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in a time of dire trouble for our country

Since you asked . . .

"There is no history, only fictions of various degrees of plausibility."

--Voltaire [1694-1778]

No Ribbons, No Flags, No Fireworks

An Open Letter to Pro-War Americans

by Tim Wise

March 21, 2003

Dear neighbor,

Please spare me the lecture. Likewise, don't bother asking me why I refuse to tie a yellow ribbon around the tree in my front yard, or put out a flag, or slather my Honda Civic with “Support the Troops” bumper stickers. I don't feel like explaining it every time someone wants answers to these questions, and anyway, you probably wouldn't like my reasons to begin with.

You claim that we must now put aside our different opinions about the propriety of war with Iraq, and rally `round the President, the country, and our men and women in uniform. But you are wrong, and I imagine that at some level you know this to be true.

After all, do we really have an obligation to support the troops no matter what they do as they prosecute this slaughter against a minor league opponent? Would you indeed support the troops if their mission involved nuclear incineration of Iraqi cities and villages? One, two, many My Lai massacres?

Beyond hypotheticals, should we support the troops even as they carry out the announced plan to launch nearly a thousand cruise missiles into Iraq's major population centers within forty-eight hours of war? With the UN estimating that upwards of a half-million Iraqis might die as a result of this war, can you really say without any sense of misgiving that we should “support the troops” come what may, and that failure to do so should be branded un-American?

Don't misunderstand. I guess one could say that I too support the troops, but surely not in the way that you and other flag-wavers intend.

I support them being able to make a living and get an education without having first to subordinate their consciences to a military

establishment that vitiates critical thought, reflection and free will, so as to create more efficient killing machines. How about you?

I support them not being lied to about the chemicals and depleted uranium to which they will likely be exposed. How about you?

I support them refusing to fly their planes, refusing to bomb civilian infrastructure, like water treatment facilities, the destruction of which will create mass epidemics and cause the deaths of thousands of children. How about you?

I support them refusing to move their tanks against civilians. How about you?

I support them deserting, going AWOL, and disobeying the unlawful orders that are the hallmark of modern warfare--unlawful because they almost always violate international law, such as Article 54 of the Geneva Conventions, which makes it a certifiable war crime to target any facility the integrity of which is necessary to the functioning of civilian life.

I support the troops as fathers and mothers; as children; as brothers and sisters; as human beings and free moral agents, all of which they were long before they became the foot soldiers of a swaggering empire, led by a functionally-illiterate cowboy with no knowledge of history, who couldn't find Iraq on a map if it wasn't labeled first, and whose drive to mass murder seems motivated as much by a desire to win the love of his daddy as anything more substantive.

I support the troops arresting any American solider who they see killing an Iraqi civilian, or ordering the same. They should turn their guns on their own in such a situation, in the name of defending the innocent and in regard to a higher law to which they are bound.

But I do not support the troops following orders that will kill scores of innocent people. I will not cheer the light show over Baghdad, the bulldozing of Iraqi soldiers beneath desert sand, burying them alive as was done in the first Gulf War; nor will I support the strafing of Iraqi soldiers as they retreat or seek to surrender, as was also done in the first Gulf War, in what was described at the time as a “turkey shoot.”

Any soldier that engages in those kinds of actions deserves not support but rather prosecution under accepted standards of international law for the commission of war crimes. Following orders was no excuse at Nuremberg and it will be no excuse in Basra either.

Indeed, military personnel are sworn to obey orders only when those orders are lawful, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What's more, in their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, all members of the military are bound by Article VI of that document which makes international treaties and agreements the highest law of the land. As such, following orders to prosecute this war violates the oath taken by the troops, since Article 51 of the UN Charter allows war only in immediate self-defense or when the Security Council has directed or authorized use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security, neither of which condition applies here.

And since Article 2 of the Charter makes clear that war is not legitimate for the purpose of regime change, the attack underway is by definition a criminal act, in violation of international law and thus the Constitution. It is an impeachable offense, far more serious than getting a blow job and lying about it.

And saying this is not giving aid and comfort to the enemy, as you suggest. What gives aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States is the prosecution of an unjust war itself. It is this war that will aid our enemies, by giving them yet another issue around which to rally terrorists, suicide bombers, hijackers and other assorted fanatics.

Bombing a nation like Iraq, especially after eviscerating it for over a decade with sanctions, can serve no purpose but to enhance the likelihood of terrorism, and even the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, since only being in clear possession of such materials (as with North Korea) seems capable of deterring attack by the U.S.

And no, it is not my job to fall in line, just so the morale of soldiers can receive a boost. I want the morale of soldiers to plummet. I want them to question the propriety of their assignments, and I want them to be so conflicted about that mission that they simply refuse to do their jobs. If criticism of this war harms troop morale and can create internal dissent and divisions among the U.S. military, then we need more of it, not less. Lives are worth more than morale; worth more than self-image; worth more than soldiers' feelings.

And since it is with my money and in my name that any killing of Iraqis will proceed, I have not just a right but an obligation to speak out against the war if I consider it unjust. When my nation kills, I kill, and I don't take the thought of collaboration lightly. Collaboration puts my soul in jeopardy. So while the troops may use my money to do their dirty work, don't expect me to say amen. My soul is more important than their morale. So is yours.

As a father, I believe that this war will endanger the life of my daughter (and my daughter to be) down the line. That by creating even more embittered Muslims--embittered towards my nation because they can, after all, read the markings on the bomb casings that say, “Made in the USA”--this war will lay the groundwork for a form of payback that will make 9/11 look like a global fender-bender. Survivors have long memories, and the truth be told, we simply can't kill them all. It is those long memories that will haunt my children and their children, for as James Baldwin reminded us, “There is no creation of any society more dangerous than the man who has nothing to lose.”

So no, I can't support the troops in the traditional sense, because if they do their jobs, they contribute to the menacing of my family in years to come, and my family's safety is more important than their morale. So is yours.

But I do support the troops in the ways that truly matter. Do you?

I support those troops of color in their continuing quest to be treated as equals at all times, and not merely when they are picking up a gun to kill for America: that means that I support the struggle against the racism that those same troops too often face in their homeland. How about you?

I support those troops who are women in their continuing struggle against sexual assault and harassment, in general and specifically at places like the Air Force Academy, where some of their male counterparts apparently think it their duty to abuse them as sex objects. How about you?

I support those troops who are gay or lesbian in their quest for equitable treatment and the right to be true to themselves and not have to hide their sexual orientations so as to pander to another soldier's bigotry. How about you?

I support those troops who are poor; specifically I support their right to health care, and a college education and a job and shelter, and a living wage. And I support these things for them whether in or out of uniform. And I support these same things for the families of the troops back home. How about you?

It is not the anti-war movement whose concern for the troops should be questioned, but rather that of the men who send them to battle, to face weapons that those same men (or their fathers) sold to the other side in the first place.

Those men who never faced war themselves--and in the case of the President went AWOL to avoid even a stateside National Guard assignment during Vietnam--but who are quick to use others as the fighting, bombing appendages to their own shriveled manhoods.

Those men who think that respect for international law can be instilled by disregarding international law, international opinion and the primary international decision making body on the planet.

Those men who think it appropriate to build up monsters around the globe and then criticize those monsters for doing exactly what we knew they would do all along.

