Jewish and non-Jewish Chauvinism
JEWISH and non-Jewish CHAUVINISM.
The question of Jewishness and Jewish identity only arises in the context of support for Palestine because some supporters of Palestine insist on being identified as Jews against Zionism or Jews against Israeli Occupation. This itself would not cause any particular problem except that they have become, in the words of one activist ’the gatekeepers’ of acceptable criticism of Israel and Zionism. It thus appears that most Jewish people (living in Israel or not) identify with Israel, on a similar basis to the old nationalist sentiment ‘my country right or wrong’. Although these Jewish Israeli supporters have thus introduced a nationalist content to their Jewish identity, there are some Jews who choose not to. However, rather than abandon the label Jewish and let the Zionist have it, they seek to contest the content of what constitutes authentic Jewishness. The groups which finds this task easiest are those adhering to the religious traditions of Rabbinical Judaism. Thus one Jewish author is able to say that it is firm belief in the covenant with God which is the core of Jewish identity. And;
“Without it there can be no Judaism and no Jews. When this concept disappears, when the Jew, through lack of this inner compulsion, no longer wishes to retain his identity as a Jew, then nothing will stand between him and assimilation.” (Max Dimont. ‘Jews, God and History’ Pub. Signet. Page 30.)
Thus, according to this view, without belief in the Covenant with God, there is no such thing as Jewishness. Indeed, such views could be replicated in considerable quantities from within the writings of religious anti-Zionist Jews. However, this compulsion to adhere to belief in God and the special Jewish covenant with God has certainly lessened if not disappeared for many people of Jewish ancestry. Nevertheless this lack for some Jews, has evidently not led to a wish to abandon Jewish identity. If at the same time we recognise that the specific economic and networking role of merchants and bankers, which also helped maintain Jewish communal identity for a thousand years, has also ceased to exist for many Jews, we have to ask what is left of Jewish separatist ethnicity after most of the religious and economic foundations have disappeared? I suggest there can only be a form of nationalist (reactionary or liberal/cultural) motive left. The reactionary nationalists are the Zionists and their supporters, but among the liberal/cultural Jewish nationalists are anti-Zionist Jews. It is these who seem to have most difficulty in defining what their form of Jewishness represents. A most useful illustration of what might be at work for some is provided by the late Isaac Deutscher in his article ‘The non-Jewish Jew’. The title of this article itself is at least partly oxymoronic for how can a Jew be non-Jewish. By definition a Jew is Jewish and only a non-Jew is non-Jewish - or Gentile in that fabricated dualistic framework. Yet the use of this title by the biographer of Trotsky and an anti-Capitalist writer of some stature, suggests a clue to what is going on. This initial indication is followed by other pointers, as one would expect from such an accomplished scholar. He argues that the expansion of capitalism and the disgust this exploitative system engenders has been (and was) turned away from its basis in the productive relationships of society, and re-directed against identifiable agents of this system. This disgust has thus been directed;
“….not at the core of capitalism…but its externals and its largely archaic trappings, which so often were indeed Jewish….Decaying capitalism has overstayed its mark and has morally dragged down mankind; and we the Jews have paid for it and may yet pay for it.” ( Deutscher. ‘The non-Jewish Jew’. In Zionism Reconsidered.’ Ed. M. Selzer. Pub Macmillan. Page 85.)
He is here commenting upon Judeophobia and the Holocaust, and correctly identifies the general decline in morality and ethical values which attend capitalist economic and social hegemony. Despite his knowledge of both Marx’s economic analysis of Jewishness and those of the Orthodox Jews, he still wishes to retain (ie the ‘we Jews‘ in the above quote) a Jewish identity. A further pointer is provided by his repeated use of phrases such as ‘Jewish temperament’; ‘peculiarly Jewish literary gifts’; ‘the Jewish intellect’ ‘Jews that go beyond Jewishness’. He names some of these figures which he suggests epitomise this ‘Jewish genius’. Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Freud. He recalls;
“It was, I think, an English Protestant biographer of Spinoza who said that only a Jew could have carried out that upheaval in the philosophy of his age that Spinoza carried out - a Jew who was not bound by the dogmas of the Christian Churches, Catholic and Protestant, nor by those of the faith in which he had been born.” (ibid page 75.)
We must leave aside any discussion of the abilities or ideological stance of this particular protestant biographer of Spinoza, since Deutscher apparently could not even remember who it was. A fact which is interesting in itself as to why one would use this un-testified source as an important reference. Yet the intention is clear. It is to impart and assert some special quality to Jewishness. The insertion of “only a Jew” - “not bound by dogmas” (?) gives the game away. What I suggest is operating here, and elsewhere, in the non-religious, non-economic sphere of Jewish identity is a form of conscious or semi-conscious cultural patriotism or biological chauvinism. Trapped within the paradigm of Jewish identity it appears - even to Deutscher - as if it is Jewishness which produces prodigious talents such as Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg and Freud and numerous others such as Einstein. Indeed this is how it also appears to many non-Jews who have also not sufficiently thought the matter through.
