Remembering September 11/Sorting Out 'Evil'
Over at PBS we find Frontline's Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, which poses some profoundly difficult questions about people's experiences on September 11, 2001. The question of evil has bothered me since the attacks, and I've bristled every time I hear 'evil' used by an official to justify the 'war on terror.' It seems to be an explanation--these people did this because they are evil--rather than a description. And as an explanation, 'they are evil' is suspiciously tidy. It obscures the terrorists' motivations and their grievances (illegitimate as they may be), which are the most difficult aspects of the attacks for us to understand. (The 'religious fanatics' characterization is another attempt to explain away their actions and avoid understanding.)
Of the Frontline interviews, I agree most with Ian McEwan's assessment (read his interview) of evil:
I don't really believe in evil at all. I mean, I don't believe in God. I certainly don't, therefore, believe in some sort of supernatural or trans-historical force that somehow organizes life on dark or black principles. I think there are only people behaving, and sometimes behaving monstrously. Sometimes their monstrous behavior is so beyond our abilities to explain it, we have to reach for this numinous notion of evil. But I think it's often better to try and understand it in real terms, in ... either political or psychological terms.
Like McEwan, I reject the idea of supernatural evil, though I do believe in psychological evil. The Atlantic published a persuasive essay back in February on just how evil the September 11 attacks really were. Degrees of Evil: Some thoughts on Hitler, bin Laden, and the hierarchy of wickedness makes the case that Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler are in the same class where evil is concerned.
For yet another perspective, read Roger Shattuck's Atlantic article When Evil is "Cool", especially part 2 and the analysis of Pulp Fiction.
For me, evil has a diabolical quality that mere immorality or wickedness lacks--what Shattuck calls 'radical evil'--and I think that's why I'm so reluctant to apply the term. An evil person must luxuriate in their acts of cruelty; doing harm to achieve personal or political gain (like a suicide bomber who believes he's gaining entry to heaven) seems to me to be not enough. An evil person must do harm because they enjoy it.
And the question of whether bin Laden is diabolical seems to hinge on this point. To orchestrate the murder of thousands of innocents is a heinous act, though perhaps not evil by this definition (consider the arguably unnecessary bombing of Nagasaki at the end of World War II). But to do it for one's own pleasure--that, as my friend Kelly would say, is just fucked up.