Those men who believe they are entitled to say which nations can have certain types of weapons and which cannot; which nations can ignore UN resolutions and which must follow them; which nations are allowed to oppress their own people and which must be held to a higher standard.

Those men who believe that “our vital national interests” like the free flow of oil at market prices outweigh the right of Iraqi children to walk, laugh, play, or simply breathe.

For it is these men who view the troops as expendable, and who see them as one-dimensional tools for destruction, rather than as human beings. It is these men who are putting the troops in harm's way so as to satisfy their own ambitions.

And it is we who oppose this war who seek to bring them back in one piece--physically and emotionally.

So please, spare me the lecture.

* * *

Many thanks to Thom Woodruff, Greg Moses, Susan Bright and Patricia Fiske for passing these things along.

Rolling Back the 20th Century

by WILLIAM GREIDER

[from the May 12, 2003 issue]

* * *

BushCo Reams Nation

Good -- No WMDs after all, no excuse for war, too late for anyone to care anymore. Ha-ha, suckers.

By Mark Morford

SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2003/05/14/notes051403.DTL&nl=fix

Ha-ha-ha oh man did we ever get smacked on that one. Conned big time. Punk'd like dogs. Just gotta shake your head, laugh it off. They reamed us but good, baby! Damn. Turns out it really was all a big joke after all. The war, that is. All a big fat nasty murderous oil-licking lie, a sneaky little power-mad game with you as the sucker and the world as the pawn and BushCo as the slithery war thug, the dungeon master, the prison daddy. You really have to laugh. Because it's just so wonderfully ridiculous. In a rather disgusting, soul-draining sort of way. See, there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No WMDs at all. Isn't that great? What's more: There never were. Ha-ha-ha. Gotcha! No warehouses teeming with nuclear warheads, no underground bunkers packed with vats of boiling biotoxins, no drums of crazy-ass chemical agents that will melt your skin and turn us all into drooling flesh-eating zombies -- unless, of course, you count the sneering vat of conservative biotoxin that is, say, Fox News, in which case, hell yeah baby, we gotcher WMDs right here beeyatch. Go figure. Those lowly U.N. inspectors were right after all. Who knew? It was all a ruse. We've been sucker-punched and ideologically molested and patriotically sodomized and hey, what the hell, who cares anyway, we "liberated" an oppressed people most Americans secretly loathe and fear and don't understand in the slightest, even though that was never the point, or the justification, or the goal. Go team. But wait, is liberation of a brutalized and tormented people now the reason? The justification for our thuggery? That is so cool! So that means we're going to blow the living crap out of Sri Lanka and Sudan and Tibet and North Korea and about 47 others, right? Right? Maybe Saudi Arabia, too, second only to the Talilban itself in its abuse of women? Cool! As if. Ah, but screw the liberal whiny peacenik U.N. inspectors, right? Let's ask the U.S. search teams themselves, ShrubCo's own squadrons of biologists, chemists, arms-treaty enforcers, nuclear operators, computer and document experts and Special Forces troops who've been in Iraq for weeks now, searching frantically. Surely they've found something, right? Surely we can now prove that Saddam was fully intending to fillet our babies and annihilate Florida and poke the eyes out of really cute kittens on national TV for sadistic pleasure, right? Gimme a hell yeah! Whoops. Bad news. As The Washington Post reports, the 75th Exploitation Task Force, the very serious-minded group heading up all U.S. inspections in Iraq, the group absolutely certain it would immediately find steaming neon-lit stockpiles of WMDs piled right next to Saddam's personal stash of gay porn and Britney Spears posters and opium pipes, is coming home with its tail between its legs. Found nothing. Nada. Psychopatriots are a little nonplussed. Bush is merely "embarrassed." Peace advocates are sighing and drinking heavily. We have done this ghastly horrible inane hate-filled entirely unprovoked thing in the name of power and petroleum and military contracts and strategic empire building, our nation is numb and more bitterly divisive than ever and our leaders are not the slightest bit ashamed. But of course you're not the slightest bit shocked. You knew it all along. The WMD line was just a ploy that, tragically, much of the nation bought into like a sucker pyramid scheme after being pounded into submission with hammers of fear and Ashcroftian threats and bogus Orange Alerts and having their tweezers confiscated at the airport. And of course the capacity to be outraged and appalled has been entirely drained out of you, out of this nation, replaced by raging ennui and sad resentment and the new fall season on NBC. This is what they're counting on. Your short attention span. WMDs? That's so, like, last February. Hey look, the swimsuit model won "Survivor"! Because now it's all done. Like a bad trip to the dentist where your routine cleaning turned out to be a bloody excruciating root canal and 50 hours of high-pitched drilling and $100 billion in god-awful cosmetic surgery, now the bandages come off. Smile, sucker. We're at peace once again. Sort of. But not really. Don't you feel better now? No? Too bad. No one cares what you think. It's all over but the shouting. And the screaming. And the endless years of U.S. occupation in the Middle East, the quiet building of U.S. military bases in Iraq so we can keep those uppity bitches Syria and Egypt and Lebanon in line, forge ahead with the long-standing plan to strong-arm those damn Islamic nuts into brutal compliance with Bushco's bleak blueprint for World Inc. What, too bitter? Hardly. Should we care that Osama, the actual perp of 9/11, is still running around free? That terrorism hasn't been quelled in the slightest? That the Mideast is more of a U.S.-hating powder keg than ever, thanks to BushCo? That the economy is in the worst shape it's been in decades? Should we care that we just massacred tens of thousands of Iraqi (and Afghani) civilians and soldiers and suffered a little more than 100 U.S. casualties and have absolutely nothing to show for it except bogus force-fed pride and this weird, sickening sense that we just executed something irreparable and ungodly and karmically poisonous? Nah. Just laugh it off. Have a glass of wine, make love, go play Frisbee with the dog. Breathe deep and focus on what's truly important and try to assimilate this latest atrocity into your backstabbed worldview, add it to the list of this lifetime's spiritual humiliations, as you wait for the next barrage, the imminent announcement that we're about to do it all again. Steel yourself. Protect your soul. Because man, they reamed us good. Slammed this nation like a bad joke. Gotcha! Ha-ha-ha.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. He also writes the Morning Fix, a deeply skewed thrice-weekly e-mail column and newsletter. Subscribe at sfgate.com/newsletters.

* * *

Thursday, May 8, 2003

CommonDreams.org

A Nation of Cowards

by Sidney Hall, Jr.