However, it is actually the case that any human community which manages to attain successive generations of literacy, sufficient economic well-being to permanently support the long-term freeing of some of its members from the drudgery of manual labour, produces over a period of time, people of outstanding intellectual ability. It matters little whether this community is called, or calls itself, Macedonian, Greek, Persian, Roman, German, French, Russian, Arabian, Islamic or Jewish; all of whom (and more) have produced outstanding literary, artistic and scientific figures. However, it is not their geographical location, nor their religious or biological affiliation which has produced these people. It is the ability of human beings in general to be able to specialise under conditions favourable to those activities in order to create outstanding works of artistic, literary. philosophic and scientific merit. It is those with the time, the opportunity, the tradition of literacy and immersed in a suitable intellectual milieu who at certain junctures are able to make these outstanding achievements. If more human beings have done so from within those born into a Jewish community (which is by no means certain) then this only suggests that such individuals within their communities have been fortunate enough to enjoy these privileged conditions and opportunities more than other communities.
Such Jewish cultural patriotism or biological chauvinism, is similar to other nationalist chauvinisms in that instead of celebrating the achievements of human beings in general and in particular when they are fostered and mature under favourable economic and social conditions, claims those achievements for its own narrow self-serving interests. Instead of campaigning to create human economic and social conditions in which more and more people can produce outstanding results (an anthropocentric or humanist goal) the focus is moved to protecting the ethnicity, or nationality of the tradition which it is imagined produces the outstanding results. If even Deutscher could be blind to this form of chauvinism and patriotism and wish to remain a non-Jewish Jew, (!) then this indicates its deep entrenchment. But it also reveals a degree of self-delusion in those who perpetuate these biological or cultural chauvinisms. It also begs the question as to whether many of those who wish to be identified as ‘Jews’ in the Palestine solidarity movement are doing so out of similar cultural chauvinistic or biological patriotic motives. Some may do so, but others may be trapped in an emotional and cultural chasm. For example, Avigail Abarbanel argued that;
“Keeping trauma alive and constructing a whole identity around it is at the heart of mainstream Judaism….Only our sentiments, our feelings for Israel and Jerusalem mattered, our suffering, pain and love of our children, as if no one else existed or had similar sentiments. When I first began my journey to differentiate from my family of origin I did not know that I would also have to differentiate from my culture…It became clear that the ways members of my family dealt with their history was culturally dependent.” (A Abarbanel. (New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy Volume 24 Number 1. March 2003.)
This led to what she described as the Jewish ‘survivor’ reaction of ‘destructive entitlement’, which in spite of the savage dispossession of Palestinians, allows Israeli Jews to imagine themselves as victims in this colonialist conflict. Deconstructing ones identity or engaging in what the above author describes as ‘differentiating’ is a difficult but necessary thing if one is to leave the restricting and competitive cul-de-sacs of identity politics and engage with the world as a human being. Sadly some people are unable to do so and this ties them to the Jewish Zionist enterprise. As Sarah Irving comments recently in her Review of Benny Morris’s book ’Making Israel’ ;
“As with some manifestations of the Israeli peace movement and its US and European sympathisers, most of the issues touched on in this book are concerned with cleaning up the inside of Jewish Israel’s own house, not with restoring justice to Palestinians, whether citizens of Israel, living under Occupation or in the Diaspora.” (Aqsa News. Issue 38 Sept 2008.)
If this desire to clean up the image takes precedence over the campaign for Palestinian rights it will impede and restrict the campaign. Indeed, in re-reading some of the Jewish peace movement material recently I am struck once again by the limited aims of some of the suggestions of how peace and justice can be obtained in Palestine. Aims which seem to be limited by the need and desire to justify the existence of and retain the actual state of Israel as an exclusively Jewish entity and thus protector and arbiter of an exclusive Jewish identity. For example;
“If preserving Israel as a Jewish state is a rock-bottom requirement for both the Israeli Jewish public and most of the international community, a sustainable peace must then include Palestinian self-determination in a minimally-viable state of their own, plus the ability to address the refugee issue. The Occupied Territories are so small and truncated that the Palestinians are left with very little room to manoeuvre. If, however, a regional confederation with Jordan (at a minimum) was a guaranteed part of the solution, then, as suggested earlier, the Palestinians could be more forthcoming in terms of territorial compromise“ (Jeff Halper. ‘Obstacles to Peace. page 68.)
