. . . yet sometimes I wonder whether these malignant brutes may not be the mutation that survives on this planet in this age. This age of technology and murder-for-empire. Maybe the softies will have to go, and the snake-hearted will inherit the Earth. Now, I’m betting on the democracies. But we’re living in an age of murder. In all history, there have never been so many people murdered as in our century. Add up all the murders from the beginning of history to 1900, and then add the murders after 1900, and our century wins. All alone . . . http://www.theatreink.net/shows/2013/bad%20seed/bspacket.pdf
Sadly this was written in the 1950s. I’m sure the authors, William March (the novel) and Maxwell Anderson (the play), thought knowledge of psychopathy would spread quickly in the modern age. As did Hervey Cleckley, Mask of Sanity, and Mary Astor, The Incredible Charlie Carewe, Mary Astor’s “The Incredible Charlie Carewe” (https://kat.cr/the-incredible-charlie-carewe-mary-astor-mobi-t7972573.html, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5798604M/The_incredible_Charlie_Carewe), no doubt. I don’t know what went wrong.
The Path Whisperer 