For a brief moment after 9/11, we recognized some genuine heroes in our midst, those who put their lives on the line to rescue strangers and those who put their own needs in back of the needs of others in the middle of tragedy. The celebration of this heroism may have become a little gaudy, but it was sincere. Since then we seem to have become a nation of cowards celebrating illusions. There is a president, who, in reaction to the devastation of 9/11, does not act with forbearance, curiosity to understand the root cause, and as a world leader. Instead he lashes out at blurry targets with more force than we were met with. This is not the act of a brave man. This is the act of a coward. There is a senator who sees his country yawing dangerously off course and, for the first time in its history abusing its power openly and shamelessly. The senator says nothing, though he knows better, because he is afraid of an emotional backlash if he engages in rational discussion. He is afraid he will lose the next election. This is the act of a coward. There is a citizen who is unable to think. He succumbs to fear, believes every scary story he hears, buys duct tape for his doors and windows, when a bit of thinking would tell him he is in more danger from getting into his car. This is the act of a coward. There is a journalist who knows there are young children dying in hospitals in Iraq, with their bodies horribly disfigured as the result of our country¹s doings, yet he will not show pictures of these children so that people can weigh the consequences of war for themselves. He shows pictures of massively-armed Americans and reports every ³coalition² news release as gospel truth. This is the act of a coward. There is an attorney general who is so scared by events that he is willing to subvert the very essence of what we would normally be fighting for. He wraps his subversive activities in a cloud of confusion. This is the act of a coward. There is a citizen who hangs a flag out on his house as a sign proclaiming that he cannot think, that it is enough to ³support our troops² whether what they are doing is right or wrong. This is the act of a coward. There is the soldier who fires into an oncoming vehicle carrying a family with women and children because he thinks they are coming after him. This is the act of a coward. There is another soldier who fires into a crowd of civilians when someone throws a sandal at him. Sure he is young, scared to death by the situation he has been unfairly drawn into, but he doesn¹t wait for a real reason to fire. This is the act of a coward. Another soldier trains the barrel of his tank on a hotel full of journalists and fires. This is the act of a coward. A soldier stands by while hospitals and museums are looted and anarchy descends on a great city. This is the act of a coward. Many of these are scared kids put into an impossible place. We should pity them, but that does not make them the heroes. There is a reporter who forbears to report how scared and unnerved these kids are, for fear he might undermine his president. This is the act of a coward. A member of the United States Congress goes into his cafeteria and renames French Fires, Freedom Fries, because he he is unable to take any criticism from another country, even the country that helped pave the way for American freedom. Is this the act of a brave man? No, this is the act of a coward. A scholar who advises the White House concludes that force and fear are the only way to end a cycle of terrorism that perpetuates itself because of force and fear. He does not even think about finding the reasons for the problem, or the solutions. This is the act of a coward. And the president comes forth smirking and swaggering, dressing in military garb and gloating. We have seen this from the worst of world leaders before, the Stalins and Hitlers, and though our president may not rise to the same level of evil, he resembles them uncomfortably. They are the leaders that did what they did and smirked and swaggered while they did it because they were essentially cowards too. We have, it seems, at last become a nation of cowards. Cowardice has woven itself right into the fabric of our lives. A nation of cowards‹except those who aren¹t, and there are many. And in the heart of every American there is a bravery waiting to emerge. If someone would come along who would call on that bravery, if another Martin Luther King came suddenly into our midst, you would see bravery flower everywhere overnight. We are, all of us, after all, just human. Sidney Hall, Jr. is a poet and publisher who lives in New Hampshire. He is the owner of Hobblebush Books and may be reached at [email protected].

* * *

POLITICS-U.S.:

Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 7 (IPS) - Is U.S. foreign policy being run by followers of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher whose views were elitist, amoral and hostile to democratic government?

Suddenly, political Washington is abuzz about Leo Strauss, who arrived in the United States in 1938 and taught at several major universities before his death in 1973.

Thanks to the ”Week in Review'' section of last Sunday's 'New York Times' and another investigative article in this week's 'New Yorker' magazine, the cognoscenti have suddenly been made aware that key neo-conservative strategists behind the Bush administration's aggressive foreign and military policy consider themselves to be followers of Strauss, although the philosopher - an expert on Plato and Aristotle - rarely addressed current events in his writings.

The most prominent is Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now widely known as ''Wolfowitz of Arabia'' for his obsession with ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein as the first step in transforming the entire Arab Middle East. Wolfowitz is also seen as the chief architect of Washington's post-9/11 global strategy, including its controversial pre-emption policy.

Two other very influential Straussians include 'Weekly Standard' Chief Editor William Kristol and Gary Schmitt, founder, chairman and director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a six-year-old neo-conservative group whose alumni include Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, as well as a number of other senior foreign policy officials.

PNAC's early prescriptions and subsequent open letters to President George W. Bush on how to fight the war on terrorism have anticipated to an uncanny extent precisely what the administration has done.

Kristol's father Irving, the godfather of neo-conservatism who sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where a number of prominent hawks, including former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, are based, has also credited Strauss with being one of the main influences on his thinking.

While the Times article introduced readers to Strauss and his disciples in Washington, interest was further piqued this week by a lengthy article by The New Yorker's legendary investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, who noted that Abram Shulsky, a close Perle associate who has run a special intelligence unit in Rumsfeld's office, is also a Straussian.

His unit, according to Hersh, re-interpreted evidence of Iraq's alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and possession of weapons of mass destruction to support those in the administration determined to go to war with Baghdad. The article also identified Stephen Cambone, one of Rumsfeld's closest aides who heads the new post of undersecretary of defence for intelligence, as a Strauss follower.

In his article, Hersh wrote that Strauss believed the world to be a place where ''isolated liberal democracies live in constant danger from hostile elements abroad'', and where policy advisers may have to deceive their own publics and even their rulers in order to protect their countries.

Shadia Drury, author of 1999's 'Leo Strauss and the American Right', says Hersh is right on the second count but dead wrong on the first.

''Strauss was neither a liberal nor a democrat,'' she said in a telephone interview from her office at the University of Calgary in Canada. ''Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical (in Strauss's view) because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them.''

''The Weimar Republic (in Germany) was his model of liberal democracy for which he had huge contempt,'' added Drury. Liberalism in Weimar, in Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.

Like Plato, Strauss taught that within societies, ''some are fit to lead, and others to be led'', according to Drury. But, unlike Plato, who believed that leaders had to be people with such high moral standards that they could resist the temptations of power, Strauss thought that ''those who are fit to rule are those who realise there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior''.

For Strauss, ''religion is the glue that holds society together'', said Drury, who added that Irving Kristol, among other neo-conservatives, has argued that separating church and state was the biggest mistake made by the founders of the U.S. republic.

''Secular society in their view is the worst possible thing'', because it leads to individualism, liberalism and relativism, precisely those traits that might encourage dissent, which in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with external threats. ''You want a crowd that you can manipulate like putty,'' according to Drury.

Strauss was also strongly influenced by Thomas Hobbes. Like Hobbes, he thought the fundamental aggressiveness of human nature could be restrained only through a powerful state based on nationalism. ''Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,'' he once wrote. ''Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other people''.

''Strauss thinks that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat,'' Drury wrote in her book. ''Following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured. Had he lived to see the collapse of the Soviet Union, he would have been deeply troubled because the collapse of the 'evil empire' poses a threat to America's inner stability.''

''In Strauss' view, you have to fight all the time (to survive),'' said Drury. ''In that respect, it's very Spartan. Peace leads to decadence. Perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in.'' Such views naturally lead to an ''aggressive, belligerent foreign policy'', she added.

As for what a Straussian world order might look like, Drury said the philosopher often talked about Jonathan Swift's story of Gulliver and the Lilliputians. ''When Lilliput was on fire, Gulliver urinated over the city, including the palace. In so doing, he saved all of Lilliput from catastrophe, but the Lilliputians were outraged and appalled by such a show of disrespect.''