Here we have an Israeli, Jewish peace activist suggesting a solution which allows Israel to keep hold of even more territory than it grabbed in 1948 and more than it is entitled to under the already biased United Nations resolutions. The 78% of historic Palestine already obtained by Israeli force (recognised by the UN since only the territories Occupied in 1967 are considered.) is to be supplemented by Palestinians ceding all (or most) of the ‘illegal settlements’ in the occupied territory of the West Bank. Palestinians may well ask ‘with friends like these we may not need any more enemies’. The problems caused by this to the viability of a future Palestinian state it is later suggested by this Jewish peace advocate can be met by a regional confederation with Jordan and elsewhere. The reason;
“The state itself, too small and localised to deal with the entire refugee population, too limited to develop a strong economy, could nevertheless provide the dispersed Palestinian population with a political identity, national participation in the international community, and a modicum of self-determination. Other responsibilities too large for the small state - refugees, economic development and the like - could be dealt with on a regional basis. This would lighten the burden on the limited Palestinian state, thereby permitting the Palestinians to make territorial compromise they simply cannot make if a viable solution depends solely upon a separate state.” (ibid)
In other words, other countries (such as Jordan and Syria) can pick up the responsibilities for the refugees and Israel who created them doesn’t have to deal with the problem. The Palestinian state after making these further ‘territorial compromises’, will enjoy a ‘modicum of self-determination‘. All these suggestions are gift wrapped and presented in an intellectual package labelled ‘peace and justice‘. But from a humanist position we have to ask; ‘What form of justice is this?
This ICAHD perspective recognises a) full self-determination for the ‘Jewish State’ on territory stolen from the Palestinians, and b) only a modicum of self-determination for Palestinians in what’s left of their former territory. The ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees is to be transformed into the ‘right to stay’ in Jordanian refugee camps or in the Diaspora. Does this not raise the suspicion that what is really being proposed by such peace movement acceptance of ‘facts on the ground’ is not peace and justice, but peace only via internationally accepted land and resource appropriation. Both of which, I imagine, will allow a welcome degree of demilitarisation of Israeli society and a much hoped for degree of Israeli (Jewish or Zionist) ethical redemption.
The ‘never again’ perspective.
The need for a Jewish State is often derived from a ‘never again’ response to the Holocaust, (ie Abarbanel‘s ‘destructive entitlement’) but this too is a chauvinist solution, for Jews were not the only sufferers of Nazi genocide. Gypsies, Socialists, handicapped and Slavs were massacred as well as Jews. A ‘never again’ position from a universalist, humanist perspective would argue for never again for everyone or anyone. Just a ’never again’ will Jews be led to the slaughter’ attitude is shorthand for something much deeper in the psychological make up of Jews who have not escaped the intense identity aculturalisation of children within Jewish family life. What prevents the ‘Never Again’ attitude from merely being a benign defensive posture or a universalist proposition and is translated into an offensive slaughter of Palestinians, is the concept of being ‘chosen‘, ‘special’ or ‘unique‘. What stops ‘never again’ from being any other form of understandable reaction is a particular modern form of ancient tribal identity. The real substance of ‘never again’ from this Judeo-centric mentality is; ‘Never again will the ’chosen’; the ‘special‘, the ’unique’ people (however defined) be discriminated against or oppressed, and never again will they relinquish their last word authority over all who come within their reach. This alone explains why Arabs, internationals, gentiles, and Christians, are all treated with contempt and aggression if they do not acquiesce or prostrate themselves to this tribal identity with its varying and variable attendant desires and actions. It does not matter whether this reach is within the state boundaries of Israel, or within the solidarity campaigns outside of it. Show any reluctance to defer to their Jewish sensibilities or criticise in any way their fragile ethnocentrism and their full venom (verbal or physical) is directed against the offender, whether the offender be goyim or those who they define as self-hating Jews. This venom also indicates the fragile nature of this assertion of Jewish specialness because although it is thoroughly emphasised in much of Jewish culture and religion, it constantly bumps into the reality of everyday life. Jews are not that special, either negatively as the Judeophobes fantasise, nor positively as the Judeophiles imagine.
The reality is that Jews, as human beings, are no more talented, clever, chosen, unique or special, than any other group of human beings. Any collective of humanity has a variety of talented, intelligent, unique individuals as well as those less well blessed. This conflict and dissonance between theory and reality must be difficult to resolve and in some individuals create frustrations and strong emotions seeking release. However, a surrogate form of uniqueness is created by the adherence to an illusory tribal identity. In that sense a reality is created by adherence to a myth of commonality depicted by the term Jew. In any real sense there is no substance to the term. It no longer represents a religion to some, it no longer bears any economic substance to others. There is very little of the cultural element left - only the abstract term remains with very little if any common content. Only the remaining reflexes of a childlike ego-centric mentality keeps it alive. And it is this mythical, ego-centric adherence which becomes a force for aggressive mischief when collectivised in the form of Zionism.
