While reading this (fine) essay, I stumbled a bit at the comparison of Hiroshima or Dresden due to the dehumanization of the victims to the Nazis as monsters. The Gaza situation has millions of people potentially under attack by the Israeli military, as they seek out Hamas soldiers and leaders, with the hope that if *they* are gone, things will... improve. This is a reaction to a horrible attack, it just looks disproportionate... now. But no other response seems (to me) to have a chance of a stable outcome. In World War 2, Japan attacked first, a long bloody war followed, and disproportionate force was used to finish it. Successfully. In Germany, I know of no claims that the Jews in the ghettos struck first, or were a threat, hiding among innocent civilians. The Nazis simply and efficiently rounded them up for mass slaughter.
This was messy, and I mixed up three bad historical situations (one ongoing) so please let me summarize my views:
- Hamas struck first, and Israel has a moral right to use military force even if there is collateral damage. There may be better approaches that could achieve a good outcome, but I have heard none of them.
- Japan struck first, and the horrible civilian toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended that part of the conflict. There may have been better approaches; I have heard suggestions but we'll never know.
- Dehumanization/Monsterization is all around us; the Nazis dehumanized their Jewish population in order to send them to the camps. Did we dehumanize the Nazis in order to... hang the leaders? Did we dehumanize the Japanese in order to justify the bombings? One is an obvious act within a theatre of war, and the other is an atrocity.
Thank you for heartfelt wisdom and plain eloquence in the face of horror.
I am moved to share a few thoughts.
The label, "monsters," is inapt because it excuses the crimes as acts of nature, so to speak. It undercuts judgment. A person can choose not to be a monster. I would say that Hitler's willing executioners were *wicked*.
Nonetheless, understanding has its place, which I will try and sketch.
A pair of concepts from psychology may complicate a simple distinction between judgment and understanding.
On the one hand, there are *selection effects*. A certain type of person becomes commander at Auschwitz: Someone who blindly wants status and passes tests while climbing that ladder. The dictum, "Anticipation is the essence of service," captures the Eichmann type.
On the other hand, there are *treatment effects*. A person might become wicked under social or institutional pressure. If I understand correctly, this is a theme in Christopher Browning's book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. (I hope that I haven't cheapened the issues by using academic jargon.)
Jean de La Bruyère, a French moralist, put his finger on a perverse psychological mechanism, which confounds the distinction between selection and treatment effects:
“[…] we hate violently those whom we have much offended.” (nous haïssons violemment ceux que nous avons beaucoup offensés. Les Caractères [1688] IV 68)
My intuition is that some subset of perpetrators of the Holocaust enacted this perverse psychological mechanism in a vicious spiral.
I have in mind a tragic process of self-deception: Some perpetrators of the Holocaust, in order to justify themselves (to themselves and to others), invent fault in Jews whom they had long, much offended. The false beliefs made them angry at Jews. Angry, they abused Jews ever more. Pride -- reluctance to admit their own fault -- made the wicked persist in self-deception and wrongdoing. Finally, their perverse anger transmuted into absolute hatred, which motivated them to eliminate the object of their self-deception.
But, at every step on the ladder, and at each link in the concatenation of psychological mechanisms, some persons recoiled and chose to say: No, I won't be so wicked. That, too, is part of understanding.
I believe culture mostly pushes us to do good if for no other reason than if most of us don't do good, our society leans toward eventually failing. Does that create a genetic selection toward goodness? IDK but that seems much less certain. This uncertainty is bolstered by observing human behavior. Few if any, including Höss, are bad all the time. I'm similarly doubtful anyone is good all the time. It seems very situation dependent.
Yesterday I relistened to the Econtalk with Gur. He notes that before during and after the Holocaust, some communities gave up their Jews and others protected them. I doubt these differences speak to the inherent good or evil of the average person in the respective communities as much as it does to situational differences that may have been completely beyond the control of most or all of the people who acted.
Note: I write this while not agreeing that the situational dependence of our behavior excuses bad behavior except maybe in rare circumstances where a person isn't capable of understanding their actions and maybe also unpremeditated emotional responses to attacks by others.
This piece reminded me to watch Zone of Interest. I remember thinking after I watched it, that even if we participate in terrible deeds, that the sum total of us, even the worst of us, is as you often say, complicated.
And I reflect that I have trouble forgiving minor offences. I am understanding and I put myself in others shoes when I can, but I can't know their head or their heart. But even so I believe in striving towards justice. I expect others to hold me accountable when I fail, because I want to be the best person I can be.
I can imagine harnessing "Monstrosity" for excellence. Many athletes seem to me to do so. Rivalries and anger have been the source of some of the best games known to man. When a person is wronged there should be a compulsion to act as reflects ourselves at our best. If not we become the monsters.