For Strauss, the act demonstrates both the superiority and the isolation of the leader within a society and, presumably, the leading country vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

Drury suggests it is ironic, but not inconsistent with Strauss' ideas about the necessity for elites to deceive their citizens, that the Bush administration defends its anti-terrorist campaign by resorting to idealistic rhetoric. ''They really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy,'' she said.

* * *

I loathe America,

and what it has done to the rest of the world

By Margaret Drabble

Daily Telegraph

(Filed: 08/05/2003)

I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.

My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.

I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.

I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.

It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.

Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.

We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. Long ago, Voltaire told us that we invent words to conceal truths. More recently, Orwell pointed out to us the dangers of Newspeak.

But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.

There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history.

I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win.

On April 29, 2000, I switched on CNN in my hotel room and, by chance, saw an item designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I took to be Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.

"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator intoned, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough.

The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but had lost the peace.

Just leave Shakespeare and Shakespeare's homeland out of this squalid bit of revisionism, I thought at the time. Little did I then think that now, three years on, Shakespeare's country would have been dragged by our leader into this illegal, unjustifiable, aggressive war. We are all contaminated by it. Not in my name, I want to keep repeating, though I don't suppose anybody will listen.

America uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.)

America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.

They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom.

I keep writing to Jack Straw about the so-called "illegal combatants", including minors, who are detained there without charge or trial or access to lawyers, and I shall go on writing to him and his successors until something happens. This one-way correspondence may last my lifetime. I suppose the minors won't be minors for long, although the youngest of them is only 13, so in time I shall have to drop that part of my objection, but I shall continue to protest.

A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of powerŠ Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."

We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots.

I hate feeling this hatred. I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened. There is another America. Long live the other America, and may this one pass away soon.

* * *

The Other "F" Word:

"Chosen by the Grace of God"?

by BEN TRIPP

05/09/03

You could fill your lederhosen with razor blades and ride a bicycle down some steps. You could administer yourself a boiling-hot clyster of Drano and minced cactus. You could irritate a pride of lions whilst bedecked in a ham waistcoat. But why take the easy way out? It's better to stand and fight. I refer to the deeply Sisyphean task of opposing the neofascist regime which has taken over the United States. There, I did it. I used the word 'fascist', which places me in that camp, even if the word was prefixed with the modifier 'neo' as in 'o neo f the worst ideas ever'.

It's been a long time coming, and not just because of Bob Dole's Viagra (humorous joke, get it? Long time never mind). For all its strenuous efforts, I could never give the Bush administration that much credit before. Fascism is such a heavy term, so loaded with images of greasy newsreel dictators in Sam Browne belts and tall boots. Too many commentators leapt on the 'Orwellian' and 'fascist' bandwagons too quickly into Bush's sic volo, sic jubeo term of office. After all, wasn't the WWI Sedition Act far worse than Ashcroft's Junior Inquisition? How about the McCarthy Era, when a ventriloquist's dummy nearly destroyed our nation's freedoms, just to deny Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit for 'Roman Holiday'? For a long time I couldn't quite slap the 'F' word, as fascism is coyly known among lefties, on Bush and his minions. No matter how naughty the Man Who Would be President might be, for my tastes he never hit that perfect Kafka note-- until recently. Him and his people weren't really fascists. Just execrable excrudescent assholes. But 2003 has changed all that.

These people are fascists, and they make Mussolini look like a mezzafinook. There is no component of American liberty of which they are unwilling to relieve us, and no aspect of American life upon which they are unwilling to relieve themselves. Where to begin? First, we must define 'fascism'. It is a term like 'love', about which it can be said that everybody knows exactly what it means, and nobody knows what they're talking about. Luckily I know everything and so can clear the matter up, particularly if I consult Mussolini's own diary, which I picked up on Ebay for a song (the song was 'That's Amore' as sung by Dean Martin). For those not fluent in Italian, I will paraphrase the definition before me in Il Duce's crabbed hand: Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism as the transcendent value of society. The rise of Fascism relies upon the manipulation of populist sentiment in times of national crisis. Based on fundamentalist revolutionary ideas, Fascism defines itself through intense xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals. Although secular in nature, Fascism's emphasis on mythic beliefs such as divine mandates, racial imperatives, and violent struggle places highly concentrated power in the hands of a self-selected elite from whom all authority flows to lesser elites, such as law enforcement, intellectuals, and the media. What a rush. Must buy Clara a new hat.

I couldn't have said it better myself. If we accept this general definition of fascism, we can be forgiven for rushing to the bedroom and throwing some clean underwear into a portmanteau ere catching the next train to Toronto. But we must stand our ground, however eroded it may be. Our freedoms have been undermined at home. Our nation has engaged in an outrageous military adventure overseas, the tissue-thin justification for which has disappeared completely, leaving America in the awkward position yclept 'hostile invader' by entities such as the United Nations (you remember them, those nice colored folks over on 39th Street?) Meanwhile our states have mostly gone bankrupt, the first tax cut during wartime since the 1840's more wealth for the wealthy- is in the works while corporate feudalism runs rampant, our ability to respond to authentic terrorist threats has been hobbled, the voting system has been co-opted by digital pirates in the Republican party, the electoral system in general is hostage to big money, our healthcare system is in meltdown, our national budget is so far in the red we have to import ink from China just to keep up; the prison population is exploding while our schools implode, civil rights are verklempt and vivisepulturated, our businesses are folding by entire sectors while the military-industrial complex thrives, and our environment is sinking into crisis with the North Pole melted and environmental regulation evaporating like so much ozone. Meanwhile, Jesus Christ is sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But because the American media has ceased to make its own news, relying instead on a kind of government-hosted charabanc tour for journalists, nobody is questioning this lunatic national retrenchment in a public forum- instead, we demonize Arabs and teenagers and black people and homosexuals and poor folks and drug users and anyone, God bless them, who has ever performed fellatio. And that's only the tip of the scheisseberg. These are all harbingers and symptoms and outcomes of fascism. But still, fascism is such an extreme notion. Once could argue that these many fresh hells are the result of simple criminal mismanagement, and for some time I have been so inclined (to argue thus, not to criminally mismanage. For the latter I'd need an MBA.)

What specific enormity cemented the notion of Bush and his cabal as 'fascists' in my mind? If I could sit out all of the above, surely nothing could compel me to apply the scarlet 'F' to these vendible quantum-larrikins and their erstwhile leader, the Ivy-League demagogue bogtrotter George W. Bush. I can tell you the very moment, and if you missed it, it's worth finding a dog-eared copy of the video and viewing it entire, although I caution you to keep a bucket handy- these images are too graphic for many American stomachs.

An aircraft carrier in the Pacific, about an hour from San Diego, California. You could row that far. A couple of jets on deck as props, lots of giddy sailors. Here comes an airplane! It lands in the accustomed manner. Out springs the Boy Prince, the Dauphin of D.C., the VIP of the GOP, George W. Bush in full military flight suit, with his ejector harness giving him the worst moose knuckle in presidential history. A bit of video for the election commercials just in case the Democrats don't all curl up and die on their own, what's the harm in that? I wish it was that simple. But what we really saw in that moment was a coup d'etat. The president isn't supposed to wear a uniform. He's a civilian. Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt strapped on a pistol now and then and we've had generals who made president before. That Kennedy fellow was a war hero, too, and Bush Senior, the one who got elected, did his bit in the Pacific while Grampy Prescott was supporting the Nazis in Europe. But when they were president none of these men put on military uniforms. They understood that there are three sacred lines with regard to American democracy that can never be crossed: the line between privilege and power, the line between Church and State, and the line between civilian and military leadership. Cross any of them, and you're at fascism's doorstep. Cross two, you're on the threshold with your hand on the doorknob.