To really understand the stifling confines and distorted perspectives of any given chauvinism, one has to step outside that paradigm. It simply cannot be done from within it. This is why those Jews who oppose the extremes of Zionist aggression cannot break completely with the state of Israel, as long as they choose to remain within their tribal form of identity. The underlying and fundamental position that unites the ‘Peace Now’ anti-Zionists with the ’kill every Arab’ Zionists is that Jews should have a state of their own. Their differences are over why, how and where this should be achieved. The vast majority whether religious or not think this should be in Palestine (the Holy Land). The doves think this should be done by diplomacy and negotiation (pay the Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians to permanently accept Palestinian refugees and grant some bantustans), the hawks that it should be done by slow or quick ethnic cleansing (pay the army and arms manufacturers to drive or starve them out, and grant them nothing). The doves, like the hawks, think that the Palestinians have no right to resist because they (the Palestinians) are resisting a unique, special or ‘chosen’ people - whether this special quality is because of God, the ‘Holocaust‘ or some other ‘special’ reason. Hence the almost total silence over the 2008-2009 Blitzkrieg of Gaza from the ‘Peace Now’ camp. The majority of the Peace Now camp are at one with the ultraZionists in blaming Hamas (via rockets and right of return) for the continued problems, just as they were previously at one in blaming Arafat and the PLO terrorists (!) for the previous hostilities. The term ‘occupation’ is rarely heard, and where it is heard is emptied of its real colonialist ethnic cleansing content. The only criticism of the Gaza Blitz from the Peace Now camp was over some of the more obscene excesses, but not over the right of Israel to enter Gaza, nor over the right of Israel to exist on the basis of colonial oppression and stolen land or resources.
Since the term Jew has nor real common content outside of the religious, save an illusory form of uniqueness, the content of the term is actually being filled by Zionism. The much publicised existence of Israel as a ‘Jewish State’ along with its atrocities are topping up with Zionist aggression the space left by the absence of religion and culture in the term Jew. Jewish Diaspora neutrality and support for Israel via this mythical, illusory commonality does nothing to stop or erode this re-definition of Jewishness, so that Israel is now destined to become a pariah nation, and Jewishness, instead of passing peacefully away, as with other forms of manufactured religio-nationalist identity, is sadly well on the path to becoming a pariah identity.
R. Ratcliffe (December 2008.)
Evil is as Evil Does 1
Evil is as Evil Does.
I have been recently accused of ‘evil’ on the basis of a writing an article (‘The case against Gilad Atzmon’) with which the accuser disagrees. The term evil is not one I would normally use, for it is so general and so generally misused, that it is of limited use in seriously describing or understanding anything. The user of the term, either consciously or unconsciously, colluded with this level of obscure generality since he or she did not supply any definition, nor comment on any specifics. However, despite this polemical deficiency let us welcome the introduction of this term into the debate and see how clear and relevant we can make it. A degree of clarity, may also provide the opportunity to indicate where, how and to whom the term could be rationally applied.
2008
First a definition. I shall consider evil as being applicable to three aspects of human behaviour; evil ideas, evil intent and evil actions. I shall further define evil actions along the same lines as the author John Kekes as the idea about, the proposal to, orthe action of, causing serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm to individuals.[1] I intend to only consider this from the point of view of the interaction of the human species, but I suggest that this definition can be extended to apply to similar human actions against other sentient life forms.
It is often considered that evil is a result of irrationality, ignorance or natural tendencies. However, I agree with Kekes, that serious, excessive and malevolent physical harm is frequently perpetrated by people who are also rational, knowledgeable and socially conditioned not to do harm to others. Although persuasion is often used, people are rarely compelled to do ‘excessive, malevolent physical harm’ to other human beings. It is mostly a choice - and a rational one at that! It is worth considering the results of the 1960, Milgram experiment in America in this context.
“The results as seen and felt in the laboratory are disturbing. They raise the possibility that human nature, or more specifically the kind of character produced in American democratic society, cannot be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane treatment at the direction of a malevolent authority. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority. If, in this experiment, an anonymous experimenter can successfully command adults to subdue a fifty-year-old man and force on him painful electric shocks against his protests, one can only wonder what government with its vastly greater authority and prestige, can command of its subjects.” (S. Milgram. Quoted in ‘Encyclopedia of Genocide’. Ed. Israel W. Charney. Pub. ABC-CLIO. Volume 1, page 333.)
Well we certainly don’t have to wonder too much with all the examples which abound. Although the ‘electric shocks’ in this ‘experiment’ were not real but simulated, the people administering them in this experiment did not know this and assumed them to be real. In the terms we are now considering, they were prepared to cause excessive, malevolent physical harm’ to the victim even though in fact the experimenters ensured that they did not. The importance of this finding is that such social patterns as following inhumane orders (or suggestions) are not exclusive to any one section of the human species. Under modern conditions of hierarchical societies, with low (or contradictory) ethical standards, ordinary people, for little or no gain and with no fear or compulsion to prompt them are easily persuaded to do actions which can be defined as evil. That is to say for very many people, their moral and ethical education and its assimilation is so ambiguous, feeble or atrophied that very little is needed overcome any qualms about perpetrating evil as defined above. Their decision to do such acts are clearly influenced by their ideas, passions and the circumstances they find themselves in.
