When we look around us, in our modern political and economic environment, we see many things we could describe as "evil" (at least, I could). These things include, but are not limited to, Blackwater’s behavior in Iraq, torture, the casual denial of payment for health care services, the continuing denial and reinforcement of white privilege and segregation, and the attempts by theofascists to have the State take control of people’s bodies.
But I would like to know, how much of this is a result of malice aforethought? How much is just sloppy thinking, how much is the power of the situation overriding the conscience of the actors?
In this USA of ours, we as a national polity respond positively to appeals to fear. We as a nation where white people have most of the power respond positively to appeals to race hatred. And so often we are apathetic and complacent. I don’t speak to you, my readers, as individuals; these are generalizations that apply to the whole populations in question. But when individuals do behave this way, why is it? Is it something intrinsic in them, or are they simply being a little bit careless, a little bit low on mental energy at that moment?
When Malkin et al. chase down the Frost family to spy on them, defame them and tell lies about them, is this because Malkin et al. are bad people? Or is it because they’ve simply never bothered to question their assumptions? Or what is it?
When CIA employees in undisclosed locations are waterboarding some poor sucker for having the wrong name and the wrong accent, is it because they’re bad people? Or is it because they’re expected to get information out of people one way or another, with instructions that could be taken to imply that torture isn’t off the table, and they just don’t think twice about it?
When a Blackwater soldier in a Little Bird fires his rifle at a car below him, is it because something in him predisposes him to the irrational, stupid and unethical use of force?
Are these people really any different from us? That is what I want to know. And I know there are psychological tests that purport to show that they really are different; I am not so sure, though. Maybe it’s just that I get easily disturbed by the chance that we’re pathologizing differences in opinion, I don’t know. (We do have a tendency to over-pathologize, in the USA, you know? When a little kid in a classroom persistently acts like a little kid, not sitting still and letting his attention drift, we diagnose him with ADD and give him stimulants. And people who are a little weird and a little dysfunctional are schizophrenic, and we give them tranquilizers.) I don’t trust the F-scale, for example, any farther than I can throw it. Since it’s a theoretical construct, not an object, how far can I throw it?
But the frightening possibility is that perhaps they are no different from you, readers, or myself. It is that the flaw in them is fundamental to their humanity, and to ours.
Philip Zimbardo, the gentleman who organized the prison simulation at Stanford in the 1970s, is one of the researchers who has looked into these kinds of questions. Stanley Milgram is another one, although I believe Dr Milgram is dead while Dr Zimbardo is still publishing books. (The one that goes into the greatest depth of detail about the Stanford experiment is apparently his latest, called The Lucifer Effect.)
But the final question is a practical one. What policy implications does that have, this possibility (or likelihood) that the flaw is a basic human one? What, then, should we do? My only answer is that we have to demand that governance be transparent and visible; that the government be accountable to us; and that we ourselves must be eternally vigilant. It's tiring, but I think it's our only hope if we want to avoid repeating history over and over again.