George W. Bush, son of unimaginable privilege, crossed the first line when he was selected to be president by the Supreme Court and accepted the job. He crossed the second line when he revealed his divine imperative, such as when (after the disaster of 9/11) he spoke of being "chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment." (attributed by Tim Goeglein, deputy director of White House public liaison and a barrel of laughs at any party.) When George climbed out of that airplane in his shiny new war suit, he didn't just carry his own cute little self across the deck: son of privilege, chosen of God, and wearing a military uniform, he passed through the doorway from mere wickedness to fascism. Our struggle in the time ahead is to resist the urge to follow him.

* * *

A mean-spirited America

By Jill Nelson

MSNBC contributor

These days, a sense of apprehension and foreboding lurks in the back of my head and the pit of my stomach. It's a gut-wrenching reminder that something very bad has happened and is about to happen anew. It is an anticipation of the next insult and injury in an America that has been defined under the Bush administration by a profound meanness of spirit.

THE EVIDENCE OF this overwhelming meanness of spirit is everywhere, abroad and at home. Even the administration's efforts to justify the war in Iraq as one of liberation and declare victory cannot mask the human costs to American troops and their families. How many thousands of Iraqis are dead? Where are the ridiculously named "weapons of mass destruction" that Bush used to justify this invasion? Witness the looting of priceless antiquities, kitsch and cash from Iraqi museums and Saddam Hussein's palaces and homes, allowed and participated in not only by Iraqis but members of the American armed forces and their ''embedfellows," the media. Yet to question this war and its aftermath is characterized as at worst treason and at best anti-American cynicism. And woe unto those who criticize Halliburton, Kellogg Brown & Root and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the Bush administration as they line up at the trough of government contracts to rebuild Iraq and control its oil. Now, the armed forces in Iraq have turned to shooting Iraqi demonstrators, the very people they supposedly came to "liberate" with democracy.

UNDER SIEGE AT HOME

Here on the home front, our e-mail communications, bookstore purchases, and even our public library withdrawals are open to government surveillance. The attorney general lengthens the arm of government repression every day, seeking the right to revoke an American's citizenship if he alone decides their words or deeds fall within his definition of treason. Slowly chipping away at our civil and democratic rights. The Internal Revenue Service announces that it will scrutinize the returns of the poorest taxpayers, those claiming the earned income tax credit. This is a credit offered to taxpayers who earn under $35,000 for a family of four, and it averages less than $2000. The Bush administration wants to spend $100 million to go after these working-poor Americans in search of fraud rather than concentrate on corporations who, according to some estimates, defraud the government by tens of billions of dollars every year. And what of the move in many states to curtail or severely cut back Medicaid benefits to the 50 million people that program currently insures, a move that will result in the loss of insurance, cuts in benefits, and an increasingly unhealthy population? And unemployment, and the awful school system, and systemic poverty, and gun violence? The list goes on. This as President Bush crisscrosses the country like a snake-oil salesman in an effort to sell his tax-cut program, one that will again reward the wealthiest Americans and increase the tax burden on the poor and middle class. This after already pushing through a tax cut two years ago that failed to stimulate the economy but succeeded in resurrecting a deficit that, at the end of the Clinton administration a year before, was a surplus.

LIVING IN FEAR

Meanwhile, here in our great democracy, Americans go along with the program or remain silent, too afraid of the Muslim bogeymen thousands of miles away to recognize the Christian ones in our midst. Fearful that we will be verbally attacked, or shunned, or lose our livelihoods if we dare question the meanness that characterizes our government and, increasingly, defines our national character. I do not feel safer now than I did six, or 12, or 24 months ago. In fact, I feel far more vulnerable and frightened than I ever have in my 50 years on the planet. It is the United States government I am afraid of. In less than two years the Bush administration has used the attacks of 9/11 to manipulate our fear of terrorism and desire for revenge into a blank check to blatantly pursue imperialist objectives internationally and to begin the rollback of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and most of the advances of the 20th century.

RECIPE FOR CHANGE

It is none too early to begin organizing for the 2004 elections. Each of us must take a hard look at the changes that have been wrought by this administration internationally and domestically and ask ourselves: Is this the democracy we cherish? We must hold our elected officials accountable and make them take a stand against what increasingly looks like fascism. If they will not, we must vote them out of office. Three years ago, before the bloodless coup d'etat that made George W. Bush president, America was a far-from-perfect nation. Yet there was the possibility, almost gone now, that our country might evolve into a place that lived up to its loftiest democratic rhetoric. Today, I live in an America that makes my stomach hurt and fills me with terror. A nation run by greedy, frightened, violent bullies. It is time to take our country back before it is too late.

Jill Nelson is a journalist, teacher and author. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.

* * *

There is no greater misfortune

than to underestimate your enemy.

Underestimating your enemy

means thinking that he is evil.

Thus you destroy your three treasures

and become an enemy yourself.

-- Tao Te Ching, c. 500 B.C.E.[i]

The Question of Evil

Chris Hoffman

Ever since the horrors of September 11, I have been trying to penetrate the question of evil. You know what I mean: intentional human cruelty to other beings. Countless bad things do happen in this life…accidents, floods, drought…but it is the bad things caused by human beings, who as moral agents ought to know better, that we understand as “evil.” Yesterday I saw in the newspaper a photograph of a man casting his vote in an election in Africa. He held the ballot between the stumps of his two wrists. Both of his hands had been cut off by opponents of democracy as punishment for voting in the last election. Evil.

Why is there evil? We can speculate about the ultimate purpose of evil in the scheme of things, but we will probably never know for sure. Yet the practical form of this question, what causes evil, is one that we had better answer soon. Evil now has access to big weapons and life-altering technology that can affect us on a global scale. We may be running out of time.

President Bush has answered the question of evil by saying simply that we are good and our opponents are evil. He has called the war on terrorism a war of “Good against Evil” and has asked the world to choose sides. He has identified several countries as the “Axis of Evil.”

Unfortunately President Bush is wrong. While his view fits comfortably with our stereotypes and prejudices, it does not accord with the facts. According to years of research by some of the world’s best social scientists an axis of evil does in fact exist. But it is not the axis envisioned by George Bush. Instead, it is an axis of psychological processes.

The existence of this psychological axis of evil does not absolve perpetrators of responsibility, nor does it mean that we should not oppose evil actions. A lot of research in the field of conflict resolution has shown that, in the long run, a part of the best strategy for resolution is to make certain the other party quickly realizes that you can and will reciprocate if you are harmed. The point of reciprocation is not revenge but communication. Curiously, this strategy can often maximize the self-interest of everyone involved in the conflict. [ii] This strategy assumes that the parties involved are in an ongoing, long-term relationship. In the present case, this assumption is true: the world is one.

Understanding this psychological axis does however give us leverage for dealing with the root causes of evil. And it warns us that our attempts to eliminate evil by warfare or assassination or precision bombing will never succeed. If we persist in this sort of fight we will produce instead nothing but evil upon evil.

