Charles Manson Research Paper

Charles Manson and Society: Who is the Bigger Evil?
Charles Manson, a man infamous for creating his very own cult through various forms of drugs and manipulation to perform heinous crimes against humanity. As a result he has been put down into the history books as a madman and the embodiment of evil. However despite this in “The Testimony of Charles Manson” Manson believes society and organized institutions to be the only true evil in the world; he alludes the evil that is Charles Manson to be a reflection of all the short comings in the values of society and the institutions of his time. He believes that society is a mere architype of what is truly evil and only serves to breed evil and fake people. Due to his negligent mother and lack of
Not only was the woman who bore him into this world an alcoholic prostitute, she was also sixteen at the time he was born. Being born into such unstable conditions it would make sense as to why Manson had turned out the way he is. “You made your children what they are. These children that come at you with knives. They are your children. You taught them. I didn’t teach them, I just tried to help them stand up.”(Manson) To Manson the nature of evil is not inherent; he clearly indicates that people are not born evil. If anything he believes evil is something that is taught to a person and likely taught to them at a very young age. Although Manson does not admit it in his testimony it is very possible that he feels this way due to his mother. He claims he did not do any wrong; all he had done was spoke his mind the rest was done by his followers own accord which he hints was their own fault. “These children were finding themselves. What they did, if they did whatever they did, is up to them. They will have to explain that to you.” (Manson) Manson bears a lot of hatred towards families in general and believes them to be heavily flawed and at times evil. However his unfortunate upbringing does not make him evil either just
From then on Manson was placed into boy school after boy school constantly running away and living off of petty crimes on the street, crimes which eventually grew more hazardous as he got older. The system has failed him so much so that Manson claims he has been raped and abused in those boy schools. “You expect to break me? Impossible! You broke me years ago. You killed me years ago.”(Manson) In Manson’s eyes he is nothing more than a victim who has been singled out by society, he is not evil, anything but evil. Society has projected their fears onto him that is why he is evil. In fact Manson also believes there is no evil only fear, everything society labels as evil is just a projection, its “All your fear. You look for something to project it on, and you pick out a little old scroungy nobody that eats out of a garbage can, and that nobody wants.”(Manson) However despite all of these claims Manson believes that all the people who have persecuted him and who are persecuting him are doing wrong for locking up and harming him. He even goes as far as to accuse them of being evil. It was evil of them to lock him up in such a place where his life was at stake every second of every day. He would not have been the way he had if the institutions were not in place; the only father he knew was the