While reading this (fine) essay, I stumbled a bit at the comparison of Hiroshima or Dresden due to the dehumanization of the victims to the Nazis as monsters. The Gaza situation has millions of people potentially under attack by the Israeli military, as they seek out Hamas soldiers and leaders, with the hope that if *they* are gone, things will... improve. This is a reaction to a horrible attack, it just looks disproportionate... now. But no other response seems (to me) to have a chance of a stable outcome. In World War 2, Japan attacked first, a long bloody war followed, and disproportionate force was used to finish it. Successfully. In Germany, I know of no claims that the Jews in the ghettos struck first, or were a threat, hiding among innocent civilians. The Nazis simply and efficiently rounded them up for mass slaughter.
This was messy, and I mixed up three bad historical situations (one ongoing) so please let me summarize my views:
- Hamas struck first, and Israel has a moral right to use military force even if there is collateral damage. There may be better approaches that could achieve a good outcome, but I have heard none of them.
- Japan struck first, and the horrible civilian toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended that part of the conflict. There may have been better approaches; I have heard suggestions but we'll never know.
- Dehumanization/Monsterization is all around us; the Nazis dehumanized their Jewish population in order to send them to the camps. Did we dehumanize the Nazis in order to... hang the leaders? Did we dehumanize the Japanese in order to justify the bombings? One is an obvious act within a theatre of war, and the other is an atrocity.
Thank you for heartfelt wisdom and plain eloquence in the face of horror.
I am moved to share a few thoughts.
The label, "monsters," is inapt because it excuses the crimes as acts of nature, so to speak. It undercuts judgment. A person can choose not to be a monster. I would say that Hitler's willing executioners were *wicked*.
Nonetheless, understanding has its place, which I will try and sketch.
A pair of concepts from psychology may complicate a simple distinction between judgment and understanding.
On the one hand, there are *selection effects*. A certain type of person becomes commander at Auschwitz: Someone who blindly wants status and passes tests while climbing that ladder. The dictum, "Anticipation is the essence of service," captures the Eichmann type.
On the other hand, there are *treatment effects*. A person might become wicked under social or institutional pressure. If I understand correctly, this is a theme in Christopher Browning's book, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. (I hope that I haven't cheapened the issues by using academic jargon.)
Jean de La Bruyère, a French moralist, put his finger on a perverse psychological mechanism, which confounds the distinction between selection and treatment effects:
“[…] we hate violently those whom we have much offended.” (nous haïssons violemment ceux que nous avons beaucoup offensés. Les Caractères [1688] IV 68)
My intuition is that some subset of perpetrators of the Holocaust enacted this perverse psychological mechanism in a vicious spiral.
I have in mind a tragic process of self-deception: Some perpetrators of the Holocaust, in order to justify themselves (to themselves and to others), invent fault in Jews whom they had long, much offended. The false beliefs made them angry at Jews. Angry, they abused Jews ever more. Pride -- reluctance to admit their own fault -- made the wicked persist in self-deception and wrongdoing. Finally, their perverse anger transmuted into absolute hatred, which motivated them to eliminate the object of their self-deception.
But, at every step on the ladder, and at each link in the concatenation of psychological mechanisms, some persons recoiled and chose to say: No, I won't be so wicked. That, too, is part of understanding.
I believe culture mostly pushes us to do good if for no other reason than if most of us don't do good, our society leans toward eventually failing. Does that create a genetic selection toward goodness? IDK but that seems much less certain. This uncertainty is bolstered by observing human behavior. Few if any, including Höss, are bad all the time. I'm similarly doubtful anyone is good all the time. It seems very situation dependent.
Yesterday I relistened to the Econtalk with Gur. He notes that before during and after the Holocaust, some communities gave up their Jews and others protected them. I doubt these differences speak to the inherent good or evil of the average person in the respective communities as much as it does to situational differences that may have been completely beyond the control of most or all of the people who acted.
Note: I write this while not agreeing that the situational dependence of our behavior excuses bad behavior except maybe in rare circumstances where a person isn't capable of understanding their actions and maybe also unpremeditated emotional responses to attacks by others.
This piece reminded me to watch Zone of Interest. I remember thinking after I watched it, that even if we participate in terrible deeds, that the sum total of us, even the worst of us, is as you often say, complicated.
And I reflect that I have trouble forgiving minor offences. I am understanding and I put myself in others shoes when I can, but I can't know their head or their heart. But even so I believe in striving towards justice. I expect others to hold me accountable when I fail, because I want to be the best person I can be.
I can imagine harnessing "Monstrosity" for excellence. Many athletes seem to me to do so. Rivalries and anger have been the source of some of the best games known to man. When a person is wronged there should be a compulsion to act as reflects ourselves at our best. If not we become the monsters.