Recently, a young woman, a 15 year-old girl, was gang-raped outside a high school dance in Richmond, across the Bay. Several more boys stood there, watching, and did nothing to help her
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Hoping the third time's a charm. I've tried twice to respond, and managed, both times, to accidentally close the window I was working in, and without having saved the text of my response. Fingers crossed...
Someone asked me recently why I focus on evil in my study of ethics. This was not a completely ridiculous question, since I did used to say that. I told him, though, that I had changed my mind - that I no longer focused on evil, because it wasn't really what I though was important. I told him that I focus now on eudaimonia, and that I explore this mainly through its myriad failures (a large part of our best reflections on how to achieve it). I told him that I spend a lot of time reading and thinking and needing to write things about what I see as the most common failure of human flourishing, which is our failure to exercise our full humanity. Isn't that, he said, what evil is? To be inhuman? Haven't I just come up with fancier terms for what I was already thinking about? And besides, he said - isn't true evil pretty rare? I told him that I thought he was absolutely right about "true evil" (whatever that might mean) being both rare and inhuman, and that that is why I no longer claim the term as my focus. Evil is rare. It is beyond what we can make sense of, and it is not something we feel like we can change. Failure on the other hand - and especially failure to do or express something that takes effort, discipline, and reflection - should make sense to us. It comes to us like breathing, and it is as integral a part of our humanity as the need for oxygen. It is not rare, and it is not beyond what we can make sense of, though it may often be beyond what we can justify. Some of us fail in bigger ways, or at bigger things than others (and we are capable of truly spectacular failures in groups), but it does not help to make that human failure something so other that the rest of us don't have to worry about it, or think about it, or see how close we are to it. We can reflect on it, we can act on it, and we can change it.
All of which is to say, "Here, here!" and, perhaps, "Amen."
Some of us fail in bigger ways, or at bigger things than others (and we are capable of truly spectacular failures in groups), but it does not help to make that human failure something so other that the rest of us don't have to worry about it, or think about it, or see how close we are to it. We can reflect on it, we can act on it, and we can change it.
This is lovely, and true, and the elegant summation of what I was trying to say.
I think you're right, and wise, in how you are now framing what it is you're focusing on in your work. I mentioned Arendt when we talked on this, and I think her point about the banality of evil is one of those obvious things that are simultaneously profound and yet not especially insightful. To contrast, your point about the lack of humanity as what "true" evil is seems to me to be dead-on.
At the end of the day, I call myself a pragmatist, and that's a large part of why I was upset with the callers-in, etc., because by othering those boys, they avoided doing anything constructive about what the boys had done. It didn't help provide justice, or comfort, or understanding for that girl, or anyone. It didn't help her agency, or ours. It wasn't useful, and for me, if it isn't in some way useful when there is such great need, it veers sinward.
Someone asked me recently why I focus on evil in my study of ethics. This was not a completely ridiculous question, since I did used to say that. I told him, though, that I had changed my mind - that I no longer focused on evil, because it wasn't really what I though was important. I told him that I focus now on eudaimonia, and that I explore this mainly through its myriad failures (a large part of our best reflections on how to achieve it). I told him that I spend a lot of time reading and thinking and needing to write things about what I see as the most common failure of human flourishing, which is our failure to exercise our full humanity. Isn't that, he said, what evil is? To be inhuman? Haven't I just come up with fancier terms for what I was already thinking about? And besides, he said - isn't true evil pretty rare? I told him that I thought he was absolutely right about "true evil" (whatever that might mean) being both rare and inhuman, and that that is why I no longer claim the term as my focus. Evil is rare. It is beyond what we can make sense of, and it is not something we feel like we can change. Failure on the other hand - and especially failure to do or express something that takes effort, discipline, and reflection - should make sense to us. It comes to us like breathing, and it is as integral a part of our humanity as the need for oxygen. It is not rare, and it is not beyond what we can make sense of, though it may often be beyond what we can justify. Some of us fail in bigger ways, or at bigger things than others (and we are capable of truly spectacular failures in groups), but it does not help to make that human failure something so other that the rest of us don't have to worry about it, or think about it, or see how close we are to it. We can reflect on it, we can act on it, and we can change it.
All of which is to say, "Here, here!" and, perhaps, "Amen."
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This is lovely, and true, and the elegant summation of what I was trying to say.
I think you're right, and wise, in how you are now framing what it is you're focusing on in your work. I mentioned Arendt when we talked on this, and I think her point about the banality of evil is one of those obvious things that are simultaneously profound and yet not especially insightful. To contrast, your point about the lack of humanity as what "true" evil is seems to me to be dead-on.
At the end of the day, I call myself a pragmatist, and that's a large part of why I was upset with the callers-in, etc., because by othering those boys, they avoided doing anything constructive about what the boys had done. It didn't help provide justice, or comfort, or understanding for that girl, or anyone. It didn't help her agency, or ours. It wasn't useful, and for me, if it isn't in some way useful when there is such great need, it veers sinward.
Reply
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