The Roots of All Evil

It should come as no surprise that, like everything else created by human beings, evil begins in the mind. From what I’ve found in looking at the question of evil, it appears that six main psychological components contribute to the axis: attachment problems, trauma, modeling, shadow, projection and inflation. A seventh component, a social-psychological component, creates systemic evil. Taken together these maleficent seven give a close approximation of what we are concerned with, close enough to be useful.

Since attachment problems may begin to develop as early as the first months of life, it makes sense to start our exploration here.

Attachment Problems

A nine-year-old boy purposefully pushes a 3-year-old into the deep end of a motel pool then pulls up a lawn chair to watch the younger boy drown. An eleven-year-old girl orders a ten-year-old out of her yard; when he doesn’t leave she shoots him with her parent’s gun. Serial killer Ted Bundy in the course of his life raped, mutilated and murdered perhaps thirty or more young women and girls. The true stories of evil are almost unimaginable for most people.

People who find such stories horrible to contemplate are people who have developed a capacity for forming an empathic relationship with another living being. For most, this capacity begins developing at the very first moments of life through our relationship with our principal caregiver, usually our mother or father. Psychologists refer to the strong bond that occurs in this relationship as attachment. When the parent (“attachment figure”) is emotionally present, by being sensitive to what the child is doing or feeling and by responding appropriately, the child usually develops what is called secure attachment.

Psychologist John Bowlby has looked at a huge amount of attachment research, with both human and animal subjects. He found that secure attachment as an infant not only predicts social competence as a young child, but also is essential to the health of the adult the child grows to be.[iii] Secure attachment provides a safe base for social and biological development. Children learn that they themselves are valued and that other people are a source of comfort and support. They are able to connect.

If on the other hand the parent is absent or rejects the infant’s need for comfort or for exploration, the child may develop insecure or disorganized attachment. There may be a genetic component to some attachment problems, but parental behavior always has a huge influence. The parent may be unavoidably absent, due to hospitalization or illness. The parent may be unskilled, neglectful, alcoholic, or abusive. Or the child may be abandoned and bounced from one foster placement to another.

To varying degrees, childhood attachment problems foreshadow problems later in life, including chronic fear, depression, inappropriate aggression, and anxiety. Moderate attachment problems may produce the salesperson who swindles you without remorse. This person is not interested particularly in doing evil; he simply perceives an “easy” way to get what he wants and has no sense of interpersonal relatedness or affection to get in his way. Severe attachment problems can result in a person who feels no qualm about harming others physically, and who at the same time often boils below the surface with feelings of intense rage caused by a sense of abandonment.

In the earliest stages of life, the infant naturally needs to have the mother available to meet the infant’s every need. This is called age-appropriate healthy narcissism. If the mother meets these needs, the child will begin to develop a healthy self-feeling, and will gradually develop an interest in the well being of others beside himself. If on the other hand the mother is emotionally needy and uses the infant to satisfy her own self-centered needs, the child never develops a healthy self-concept, but instead becomes unhealthily narcissistic and self-centered. When these kids grow up, their feelings often alternate between grandiosity and depression. Any perceived insult or ridicule can bring on feelings of intense rage and an obsessive need for revenge. Heinz Kohut calls this “narcissistic rage”.[iv]

It is important to realize that narcissistic rage can be triggered by a threat to anything that is central to the self—our body, our friends and family, our gender or ethnicity, our nation, our religious or political beliefs. We know from studies of war that scapegoating and harming of enemies is particularly likely to occur under conditions that result in a perceived attack on the sense of self: hardship, threat, stress, and frustration.[v] Rage arises as an attempt to get away from the wounding pain and also to destroy the enemy who violates us in this way. Often there is a complete lack of empathy and a thirst to assert power and control. [vi] People with chronic narcissistic rage may treat others sadistically.

In a 1999 article in the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, Peter Fonagy of University College London points out that attachment problems tend to be passed from generation to generation. Children with attachment problems often grow into adults who are themselves incapable of forming attachment, and who have a higher than average likelihood of being abusive. Narcissistically disturbed mothers bring up narcissistically disturbed kids. Evil perpetuates evil. Fonagy says that in as many as 80% of the cases, infant attachment classification can be predicted on the basis of the parents’ attachment classifications made before the birth of the child.[vii]

Attachment problems can be brought about by individual cases of abuse and neglect and also by large-scale disruptions of adequate parenting such as those brought on by war. Writing in The Atlantic about Afghanistan and Pakistan exactly one year before September 11, correspondent Robert Kaplan pointed out that many of the Taliban are orphans of war who had never known the company of women. “Indeed,” he says, “the most dangerous movements are often composed of war orphans, who, being unsocialized, are exceptionally brutal (The Khmer Rouge, in Cambodia, and the Revolutionary United Front, in Sierra Leone, are two examples).”[viii] It was the Revolutionary United Front who hacked off the hands of the courageous voter.

Trauma

Psychological trauma is a shock to the system that occurs when a person experiences, witnesses, or is confronted with events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury or a threat to the physical integrity of themselves or others. We are concerned here not with trauma caused by earthquakes and other natural disasters, but with human-made trauma—the trauma caused by war, oppression, suicide bombers, army tanks rolling through your neighborhood, the chopping off of hands. These traumas as well as physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and/or emotional abuse can be sources of childhood attachment problems.

According to Dr. Fonagy, parental abuse puts the child in an impossible situation. Abuse activates the need for protection and comfort, but the potential source of protection and comfort is also the source of the abuse. There is some evidence that this situation can create a sort of moral numbing because it reduces the child’s ability to reflect on itself. Fonagy says “Maltreatment may cause children to withdraw from the mental world. Their attachment behaviors, their proximity seeking, is disorganized because they desperately seek physical closeness while trying to create mental distance.”[ix]

A curious and unfortunate fact is that many traumatized people seem almost compulsively drawn to situations reminiscent of the original trauma. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, tells of a Vietnam veteran who had lit a cigarette at night and caused the death of a friend by a Viet Cong sniper’s bullet in 1968. “From 1969 to 1986, on the exact anniversary of the death, to the hour and minute, he yearly committed “armed robbery” by putting a finger in his pocket and staging a “holdup,” in order to provoke gunfire from the police.” Van der Kolk adds that the compulsive re-enactment ceased when the veteran came to understand the meaning of his actions.[x]

In the case of this veteran, no one was hurt by the re-enactment. All too often though, the re-enactment can lead to the perpetuation and expansion of evil through harm to others, self-destructiveness, and re-victimization. In a re-enactment the traumatized person can play the role of either the victim or victimizer. There seem to be significant sex differences about the choice of role, differences that hold for all primates.[xi] Males tend to identify with the aggressor and take the role of victimizing others. Females often become involved with abusive males but fail to protect themselves or their offspring against danger.

