Cross-posted at the very orange Daily Kos.
The nature of evil is a topic which has been investigated by many thinkers far brighter than myself throughout time; Nietzsche has outlined in The Genealogy of Morals how he believed the term arrived. I am not presenting an answer, but more of an inquiry.
What I am interested in here is the idea of intent versus outcome. Whether there is really a time when labeling someone or something as evil is actually appropriate. It seems to me that often times the term evil is thrown around and it is assumed that this means that the intent of the person who is called evil is actually the case. Is George Bush’s opposition to funding abortion rights and contraception education programs a moral decision, or is it evil because it leads to unnecessary suffering? Is George Bush evil?
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In arriving to answer such a question I thought of Gregory Macguire’s revisionist fiction book Wicked. Macguire tells a tale about how a little girl named Elphaba arrives at growing up and being called the Wicked Witch of the West. One of the passages I found most interesting from the novel was:
I thought that this was an eloquent way of explaining the tragedy of snap moral judgments. To declare something as evil and not to question the cause of its evilness is ultimately the approach to maintain the status quo, which is to say, to accept the evil and not to try and understand a way to prevent “evil” in the future or reduce or eliminate current “evil”.
This thinking and questioning seems quite relevant to some of the comments made by Machiavelli, I mean, Karl Rove:
Now Rove’s words are “offer understanding”, which has the connotation of empathy and misses the point. His sentence may have been accurate if he said “Rational people who saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks were horrified and wanted to find out how to prevent America from further attacks.”
If the term evil is going to be used at all it should be a living label and one that is used along with an inquiry of the intent of the person or action. It seems fair to label the perpetrators of the atrocities of September 11th as “evil”, but this doesn’t seem to get me far into understanding the motivations of their actions and how to avoid fueling animosity. In fact often times the word is used precisely to thwart inquiry and to appeal to associations. This is the opposite of inquiring the intention of a particular actor.
Understanding the intent of “evil” actors can be an extremely difficult task. For me the most interesting aspect is the transition from love to hate, from “good intentions” to outright brutality; and in many cases it seems to me that brutality is justified in moral terms.
The former interest can be exemplified by simply watching the Star Wars movies. In these movies there are various factors that lead the most talented Jedi to be one of the most infamous villains, Darth Vader; however, it seems clear to me that to just call Darth Vader evil would really do injustice to the entire transition Anakin made. It would also fail to address how Anakin’s love for Padame was in fact the drive that ultimately caused Anakin to turn to the darkside.
This sort of inquiry into the origins of evil and intent can also be addressed with regards to the Rush Limbagh t-shirts mocking the concerns that many Americans and Human Rights groups have for the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. These shirts appall me; however, I understand that tolerance for this hypocrisy and brutality in the eyes of Limbaugh fans is in a sense a perverted, distorted love for their country. Although I personally don’t think this is love for America, actually quite the opposite, I think this is an example of how repugnant behavior becomes justified (in their view). It becomes uniquely justified when it is in the context of being a victim.
When one is a victim often times it seems that any act can be justified in relation to this.
Thomas Friedman in From Beirut to Jerusalem writes of an conversation he had with an Israeli Air Force Colonel (I know I am asking you to read something by Friedman, but bear with me). The Colonel commented to Friedman’s question of what he would say if he could address the Israeli people in a speech:
I didn’t intend to steer this into the Middle East, but it isn’t difficult see how victimization plays out in many of the conflicts. In Israel and Palestine there are groups within each population who justify brutality towards the other as a result of being a victim, whether it is resisting occupation or maintaining security. Furthermore, in Iraq, we see an occupying country justifying a war in part as a War on Terror and a resistance justifying suicide bombings as being a victim of occupation. Clearly I am not saying I agree with the rationality of each case of victimization but the justification is still used.
I really believe that we are all victims in society and that many nations can make a good case of being victimized, but I think that this can cloud rationality and moral decisions. I find The Wicked Witch of the West’s notion that it is the nature of evil to remain secret as a good starting place for any analysis on the subject.
