Comments
of Jeffrey Friedman
Assistant Professor of Political Science
One
of the questions about which there has been
almost total silence in light of the attacks
is "Why?" I think someone not known for his
philosophical subtlety, President Bush, may
have provided a hint about the reason for this
silence when, in his remarks the other day,
he carefully called the terrorists "the evildoers"
but then, in the end, called them "evil." This
is an important distinction, and our failure
to adhere to it may account for our failure
to be more interested in "Why?"
If we dismiss those who do evil deeds as themselves
evil, we have virtually closed the door to wanting
to, or being able to, understand them. To demonize
someone is to dehumanize him. Why another human
being would fly a plane into a skyscraper is
puzzling and calls out for an attempt to put
ourselves in his place to see what motivated
him. But demons, "monsters," "madmen" -- such
"mindless" creatures are not people living in
a different mental landscape whose contours
one urgently wants to see. Only our fellow human
beings prompt the empathy required to try to
understand them. Calling someone evil shuts
down the effort to understand by putting the
person beyond humanity.
I would like to suggest that while the world
is full of evil deeds, there are no evil people.
Every person thinks that there is some rationale
or at least desire that justifies whatever atrocities
they commit. The notion that there are beings
who are removed from self-justification--devils,
demons, monsters -- probably comes down to us
from the Manichean worldview that Christianity
tried to replace. But every monotheistic religion,
including Christianity and Islam, faces the
problem of reconciling an all-powerful and -benevolent
deity with the brute fact that there is evil
in the world. The many theodicies that theologians
have produced to solve this problem simply don't
work. So a Manichean element is necessary as
the dark underside of monotheism, explaining
how it is that God does not banish evil once
and for all. The Manichean answer is that there
is an alternative force, if not quite God's
equal, at least able to challenge Him by tempting
us. This force is Satan.
I am no expert on the theology of the terrorists,
but I would not be surprised if, like the Ayatollah
Khomeini, they believe that the United States
is the home of the Great Satan. In other words,
*we* are evil -- and so they would feel not
only justified, but sanctified, in attacking
us. To refuse to understand them in this or
any other way, but instead to insist that they
are just "evil" is to do to them what they may
well have done to us: psychologically dehumanize
us -- awfully convenient if the next step is
to kill the dehumanized person.
It seems to me, then, that there are at least
four reasons to resist the temptation to think
of the terrorists themselves, rather than their
deeds, as evil.
First, demonizing them simply returns the favor
they do us in attacking us.
Second,
demonizing them is at odds with the purpose
of a university, which is to try to understand,
not condemn, the world.
Third,
demonizing people may ultimately have the perverse
effect of disabling us from opposing those people's
evil actions. Imagine that we engage in a long
war against terrorists and that eventually,
a great deal of information about their beliefs
and worldviews and emotions emerges to show
that these are not, after all, "madmen" or "monsters"
but simply human beings who come from different
circumstances and have different ideas than
we do. Is it so hard to imagine that, having
grown accustomed to equating evil deeds with
evil people, we will find ourselves reluctant
to judge the deeds evil once the link to evil
people has been broken? I suspect that something
like this happened among some antiwar activists
during Vietnam.
Fourth, the tendency to demonize people who
do us ill is much wider and more important than
anything concerning terrorism. Just consider
how you feel about people who disagree with
you politically. Do you try to understand that
your political opponents are good people who
happen to disagree with you, or do you write
them off as idiotic, malevolent, or worse? Think
of friends or people you love who have hurt
you, or whom you have hurt. Isn't it easy --
and common -- to dismiss them as hateful, crazy,
even monstrous rather than as fellow human beings
trying to make their way through a world full
of misunderstanding -- misunderstanding of ourselves
and of others? Contempt is a mild form of demonization,
but it is everywhere, and it corrodes love,
blocks understanding, and may ultimately become
a self-fulfilling prophecy as those who feel
its sting lash back, or lash out against humiliation
in preemptive strikes.
If we remember that there are no evil people,
we may not rid the world of terrorism and war.
But we may make our own little private spheres
more human places, and ourselves more worthy
of acceptance by other human beings.
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