Ive been studying history fairly intently over the last 5 years (in spurts, because it gets heavy).
Starting with Sumer, through Akkadians, the Babylonian empire, which fell to the Persains, which fell to the Greeks, which fell to the Romans, which fell, but then re-emerged in a sort of hidden conglomeration of shifting European powers (where we are now). Add in the Olmec, to Mayan, to Aztec history, and what you start to see is a continual divergence of peaceful people, and an evil that always winds up in the same place… screwing kids, slavery, engaging in forms of human sacrifice, and then collapsing. It transcends all cultures, empires, religious leanings, and “sides”. 
Its the darkness we want to be free from. 

 It's really interesting to look at the history of civilizations side-by-side and compare their rises and falls. People in every age are faced with the same nature and the same questions. I'm trying to get through Toynbee's work about that.

Coming up with practices that exploit the young, the old, the weak, and the poor is not difficult. But it takes a certain kind of person to push those practices to the extreme and systemitize them, which is what I'm reading about in a book I just discovered called Political Ponerology, which is a psychological study of political evil.

There's so much to think about 🤔