Kekes, for example, examines a number of case studies, from the Catholic massacre of the Cathars, through the Jacobin Terror, the Nazi Holocaust, the Manson Family atrocities, the Argentinian Military Junta torturers to the psychopathic activities in the USA, of one, John Allen. In considering the commonplace suggestion of irrationality or ignorance with regard to inhumane actions, Kekes argues, that these attempts to explain such evil do not however;
“….change the fact that the evildoers had reasons for their actions that they also had reasons against them. For they weighed their reasons and found that the evil-producing ones outweighed the others. All of them deliberated; they were all at least normally intelligent; they violated no rule of logic; they were not ignorant of the relevant facts; they considered alternatives and criticisms; and they all reached their decisions reflectively over a period of time. Of course, they ought not to have made the decisions they made, but as before, this is a moral claim about the use they made of their reasons, not a claim about their lack of reasons.” (J. Kekes ‘The roots of Evil’. Pub. Cornell Uni. Page 160.)
Most human beings, not impeded by mental disability, have the capacity to think, propose and execute good or evil acts. Those who formulate evil ideas, propose their enactment or actually implement evil acts, as here defined, are frequently quite ordinary people. They are people, whose attachment, passionate or otherwise, to a certain idea or concern motivates them sufficiently to wish to do to others what they would invariably not wish upon themselves or their loved ones. They know the difference between right and wrong and therefore rationally calculate that it is in at least their own interests (and perhaps those of ‘their’ community) to promote or perpetrate acts of malevolent physical harm against others. These ‘interests’ may be of a perceived positive benefit (job promotion, gaining land or other forms of wealth) or the removal of a perceived negative outcome (the elimination of any serious opposition to their desires). It is also possible that in developing passionate responses to perceived benefits or threats of various types, such individuals fail to check whether their perceptions are real, emotionally distorted or purely imaginary. This passion and selective perception often drives them to go beyond what might actually be necessary to obtain the benefits or allay or remove any real or illusory fears. This latter factor is important to recognise for it is the excesses undertaken that expose not only the distortion of their own and others humanity but the real emotional level of the process taking place in the promotion of such ‘evils‘.
For the purposes of the present concern I wish to concentrate upon the evil done out of the fear of perceived negative threats, for this in part I suggest, is what motivated and drove the leaders and followers of such ideologies as Nazism, Bolshevism and Zionism. The Nazis promoted a fictional fear of Jewish racial and cultural contamination via a World Conspiracy from which, under the right conditions (ie total war), flowed the Holocaust.[2] The Bolsheviks promoted a fictional fear of Mensheviks, Kulaks and later Trotskyists‘, from which flowed Gulags, the ’harvests of sorrow’ show trials and assassinations. Even before the ‘Holocaust’, the pioneers of politicised Zionism promoted a fear of Judeophobia, which, although more justified, nevertheless not only resulted in the establishment of a Jewish state, but resulted in the Nakba (the murder and ethnic cleansing ‘Catastrophe‘) for the Palestinians in 1948. Yet it was not actually necessary for the Nazis to systematically murder millions of Jews, Slavs, handicapped, Gypsy’s or communists in order to conduct a war for ‘Lebenstraum’ against the Allies. Indeed it has been convincingly argued that this genocide detrimentally effected the Nazi war effort by overstretching the available resources. It was not necessary for Bolsheviks to imprison Mensheviks, Anarchists, murder Kulaks or assassinate Politburo members and military generals to effectively negate their influence. This too severely weakened the resistance of Soviet forces to repell the invasion by Hitler’s troops. It was also not necessary for Zionists to brutally colonise and ethnically cleanse Palestine in order to protect Jews from any future Judeophobia. In this case also, it has been argued by some Jews, that the Nakba and slow genocide of the Palestinians has in fact increased the Judeophobic opinions, particularly in the Middle East. In each of these cases the excesses have detrimentally effected the desired outcome. In each case the ‘fear’ (real or imagined) could have been removed or neutralised by means which were less inhumane, than those chosen. These examples indicate, and others could be cited, that on the one hand, a strong emotionally induced condition allied to an ‘ideology’ can also rationally motivate some people to go on to cause serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm. Whilst, on the other hand, a condition of emotional detachment by others can allow this harm to continue for long periods, without sufficient levels of condemnation or intervention.
However, it is not just an individual or collective mental state which allows the projection of evil ideas or more specifically their activation. It is also usually the case, as Kekes notes in his study, that any external (legal or social) factors causing emotional or physical barriers to such acts have also to become diminished for the perpetrators of evil ideas, proposals or actions to indulge their passionate ferocity. This reduction in external moral or legal pressures can occur through successful propaganda, the removal of legal constraints, the lack of enforcement of such constraints, or the collusion of large numbers in aiding the avoidance of detection. However, as the last noted point indicates, in the ideological justification and perpetration of large-scale evil (ie causing serious, excessive, malevolent, physical harm to individuals) it is also necessary for large numbers of people to condone, or fail to stand up against the promotion of such ideas or actively oppose the conduct of those perpetrating this type, duration and intensity of malevolent harm.
