Evil controls resources and so if you want to survive then you have to do evils bidding, you are rewarded for merging with evil. In that sense, "evil" doesn't just control the resources; it becomes you. Systems of meaning, power, achievement, nation, religion, ideology, wealth, status, etc. help people deny mortality and feel valuable. But because these symbolic systems are fragile, humans become willing to commit cruelty, domination, sacrifice, and violence to defend them.

In Ernest Becker’s view, evil is not just individual sadism, it becomes embedded in social systems and everyday life. People merge themselves psychologically with power structures because those structures provide security, identity, and symbolic immortality. Survival and reward become tied to participation in “evil.” Societies often reward the very traits that help maintain collective illusions: obedience, ambition, aggression, conformity to dominant systems, willingness to sacrifice others for the “hero system.” And because people derive identity from those systems, they stop seeing the violence clearly. In that sense, the system “becomes you,” not only externally but internally — shaping desires, morality, and selfhood. To thrive, one must align with whoever holds the keys to the pantry, civilization is built on repression and sacrifice.

• Control of resources — If access to money, safety, status, food, jobs, or social belonging is concentrated, people adapt themselves to whatever maintains access.
• Moral adaptation — Humans are highly adaptive. Repeated compromise can gradually stop feeling like compromise.
• Identity fusion — Over time, systems don’t just coerce behavior; they shape desires, language, ambitions, and self-image. That’s the “evil becomes you” part.

A lot of thinkers have explored this from different angles:

• Hannah Arendt argued that harmful systems are often sustained not by cartoon villains, but by ordinary people adapting to bureaucratic incentives.
• Karl Marx described how economic structures can shape consciousness itself.
• Friedrich Nietzsche warned that struggling with monsters can transform the struggler.
• Many religious traditions frame worldly power as spiritually corrupting when survival becomes tied to domination, greed, or fear.