Very good interview in the book-section at salon.com:

Ordinary people, extraordinary evil - What kind of person can attack, mutilate and kill a total stranger or even a neighbor? A scholar talks about the dark potential in all of us.

By Suzy Hansen

"My own pessimism comes more from understanding human nature and the relative ease with which ordinary people can come to commit extraordinary evil. Until we fully understand and appreciate that, we're kind of at a loss to try and stop it. It seems to me that some of our discussion still revolves around the idea that perpetrators of genocide are very much on the fringe, and that there aren't a lot of these people. But when we recognize how relatively easy it is for ordinary people to become involved in this, that just takes the discussion to a different place.

(...)

In the book, you say that we don't really use the word "evil" that much anymore, but in the last year, President Bush has used it quite a bit and, in many ways, to his advantage. Has the meaning of it changed?

I had pretty much argued up to that point that we never use this word "evil." It's an archaic word that brings with it a ton of baggage. And then obviously after Sept. 11 you see it used all the time. In some ways, it was an attempt to capitalize on something extraordinary. As a descriptor, that's fine and helpful, but in other ways, the word "evil" tends to carry with it a mystifying, supernatural quality that takes it away from humanity. That's what I've tried not to do."

full interview