Van der Kolk cites many examples of re-enactment leading to further evil. One study showed that of 14 juveniles condemned to death for murder in the United States in 1987, 12 had been brutally physically abused, and five had been sodomized by relatives. Another study found that over 40 per cent of a sample of abused children engaged in self-destructive behavior such as head-banging, biting, burning, and cutting. Other studies show a high incidence of revictimization, with female victims of rape more likely to be raped and female victims of childhood sexual abuse at high risk of becoming prostitutes.[xii]

War of course produces trauma in combatants and non-combatants alike. Military doctors called combatant trauma “shell shock” in the First World War and “PTSD” (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) in the Viet Nam War, but the underlying phenomenon remains the same. It’s likely that the drive trauma creates for re-enactment can help propel whole societies toward more war. Trauma specialist Peter Levine says in his book Waking the Tiger, “Lasting peace among warring peoples cannot be accomplished without first healing the traumas of previous terrorism, violence, and horror on a mass scale.”[xiii]

Freud thought that the aim of compulsive repetition was to gain mastery and eventual resolution of the original trauma. There seems to be no clinical evidence however for this purported “benefit” of the repetition. In fact, repetition seems only to cause further harm. What brings about healing is rather a carefully moderated “renegotiation” of the traumatic event, in which the energy bound up by the trauma is allowed to be discharged safely by the body in the context of a supportive environment.

The “Evil” Person

In an attempt to understand the roots of evil, psychoanalyst Alice Miller studied the childhood histories of “evil” people, most notably Adolf Hitler. She found that despite many dissimilarities, everyone she studied shared a background of severe mistreatment and humiliation, “not only in isolated instances but on a regular basis. From earliest childhood, they grew up in a climate of cruelty.”[xiv]

Adolf’s father, Alois, beat the boy mercilessly every day. Miller points out that the normal reaction to such treatment would be extreme rage, but that the authoritarian environment in the Hitler household forced young Adolph to suppress his rage. Miller says that she has never come across persecutors who weren’t themselves victims in their childhood, though most of them don’t know it because their feelings are repressed. The rage and despair is not consciously felt, but is stored up in the body, in the limbic brain, to be unleashed later in merciless acts of revenge on society. This does not mean that every victim becomes a persecutor but that every persecutor was a victim in childhood.[xv]

Miller’s findings are confirmed by more recent studies of bullying in schools. These studies show that bullies often come from homes in which physical punishment is used, children are taught to strike out physically as a way to handle problems, and parental involvement and warmth are frequently lacking. It turns out that many bullies are also victims of bullying and many victims of bullying are also bullies. Research on serial murderers shows that many of them suffered prolonged abuse and mistreatment as children.[xvi]

Victims of torture are not unlike victims of bullying. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who many believe is the real brains behind Al-Qaeda, is reported to have said that torture in prison turns many people into fanatics who have an overwhelming desire for revenge.[xvii]

Alice Miller also asked herself why so many “normal citizens” were willing to participate in Nazi atrocities. She looked at the child rearing practices in vogue in Germany at the time the war generation had been children. What she found was a “poisonous pedagogy” that encouraged parents to spank babies whenever they cried, and to use intimidation, humiliation, and corporal punishment to control young children. This kind of upbringing, Miller says, produced Eichmann, Himmler, and many others full of unconscious rage and a stunted sense of compassion for others.

Let’s be very clear here. Miller’s findings do not mean that the world should not have fought to stop Hilter and his followers. They do mean that simply killing a Hitler, or the followers of a Hitler, won’t get at the root cause of evil.

Miller also found many instances of children who were abused but grew into productive citizens rather than criminals. What differentiated these children was that invariably each had had a relationship with what she calls a “helping witness”. This person was a sibling, a teacher, a neighbor, or just somebody who liked or even loved them, though unable to protect them from abuse. Yet these relationships gave the child a notion of trust and love. This saved them from descending into the pit.

Cognitive Neglect

When deprived of secure attachment or when traumatized, children can develop deficits in the ability to think. Studies with both humans and animals show that those who suffer neglect often do not fully develop the areas of the brain that can inhibit and regulate behavior and that can infer mental states in others, a skill related to empathy. Neglected animals have lower synaptic density and lighter-weight brains than those reared in enriched environments.[xviii] Alice Miller cites a study of abandoned and severely maltreated children that showed the areas of their brains responsible for the management of their emotions to be twenty to thirty percent smaller than in other children of the same age.[xix] Such cognitive deficits can contribute substantially to impulsive and reactive violence.

Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi in their book A General Theory of Crime, propose that most crimes are the result of a lack of inner discipline and restraint.[xx] They show that criminals tend to differ from ordinary citizens in that the criminals show a lack of self-control in many areas of their lives, both legal and illegal. For most people, most of the time, our inner greed, ambition, and egotism are held in check by self-control and social expectations. If these restraints are removed, evil actions can spew forth. Psychologist Roy Baumeister points out in his book Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence that regardless of the root causes of violence, the immediate cause is often a breakdown of self-control.[xxi] Therefore, any cognitive problems that reduce a person’s ability for self-control can contribute to violence and evil. One way evil is passed down through families is that children learn by observing the modeling of their parents that it is OK to lose control. Evil perpetuates evil.

Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally recognized authority in child trauma, gives a striking example of the role of cognitive development on violence. “In the year 1340 in Amsterdam, the murder rate was in excess of 150 murders per 100,000 people. Two hundred years later the murder rate was below 5 per 100,000. Clearly this is not a ‘genetic’ phenomenon. The genetics of the population of Amsterdam likely did not change much in two hundred years. This marked decrease in the incidence of murderous violence likely is due to the development of a higher percentage of individuals in that society having better developed cortices—more capable of abstract cognition, and, thus more capable of modulation of aggressive and violent impulses.”[xxii]

Given this hypothesis, it is an ominous statistic that the subcontinent of Asia is home to 45 percent of the world’s illiterate. Correspondent Kaplan says, “I can see few priorities for the United States higher than pressuring governments in the region to improve primary education.”[xxiii]

Trauma is passed on not only in family histories but in national histories. Consider the case of Liberia, a nation founded by ex-slaves from the United States. Liberia was created to provide an asylum of dignity, respect, and liberty for those who had been oppressed. Yet the rulers of the new country began ruling as they had been ruled: with oppression. Many observers say that this exclusionist society set the tone for the corruption and civil war that has blemished Liberia’s recent history.[xxiv]

Modeling

We all hold in our minds models about how the world works and about how we should act. We hold these mental models in the form of images of what the ideal world or ideal behavior should be, and images of actual situations and actual behavior by people who are our "role models." Even as very young children we begin to make sense of the world by building mental models or "schemas" and then using these models to incorporate or assimilate new experiences. Mental models function both as filters through which we see the world and as templates for our own actions.

An experiment by psychologist Albert Bandura vividly demonstrates the power of models. In this experiment a nursery school child is playing quietly. In another part of the playroom an adult stands up and begins punching and kicking an inflatable punching doll which has a weighted bottom so it always bounds back up. The adult keeps punching and kicking for nearly ten minutes, all the while yelling things like "Sock him in the nose....Hit him down....Kick him!" Then another adult leads the child away to a new playroom filled with many lovely toys. The child resumes playing happily. In only a few moments however the experimenter returns and explains that she has decided to save these fine toys "for the other children." She takes the frustrated child to another playroom containing only a few poor toys--and an inflatable punching doll. What does the child do after it is left alone?

Compared with children who had not seen the punching and kicking, children who had observed the behavior modeled by the adult were much more likely to attack the doll. Furthermore these children usually copied the adult's exact words and actions.