In this context Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘banality of evil’ is still applicable in the post-Second-World-War period. Banality in this sense refers to the individuals perpetrating evil not the evil actions themselves. That is to say that ordinary, normally decent people, can be stirred into action by religious or other ideological motives, or caught up in circumstances of social upheaval and state-led or other forms of organised brutality, and become voluntarily or under duress, located in a not too-uncomfortable position within a system of organised atrocity. This is the banality of modern organised forms of evil. Due to the extensive division of labour in modern society it is not the rare, disturbed, psychopathic or fervently passionate sectarian mentality which is exclusively required for large-scale genocide to occur. It is only required that ordinary citizens ‘fit in’ somewhere after the moral and physical opposition to such a development has been defeated and the process of ethnic or political genocidal-elimination begins. Processing records, manufacturing equipment, repairing vehicles, transporting cargo, maintaining the roads, baking bread, making clothes, etc., etc., all of which smooth the path of genocide and provision the direct perpetrators. Without this support the perpetrators could not sustain their grisly task.
The psychopaths and rabidly sectarian individuals, of course, are still needed to lead the armed contingents or wield the instruments of torture, but the ideology and the system allows for the placement of ordinary citizens within its structure. It also provides them not only with a conscience-repressing justification, but often a benefit for what is being done. This explains how Stalinism, Nazism, and the Argentinian Junta were able to function within and amid millions of citizens who directly or indirectly supported (or even remained aloof from) what was occurring in their name but who would not have initiated or maintained such activities by themselves. Incidentally, those who condone or fail to oppose evil ideas and actions are also ordinary people who know the difference between good and evil; right and wrong, but who rationally calculate that it is in their own and/or their groups short-term, medium-term or even long-term interests to support, condone, excuse the intention and actualisation of evil or to refuse to condemn or intervene when it occurs. In this regard, after a period of time, the situation in such societies can have the appearance of normality. On the surface people in such traumatised societies can become inured to the situation and repress their doubts, but underneath the façade, because they are human, they know what is happening is not right, it is not really normal human behaviour and it is not sustainable in the long term. At this point I will leave the reader to ponder on how much or how little of this description applies in the case of Israel.
This explanation and understanding of both the passion and rational motive for evil does not mean evil actions are excusable. Speaking of the evil characters he has analysed, Kekes acknowledges their passionate beliefs play a significant role;
“But passions did not prevent them foreseeing that their actions would cause serious harm. They all foresaw that, and many of them performed their actions precisely because they foresaw the serious harm they would cause. They believed - wrongly of course - that their actions were justifiable or excusable. ….Putting all this together, my account is that normally evildoers should be held morally responsible and liable to severe condemnation if they cause serious, excessive, malevolent harm and their actions have that as a readily foreseeable consequence.“ (J. Kekes ‘The roots of Evil’. Pub. Cornell Uni. Page 205.)
I would extend this moral condemnation to those who produce evil ideas and promote them with foresight as well as those who carry them out. However, it needs to be recognised that ideas do not directly cause serious, excessive and malevolent physical harm and so the level of condemnation required is not necessarily as high as those who perpetrate such actions. So if people say they are (or have been) merely following evil ideas or instructions I suggest that they in reality know their humanity should have rejected those ideas and actions. They also know that in a humane society condemnation for the perpetrators of the actual evil actions would also be followed by some humanely contrived punishment.
So to sum up so far. We have evil being expressed in the idea of, the promotion of, or the activity of causing serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm to other human beings. We can also conclude that evil actions, particularly those conducted on a large-scale are frequently undertaken in a reasoned manner with the perpetrators not only aware of the consequences of their actions but that often they have those consequences clearly in mind in undertaking those actions. This is because many of them, such as beatings, torture and assassination are deliberately designed to instill fear, passivity or co-operation. Passion or ideology may cause such perpetrators to lose sight of the real facts about their victims or encourage them to distort the facts (in order to rationalise their actions) but this self-censorship or self-deception does not excuse these acts .
Now anyone who has read my article with anything approaching a calm rational mentality will be unable to find anything which approaches evil intent, evil suggestions or evil thought. This assessment would be so for even-handed people even if they disagree with its analysis. So we can conclude that this accusation says more about the confusion or the motivation of the accuser than the ideas (and the absence of any harmful action) of the accused. However, we can reasonably conclude even more than this. From the above observations, we now have sufficient material to assess the merits or otherwise of anyone else accused of evil. Additionally, as indicated earlier, we also have the means to examine the case against Israel and the Zionists who support it, in order to explore whether their actions conform to the suggestion of evil prompted by my detractor.
