: their memories are distorted to maintain the illusion of superiority or innocence. When asked to consider how the other person felt, they often deflect, intellectualize, or attack. Why? Because they can’t—or won’t—leave the Self position.
This isn’t only a trait of malignant narcissists or dictators. Everyday narcissism—driven by fear, shame, or entitlement—can cause great harm, especially in close relationships or leadership roles. And its root is often the same: a misalignment of perceptual positions.
Evil isn’t just enacted by monsters. Sometimes, it’s enabled by people who simply never learned to see past themselves.
Empathy as a Skill You Can Rebuild
Here’s the good news: perceptual positions can be re-aligned. One method I use with clients is adapted from perceptual positioning therapy, where people consciously shift between three positions:
- Self – Seeing through your own eyes, embodying your thoughts and feelings
- Other – Fully imagining the world through someone else’s perspective
- Observer – Viewing interactions from a neutral, third-party viewpoint
A simple exercise to try:
- Recall a recent conflict.
- Ask yourself: Am I seeing it through my own eyes (Self), through theirs (Other), or from outside both (Observer)?
- Now shift to the neutral Observer position. Then step fully into the Other’s shoes. Then step out and view it again in the Observer position.
- Notice how your emotions and insights change in each position.
For more structured guidance back into the Self position- this realignment process is beautifully outlined here.
Conclusion: Seeing as a Moral Act
Empathy is not just about kindness—it’s about clarity.
It’s the ability to feel: I am me. You are you. This is what’s happening between us. That perceptual alignment creates resilience, compassion, and humanity.
And narcissism? It’s a warning sign of perception gone awry.
The path away from evil isn’t just about being good.
It’s about learning to see. how-to-align-your-perceptual-positions/