For me it's not shocking that any one person can be this cruel. What's difficult to process is how entire social structures and institutions can be this cruel.
But how was this perpetrated broadly by multiple societies?
I try to remind myself that the part of humans that makes this possible is in all of us. I don’t think it’s anything special – there needs to be constant vigilance to ensure we don’t allow things like this over and over.
It could be illogical, but it seems true to me if this can occur for generations at such broad scale. It’s a feature of humanity, and to an unknown degree even me as a result.