According to Amnesty International and the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights (B’TSELEM) among many other sources, Israeli soldiers carry out beatings, torture, killing, house demolitions and collective punishments. All of these cause serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm to Palestinians, and occasionally to International Peace Activists. These activities, therefore, would come under the above definition of evil. Also according to pro-Israeli academics, the formation of the state of Israel was accompanied in 1948, by clearances of Palestinian villages along with murder, rape and torture (the Nakba) of Palestinian villagers. Thus according to the definition of evil above, measured alongside the testimony of those with direct knowledge and with access to archival evidence of the atrocities, the state of Israel was founded on - evil![3] Of course, this conclusion has already been reached by a number of Orthodox Jews, who arrived at it by a different (religious) route. In our case a rational consideration based upon humanist principles also arrives at the same conclusion, that is if we choose to use the term ‘evil’ and define it in the above way. So the actions of Israeli soldiers, interrogators and any others who cause serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm, according to the above definition can be described as perpetrators of evil actions and they can with justification be morally condemned and they rightly should be. However, the analysis of Hannah Arendt regarding the ‘banality of evil‘, along with the evidential testimony of the Nuremberg Trials, also allows us to comment upon those, who whilst not directly perpetrating the evil acts themselves, intellectually, organisationally, financially and morally support the perpetrators. As Hannah Arendt noted;
“The philistine’s retirement into private life, his single-minded devotion to matters of family and career was the last, and already degenerated, product of the bourgeoisie’s belief in the primacy of private interest. The philistine is the bourgeois isolated from his own class, the atomised individual who is produced by the breakdown of the bourgeois class itself. The mass man whom Himmler organised for the greatest mass crimes ever committed in history bore the features of the philistine rather than the mob man, and was the bourgeois who in the midst of the ruins of his world worried about nothing so much as his private security, was ready to sacrifice everything - belief, honour, dignity - on the slightest provocation.” (Hannah Arendt. ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’. Pub Harvest. Page 338.)
Those who Arendt classifies as ‘philistines’ and the ‘mob’, do not make up the entire population within societies which routinely commit atrocities with impunity, they are merely the more active and willing agents. Within a colonialist or imperialist society at war, on it’s own or another’s territory, other citizens (Arendt’s ‘mass man‘) can also be recruited voluntarily or otherwise. As noted above, once involved in state orchestrated atrocities, whether eagerly or reluctantly, the average person in whatever capacity, becomes an active or passive accomplice and a recipient of the benefits of the regime. In this way, even those sensitively aware of the systemic cruelty, and are perhaps privately ashamed, can be highly motivated to publicly excuse or defend the regime, whilst it is in power, as a way of avoiding a double condemnation - by the regime and those critics outside it. When the system at last collapses and the actions of its leaders and supporters are called into question, then the average person who was involved often reverses this defensive tactic and accuses the regime of inducing or forcing his or her evil thoughts, proposals or actions against their will. In this way the process of causing excessive, malevolent physical harm’ is projected away from the guilty and becomes the asserted fault of the ‘leader’ or the ‘ideology’ and not the responsibility of the perpetrators or their supporters. This was the outcome revealed by a majority of the defendants during the Nuremburg Trials, and professed in the memoirs of many ex-communist activists and sympathisers. ‘I was only following orders’ or ‘I did for the greater good of;- the fatherland - the motherland’ or even ‘to retrieve the promised land’.
So finally! In seriously considering the suggestion of evil intent, a notion introduced by my critic, it is only possible to conclude that those who rationally (or even partially) support Israel and its activities are, either committing, advocating, condoning or otherwise defending evil. That is to say the causing of serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm, against the Palestinians. This is why Zionists and their supporters (inside and outside) of Israel are condemned by humane people from whatever walk of life. Particularly by people who seriously think things through, who don’t smother or anaesthetise their consciences and who refuse to simply follow the suggestions of various so-called ‘legitimate’ authorities. It is to be hoped that such characteristics as serious thinking, universal moral and ethical standards and well tuned ‘crap detectors’ become more widespread in the years ahead, in order to increase the number of people prepared to stand up and condemn all kinds of evil. Particularly the serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm inflicted by people of ones own country, religion or ethnic group.
R. Ratcliffe. September 2008
[1] Indeed, Kekes’ book ‘The Roots of Evil’ comes closest to understanding the observations of Hannah Arendt concerning the ‘banality of evil’. (John Kekes ‘‘The Roots of Evil’ published by Cornell Paperbacks. 2005.)
[2] It is interesting to note that in the modern form of ‘total war’ in which all citizens are compulsory recruited, many things become possible that otherwise would not be permissible or acceptable. The emergency measures taken by the ‘legitimate authorities’ along with the deliberate propagation of a mentality of existential fear, require the normal infringements of civil liberties and factual veracity to be extended greatly. In this climate atrocities increase and are either covered up or justified as necessary for the successful outcome of the hostilities.
