Are Some "Mama's Boys" More Likely to Choose "Evil"?

"A boy's best friend is his mother," says Norman Bates, the character in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece film, "Psycho".  Hardly a statement that conveys a malevolent inclination to destroy, right?

Well, that all depends on the character of the mother in question. Did she do her best to raise a responsible, compassionate, man who stands for something other than himself?

Or, as someone who seems to confuse love with control/possession did she, narcissistically, raise her son to exclusively worship her as the center of his universe?

Norman Bates' -- the poster child of matriarchal obsession -- famous platitude is not as benign as it sounds.  It camouflages a hostility deeply felt in many men who have chosen to infect society with their malignant often misogynistic presence.

After watching the biography of Ed Gein, it hit me as to why some "Mama's boys" may be more likely to take the evil path, than let's say a man who has cut the apron strings and carved out his own  identity, apart from his mother. It may have something to do with the reciprocal worship dynamic, absolutely necessary to make this type of relationship thrive.

When that true definition of a  "Mama''s boy" (not a man who loves his mother, but a man who depends on his mother's worship and approval almost as much as the air that he breathes) is confronted with hardship or when life takes a sharp left turn and "Mama's boy" wanted to take a right...this is when this man is much more likely to choose the path to evil.

There is the unspoken pact between mother and son in this kind of relationship. The son can do no wrong in the mother's eyes as long as he worships her, and the mom can do no wrong in the son's eyes as long as she worships him. They both stand for nothing except to worship and to be worshiped. There is no ethical or moral code that supersedes this pact of reciprocal worship between mother and son.

The lack of checks and balances in this type of relationship creates an environment where both mother and son tolerate behavior and actions from each other which the average person might label, immoral, unethical, even inhumane. There is no concern for the welfare of others, as long as the reciprocal worship continues.

The son learns from a very early age that his mother's love is very conditional, and the condition is that he worship her, and that he never challenge her superficial view of the world...superficial and shallow, because in her eyes, she is the center of her world and she only stands for herself. She is the ultimate judge, jury and if necessary, "executioner". The son, if he is innately "weak" and maybe overly sensitive and needy, will succumb to his mother's overbearing will.

However, deep down inside the son resenst his mother for essentially castrating him.  He develops a  love/hate relationship with his mother, but knows he must bury any hatred he has for her so deep that it will never manifest toward her. He cannot afford to show this hatred toward his mother for undermining his masculinity, because then he risks losing her worship, the worship he has come to believe makes life worth living. Therefore, this anger/hatred, especially when things go wrong, spirals outward and he targets those who he deems unworthy, or who have stopped worshiping him.

Of course, most of the men like this do not resort to serial killing. Most of the men I speak of may lash out in other ways, perhaps, toward other females: spouses/ex-spouses, female employees, and most tragic of all, his daughters. Anyone this man  happens to have power over, male or female, but especially female, who does not live up to his and his mother's standards are in danger of becoming his scapegoats. In most situations he does not kill them, but he may find other ways to undermine and destroy them as his mother has done to him.
"Mama's boys" were not born evil, but because they really don't stand for anything else but themselves, and Mama...when push comes to shove, the evil-brick road is a much more likely choice.

Just a thought.