This is what most don’t understand. The reality is, we’re all villains. And we’re all angels. And the only thing that determines how we’re perceived, is the disposition of those perceiving us.
This person is a villain, because you don’t like this kind of person. That person is an angel, because you have an affinity with that person.
There is no one benefiting, other than we ourselves. But don’t underestimate the power of the dopamine rush we all get by having our biases validated.
This seems like a false equivalence. We all have the capacity for great good and great evil. And most of us have probably done very good and occasionally very bad things, objectively speaking.
Framing matters and context too, but some things are just objectively bad in any light. Some are objectively good.
I think that truth (or at least belief in it) underlies why we collectively punish folks perceived as getting away with something that looks undeniably bad. Then add other phenomenon like the bandwagon effect and it can be crushing to the target.
