DEFENCES

  Why do normal people embrace evil? Setting aside the possibility of mental disorder, we come to the so-called “Nuremberg Defense.” This emerged from the Nuremberg trials following World War Two. In these surviving German leaders faced judgement before and International Military Tribunal (MIT) for horrendous crimes perpetuated by Nazi Germany, including the Holocaust.[i]

From the trials came the now-famous, and often lampooned defense: “I was only following orders.”

Later, In 1962, the concept arose again during the trial of Adolph Eichmann, who was tasked with, and carried out energetically, the “final solution” designed at the Wannsee Conference of 1942. Israeli agents had captured Eichmann in Argentina and ferreted him to Jerusalem to stand trial. While there, he wrote that he and other high-ranking officers were “forced to serve as mere instruments.” Among the orders he followed, as such an instrument, included directives to murder every last person in Europe determined to be of Jewish descent as determined by precise laws established in pre-war Germany. In Eichmann’s case, as has been mentioned earlier, the defense didn’t work. His evil past hung with him as he hung from the scaffold.

That same year, a Yale University psychologist, Stanly Milgram, conducted a series of studies designed to test whether, indeed, ordinary people, including our “terrifyingly normal,” would inflict harm upon others when receiving orders from a higher authority.[ii] In other words, it was an experiment designed to test “Obedience to Authority.” At the time, the results of the experiments indicated, rather alarmingly, that ordinary people did, indeed, harbor a sea of evil potential.

The study has since enjoyed a great deal of examination, criticism, support, and some refutation, What happened, though is that test organizers convinced a group of student participants that they were involved in a study to test the relationship between pain and cognizance. In short, they were to apply electrical shocks, in increasing severity, to other participants who gave wrong answers to questions in a highly controlled and supervised situation. They administered the shocks, under the watch of variously bedecked authority figures, to test participants in a controlled environment.  The reactions of the test victims were visible and quite dramatic, as they should have been for they, and the authority figures, were actually actors. The degree of electrical shock, at times theoretically lethal, applied under orders didn’t actually shock the participants, but it did shock the academic community when the results were published.

We’ll drop anchor for a short spell for the readers to carry out some homework, under orders of course. Anyone interested in the evil performed while following orders must read an account of the Milgramexperiments. They still shock.[iii]

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[i] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust. Accessed on December 23, 2021.

[ii] Milgram. S (1963) Behavioural Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-78.

[iii] Brown, R. (1986). Social Forces in Obedience and Rebellion. Social Psychology: The Second Edition. New York: The Free Press.

  CAUSES

Some of our greatest thinkers have studied the evil done by evil people. But what causes a “terrifyingly normal” person to do evil as one of the types covered in the last chapter? Let us steer carefully into that whirlpool.

First, we must mind a prevalent lesson from statistical analysis. Perhaps the strongest correlation with evil to be found in historical accounts is religion. Better minds than ours must attempt to determine if religion is the cause of evil or if religion is simply the excuse. We’ll steer around that question as best we can. We might note that one modern writer posits that, given the limitations of direct personal control over others, a major function of myth is to permit the control of many by a few.[i] Thus we veer toward correlation and causation merging in the case of evil.

As a prelude to causation, in the last chapter we discussed the types of evildoers. At the next level, now let us examine a litany of the most common catalysts for evil in the history of our species.

Punishment: This may be the most common source of evil actions. Bart Ehrman covered this thoroughly in his work on suffering (Ehrman, 2008). The use of evil for punishment by omnipotent spirits is common in Hebrew literature. Disobedience is perhaps the most common instigator. Examples include the imposition of the agony of childbirth[ii] for the gender of a species. Perhaps the most virulent involved the near annihilation of all species on earth.[iii]

Other religion-based punishments don’t involve a particular motivating act, i.e. sin, by the victims. Consider the innocents of the City of Jericho, going about their business.[iv] Some examples involve actions on victims for deeds that we might view as untoward but not worthy of violent punishment, say the acts of some young boys in ridiculing a bald man.[v] Being torn apart by wild beasts would seem a little “over the top” by modern standards.

Some societies attempt to create punishment that equated to a crime. Thus, the punishment for the wanton murder of an innocent is a long period of contemplation followed by the imposition of 2,000 volts of electricity through the perpetrator’s body.

Revenge: Again, this is a major determinant involved in the imposition of evil. Sometimes the connection is apparent, say Hiroshima and Nagasaki for Pearl Harbor. Other times, the connection becomes skewed, say the bombing of Baghdad for 9-11.

The act of revenge can allow be personal. A young Julius Caesar was once kidnapped by pirates. After paying off the ransom, Caesar raised an army, captured the pirates and had them crucified.[vi] Acts of revenge can also serve as acts of education.

Victory: Nothing seems to motivate the evil angels of our nature more than victory in war. Ask the Midianites who faced the following wrath after defeat in battle: “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.”[vii] More recently, we might ask German families about the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles following their country’s defeat in World War One.

Cleansing: See Wannsee Conference.[viii] This is, reportedly, from where the Final Solution to ridding Europe of all Jews emerged.

