Someone from one of the news sources the president fears contacted me yesterday, wondering if we might have a phone interview about what it means when public figures use the language of "evil." (He'd stumbled on my Problem of Evil anthology!) So today we had a great conversation. Not sure I was soundbitable enough to end up in anything he writes (I'll let you know if so), but it was a gratifyingly, impressively serious discussion. Here's some of what I think I said...
I wasn't surprised that the president described the Las Vegas shooting as "pure evil." Any other president would probably have used the term "evil" too (the meaningless "pure," which might point to the demonic for others in his camp, was just the vacuous hyperbole one expects from this unpresidented one), because so shocking a loss of innocent life demands the strongest terms we can find; using them in time's of national heartbreak is part of the president's job. In most other settings, Republican presidents' talk of "evil" is more than consoling - it's a declaration of war - but here "pure evil" just meant something so unthinkable, so incomprehensible, that all we can do in response is huddle together in sympathy.
Most use of the language of "evil" in public life is problematic - it refuses further thought and brooks no disagreement - but it was worth considering that "evil" appears also in phrases like "the evil of gun violence," where its valences are entirely different, identifying a common problem demanding a common response. (In common only are that the phenomenon transcends the particular case.) "Evil" here isn't something which comes incomprehensibly from beyond the world of human understanding (and so also slips beyond the reach of analysis and policy), but is unnecessary harm on a society-wide scale, harm which can at least be mitigated by analysis and policy.
Of course he also wanted to know if I though the shooter was evil. I did my best to sound uninterested. I didn't expect any satisfaction from whatever was found, I said; no account of his motives would make the destruction of even one of those lives less tragic. Besides, what made it an example of "the evil of gun violence" was that, whatever his motives were, the availability of massive lethal force made it possible for him to destroy the lives of hundreds, not just one or two. Trying to understand his motives is a distraction both from the irreplaceable lives of the victims, and from recognizing this as an instance of the broader "evil of gun violence."
Summarized like this, it all seems pretty obvious (except perhaps the studied lack of interest in the shooter's motive), but it felt like making useful connections, raising interesting questions, in unexpected places. I haven't had a chance to articulate my views about the perils of what I used to deride as "evil-talk" in a while; they've grown. And did I mention that my interlocutor identified as Buddhist? I hope he found it useful, too.
[Update, 10/8: his article just appeared, I get to be "the professor" but most of what I said isn't there, in some cases perhaps because others he spoke to mentioned it (Arendt, privation). He chose not to take up the "evil of gun violence"...]
I wasn't surprised that the president described the Las Vegas shooting as "pure evil." Any other president would probably have used the term "evil" too (the meaningless "pure," which might point to the demonic for others in his camp, was just the vacuous hyperbole one expects from this unpresidented one), because so shocking a loss of innocent life demands the strongest terms we can find; using them in time's of national heartbreak is part of the president's job. In most other settings, Republican presidents' talk of "evil" is more than consoling - it's a declaration of war - but here "pure evil" just meant something so unthinkable, so incomprehensible, that all we can do in response is huddle together in sympathy.
Most use of the language of "evil" in public life is problematic - it refuses further thought and brooks no disagreement - but it was worth considering that "evil" appears also in phrases like "the evil of gun violence," where its valences are entirely different, identifying a common problem demanding a common response. (In common only are that the phenomenon transcends the particular case.) "Evil" here isn't something which comes incomprehensibly from beyond the world of human understanding (and so also slips beyond the reach of analysis and policy), but is unnecessary harm on a society-wide scale, harm which can at least be mitigated by analysis and policy.
Of course he also wanted to know if I though the shooter was evil. I did my best to sound uninterested. I didn't expect any satisfaction from whatever was found, I said; no account of his motives would make the destruction of even one of those lives less tragic. Besides, what made it an example of "the evil of gun violence" was that, whatever his motives were, the availability of massive lethal force made it possible for him to destroy the lives of hundreds, not just one or two. Trying to understand his motives is a distraction both from the irreplaceable lives of the victims, and from recognizing this as an instance of the broader "evil of gun violence."
Summarized like this, it all seems pretty obvious (except perhaps the studied lack of interest in the shooter's motive), but it felt like making useful connections, raising interesting questions, in unexpected places. I haven't had a chance to articulate my views about the perils of what I used to deride as "evil-talk" in a while; they've grown. And did I mention that my interlocutor identified as Buddhist? I hope he found it useful, too.
[Update, 10/8: his article just appeared, I get to be "the professor" but most of what I said isn't there, in some cases perhaps because others he spoke to mentioned it (Arendt, privation). He chose not to take up the "evil of gun violence"...]