[3] This is not to imply that evil ( ie causing serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm), has not been perpetrated by Palestinian resistance fighters in their efforts to withstand the colonialist oppression by Israelis. However, it is normally the case that the instigators of the process of inflicting evil should receive the firmest condemnation. It is a regrettable fact that in the period of colonial and imperial expansions, the right of self-defence can also be taken to levels in excess of what is required to conduct that self-defence. This does not, however, equate the routine, state orchestrated causing of serious, excessive, malevolent physical harm inflicted by Israelis, with that of the Palestinian resistance.
Material basis for Love and Religion. 3
Religious belief encroaches not only on history and politics, but also upon the psychology and emotional needs of human beings. Its origin, longevity, general demise and its current fundamentalist resurgence cannot be understood without exploring how these factors are interconnected. To undertake this exploration we need to consider the particular human needs surrounding our primary biological and social circumstances.
Old Testament Magic and the Volcanic origins of Yahweh. 4
Early religions were a strong mixture of magic and animism and still retain vestiges of that magical and animistic heritage. Yet despite the dominance of science and religion in modern human affairs many religious-minded people still hold a parallel belief in magic. This is because their religious beliefs rely predominantly upon imagination and cannot be verified within the real material world. Any belief system which authenticates a reliance purely on imagination together with trust in inherited narratives, rather than experimentation and verification, can soon become all-embracing.
Religious Ideology - 1: Judaism 8
There are those who consider the books of the Torah/Old Testament to contain the actual word of God and there are those who consider it was inspired by God but written by various human authors. Both tendencies contain those who try to read the bible as history, but the latter also contain those who maintain it should be read purely as religion and that it bears little relationship to the actual history of the middle east or to that of the original Hebrews. In this view Bible history was not what actually happened but what various authors thought may have happened and also what they hoped would come to pass. Since I am interested in considering how these particular scriptures reflect the religious paradigm and what they reveal of the nature of this Deity together with the people who subscribe to this belief system, I will in the main ignore the accuracy or otherwise of the history contained within them.
Religious Ideology - 2: Christianity.
This article traces the split within Judaism resulting in the birth of Christianity and considers the ideology contained within the Christian Gospels.
Religious Ideology - 3: Islam.
Third in the series, this article examines the ideas and values found within the Qur’an.
Religious Ideology - 4: Hinduism.
This fourth article explores the ideas and narratives within a selection of Hindu scriptures.
Totalitarian Ideologies - Religious and Political.
When political forms of organisation and authority superseded tribal forms of organisation, they did not initially leave behind the tribal forms of religion. A result of this was the pantheon of god’s attached to the political communities formed in Ancient Greece and Rome. Even after the demise of paganism and the triumph of monotheism in the east and west, religion and politics were not separate. Over the intervening years, the cultures which became dominant carried within them the language, concepts and values associated with religious modes of thinking. The rise of the nation state, whilst to some degree separating religion from politics, nevertheless could not eliminate this religious/cultural heritage. As a result all political ideologies, to the present day have contained a religious element and this includes the ones professing an Atheist value system. This article will provide evidence of religiously inspired ideas and values within so-called fully secular movements.
The issue of rational and irrational forms of belief. 2
There is frequently confusion over the difference between scientific and religious modes of thinking. The case is often dualistically presented as science only dealing with fact and religion only with fancy. The reality is more complex than this. Religious modes of thinking do deal with what can be considered historical and contemporary facts and scientific modes of thought rest to some degree on an element of prior belief. The difference between the two modes of thinking lies in the extent to which reliable (independently confirmed) evidence is sought to support any position and in the way the gaps in knowledge are dealt with. Any gaps in scientific knowledge are dealt with by a philosophical acceptance that some things at the present level of understanding are as yet beyond our reach. In the case of religion gaps are usually considered to be fatalistically or intentionally there until the ‘higher being’ chooses to reveal what they contain. There is another difference between the two modes of thinking and this arises from the fact that all thinking is subjective. That is to say the individual subject contemplates and arrives at various conclusions. The scientific mode however, seeks to test the objectivity of this subjective thought process by experiment and/or sceptical peer review and evaluation. The fully religious thinker, however, arrives at various conclusions after contemplating their ‘revered’ scripture or by claiming some form of revelation. There is no experimental testing and the peer review aspect is only provided by like-minded (usually of the same creed) religious thinkers. However, it also needs to be stated, that fully religious people are not the only ones who arrive at conclusions after contemplating written work and who assert their certainty without testing or any external peer review. Many sectarian dogmatists in the tradition of Lenin and Stalin operate in a mirror image of the religious mode of belief. That is to say after contemplating their ‘revered’ texts or considering their view of reality, they arrive at conclusions and assert them dogmatically without any experimental or evaluative test.
What follows these introductory remarks is an article which considers the difference between rational scientific-based belief and irrational religious-based belief.