Law: The use of law to promulgate evil provides an unusual difficult task. First, we are not legal scholars. Second, laws derive from many sources, tradition, constitutions, statutes, and ordinances. A particularly needling fact is that, increasingly, our national state, local, and local laws emerge from iron-age writings by unknown authors in distant lands. Third, power determines the validity and enforcement of laws. So, we get the so-called “Nuremberg Laws” [ix] that legalized the persecution of Jews in Germany and the “Jim Crow Laws”[x] that legalized the persecution of African-Americans in the modern South.

Guilt: James A. Michener, in his classic Tales of the South Pacific, recounts how educated military members noticed curious phenomenon among South Pacific Islanders. These groups lived in what might be described as “paradise on earth:” No disease, ample food for the taking, and a moderate climate. In response, some had formed some of the cruelest religions imaginable. They termed this “Paradise Syndrome” which has come to include individuals of such great wealth and success that they feel they no longer have anything left in life to accomplish. Perhaps this might account for the fact that the poorest among us sometimes find a peace that eludes the better off, who think up evil as a pastime. See: “Legislator.”

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[i] Harari, Yuval N. author. ( 2015). Sapiens : a brief history of humankind. New York :Harper,

[ii] Genesis 3.16

[iii] Genesis 6-9

[iv] Joshua 6:21-25

[v] 2 Kings 2:23-24

[vi] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (Invalid Date). The Time Julius Caesar Was Captured by Pirates. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-julius-caesar-was-captured-by-pirates

[vii] Numbers 31: 14-18

[viii] Berenbaum, M. (2021, January 13). Wannsee Conference. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Wannsee-Conference

[ix] Bradsher, Greg, The Nuremberg Laws, The National Archives, Winter 2010, Vol. 42, No. 4

[x] Urofsky, M. I. (2021, September 20). Jim Crow law. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law

  Traversing the Narrows

 In seeking a temporary working definition of evil, let us first say that it is an act of humankind, to be distinguished from the mysterious workings of a spirit, a phenomenon, or a god. As an act, it must be planned and enacted by a person or persons. As an act, it must be planned and executed against a person or persons. As an act, it must deprive a person or persons of the ability to continue life in a state of well-being, safety, and opportunity. Finally, as an act, it must involve intent.

Accepting these for the present, questions arise immediately. If we accept the fact that evil thrives from the actions of a prime agent, say an Adolph Hitler, are there attendant gradations?

Are those who support the actions of the prime agent themselves the doers of evil? This becomes cloudy if the support falls within the acts of nationalism. It can lead to what we might call the Nuremburg Defense.” As mentioned earlier Adolph Eichmann used it later after being captured by Israeli agents and put on trial in Jerusalem for his role in the murder of millions of Jews and other innocents. As a primary functionary in the Holocaust, he claimed that he was “only following orders.” His performance during the trial prompted writer Hannah Eichmann to observe:

“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”[i]

Are seemingly normal people who are drawn into evil acts under the spell of a charismatic leader guilty of the evil acts resulting from the following of orders? This question becomes a complex one when we consider orders that aren’t given directly. Instead, they may be implanted by nefarious sources and strengthened by repetition until the irrational among us assume that they are called to an almost divine directive. The resulting rampaging mob may not represent “some fine people” but it does contain, among its throbbing mass, some who we had once considered “terribly and terrifyingly normal.”

Speaking of following orders, at least one religious figurehead ordained that we do not judge others in order that we, ourselves, might not be judged.[ii] If we are to understand the nature of evil at all, however, we must resolve the question of “moral obedience,” a possible one-time act that resulted from achieving a stated end. Standing in opposition to this is the Kantian concept of “moral imperative,” or conduct that is absolute and not dependent upon any desire or end.[iii] Further, though not widely researched, evidence exists that German soldiers who refused a part in the murder of the innocents were not punished but simply reassigned.[iv]

There, at the end of the day’s cruise, we must, I think, abandon the obedience, or Nuremburg, defense. The ashes of the innocent that still cover the fields of Europe demand it of us.

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[i] Arendt, Hannah, op cit

[ii] Matthew 7:1 NIV

[iii] Kant, I., & Beck, L. W. (1956). Critique of practical reason. New York: Liberal Arts Press.

[iv] Goldhagen, D. J. (1996). Hitler's willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Knopf.

Thoughts, random and otherwise

I'm curious. Our governor has committed Arkansas National Guard troops to the president’s "border protection caper." Will they be asked to participate in Jeff Sessions' final solution of tearing babies from their mothers and sending them to tent-city concentration camps as a warning to immigrants?

I know many in our National Guard. They are fine people, among our best. I don't think they will participate, even if ordered to, some from religious principles, some from personal virtue, some from an inborn sense of decency.

More than a few are likely familiar with the word "Nuremberg."

Despite our voting record of late, I still have faith in the people of our state, at least those who are willing to serve in the military. I can't imagine that fine Arkansans will join in this atrocity. Say they refuse. Will this precipitate a crisis or will they simply leave to be replaced by Eric Prince's private army, i.e. "Trump's Troopers?"

When one enlists in the United States Military, active duty or reserve, they take the following oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

National Guard enlisted members take a similar oath, except they also swear to obey the orders of the Governor of their state.

Eric Prince’s army takes no such oath.

We may soon learn some fateful information about the American people. With the both the morality bar, and the definition of “normal” having been lowered to such an extent, the news may not comfort us.