Multiply this punching doll experiment by millions and you get the modeling effect of violence in the media. Hundreds of studies over the past 40 years show conclusively that viewing violence on television increases aggressive and antisocial behavior. Depictions of violence in the media mislead people into thinking that violence is an acceptable, effective, and common way to solve problems. Modeling of bad behaviors implies both endorsement by an authority figure and social acceptance of the behavior, both of which have been shown to be powerful methods for influencing behavior.[xxv]

Field studies by Leonard Eron, Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois and expert in the effects of media violence, found that children who watched a lot of televised violence when they were in elementary school tended to show higher levels of aggressive behavior as teenagers and were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults. Testifying before the Senate in 1999, Eron said that that the best estimate of many analyses is that 10% of all youth violence can be attributed to the modeling of violence on television.[xxvi]

Television can also reinforce the cognitive problems created by trauma. Studies of the physiological and neurological effects of television, conducted by Fred and Merrelyn Emery at the Australian National University in Canberra, show that television viewing reduces the capacity of the human brain to pay attention and reduces cognition to low levels thus thwarting learning.[xxvii]

The media are not alone in toxic modeling. A recent study of 3 – 6 year olds in Northern Ireland by the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council found influences from the family, the local community, and the school. The study also found that as early as the age of six, 15% of the children were making sectarian and/or prejudiced statements about the other side (Catholic or Protestant).[xxviii]

Evil from the Malignant Combination of Trauma and Modeling

Modeling and trauma can combine to create a toxic incubator of evil. In the culture of the United States, young boys are at high risk for trouble. William S. Pollack, Ph.D., Director of the Centers for Men and Young Men and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School has written about this problem in Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. He points out that boys are up to three times more likely than girls to be the victim of a violent crime and between four to six times more likely to commit suicide. Pollack says that there are two principal causes for the problems of boys in our society: the use of shaming as a way of shaping the behavior of boys (modeling and trauma) and the trauma of emotional separation of boys from their mothers at an unnecessarily early age. [xxix]

In Children, Youth and Violence: The Search for Solutions, Doctor Bruce Perry calls the combination of trauma and modeling a “malignant combination of experiences”. He says this combination produces the most dangerous people in the world. Traumatic experiences include lack of critical early life nurturing, chaotic and cognitively impoverished environments, pervasive physical threat and persisting fear, all of which can produce attachment problems. The toxic modeling is: “watching the strongest, most violent in the home get what he wants, and seeing the same aggressive violent use of power idealized on television and at the movies. These violent offenders have been incubated in terror, waiting to be old enough to get ‘one of those guns’, waiting to be the one who controls, the one who takes, the one who hits, the one who can ‘make the fear, not take the fear.’”[xxx]

Shadow, Projection, and Inflation

Though attachment problems, trauma, and modeling are critical contributors to evil, they don’t begin to account for all the evil in the world. Not all abused become abusers; not all traumatized become traumatizers. Many of us are fortunate enough to have avoided trauma and to have the capacity to empathize with others. Yet most of us want to eliminate evil; and this may be our undoing.

Why is it that of all the creatures on the earth human beings are the only ones to wage war, commit genocide, and build weapons of mass destruction? Social psychologist Ernest Becker raised this question and then proposed an insightful answer in his book Escape from Evil.[xxxi]

Becker’s answer begins with recognizing that of all creatures, human beings seem to be the only ones who are conscious enough to be aware of their own mortality. This awareness gives rise to an anxiety that most people would rather not feel. So people cope by essentially choosing sides. They choose to align themselves with the side of life rather than of death. We could call this alignment an “immortality project.”

People align themselves with the side of life by seeking anything that promises to sustain their own lives, such as power or money. Alignment with power can have two faces: malignant power over others, as the power created by the writers of computer viruses, or the power to help, as in the power vested in the skills of a physician. Likewise, alignment with money can result in exploitation or philanthropy.

People also seek to align themselves with the side of life by seeking alignment with things that endure beyond a single individual’s lifetime. These can include making a “lasting” contribution to a field of art or knowledge. These can also include involvement with religious movements or specific cultures. These large enduring things in some way assure the perpetuation of the significance of the people associated with them, a kind of immortality.

From this point of view, a threat to a person’s culture, religion, or “lasting contributions” is also a threat to that person’s own immortality project. The immortality project must be defended at all costs. This is the reason that some conflicts in the world can become so intractable. It’s not just my country or tribe that is being threatened but the very significance of my own life. Becker says, “This is what makes war irrational: each person has the same hidden problem, and as antagonists obsessively work their cross purposes, the result is truly demonic.”[xxxii]

People also try to align themselves with the side of life by aligning themselves with what is “good.” This is because life is associated with “good” as opposed to death, which is “bad.” Becker argues that this alignment with good is a major cause of evil. To follow his reasoning it’s necessary to take a little digression to understand the psychological concepts of shadow, projection, and inflation.

The psychological shadow is the dark complement of the consciously expressed personality. It represents those personal qualities and characteristics that are unacceptable to the conscious ego. To borrow poet Robert Bly’s apt image, the shadow is like a sack that you drag behind you everywhere you go and into which you toss all the aspects of yourself that you are ashamed of and don’t want to look at.[xxxiii] The psychological shadow is much like the normal human shadow: everybody has one; when you face toward the light you can’t see your own shadow; and sometimes everybody else but you can see it.

Oftentimes these disowned contents of the psychological shadow are “projected” onto someone else, much as a movie projector sends images onto a blank screen. Then we see “out there” what is really “in here”. Typically the person we choose to project onto is not entirely innocent. He or she has some “hooks” on which we can hang our projections. If we’re ashamed of our own anger, we find a slightly irritated person and view her as totally enraged. That’s how projection of the shadow works.

Sometimes no “hooks” are needed. In a study of emotionally disturbed boys, researchers classified the boys along a continuum based on how much they displayed inappropriate aggression. Then the researchers showed each boy a series of photographs of people engaged in a variety of social situations and asked the boy what was going on in the photo. The most aggressive boys tended to see hostility and aggression in even the most innocuous photos.[xxxiv]

One of the classical psychological studies of violence, Hans Toch’s Violent Men, looked at police who deal with violent criminals and at the criminals themselves. Toch found that both groups tended to see themselves as well-meaning, innocent people who had to cope with arbitrary, provocative behavior by the other group.[xxxv]

In shadow projection our own unacknowledged anger, hatred, jealousy, selfishness or lust are falsely experienced as qualities possessed by another person or group. This usually results in viewing the other person or group as morally “lower” than ourselves. Michael Daniels of John Moores University in Liverpool explains that when the “evil” shadow is projected onto others, “these people will be defined and experienced as our moral enemy and we will thereby feel consciously justified in the harm that we might cause them, which is cleverly interpreted by the ego as deserved harm. In this way evil (undeserved harm) is seen as good (deserved harm). Such is the moral double-talk that projection can produce.”[xxxvi]

Inflation

Ever since the time of Aristotle, dramatic tragedy has shown how a person may be destroyed precisely because of attempting to be perfect. In classical terms, this tragic flaw of prideful self-concept was called hubris. The modern psychological term is inflation, which gives the apt image of a balloon that has size but not much substance.

Another way to understand inflation is to see it as an unconscious pattern of mythic dimensions that takes over and starts directing a person’s life. A person under the influence of inflation tends to view herself as “destined” to achieve a certain righteous end. The person is often unable to reflect on her experiences, thoughts, and behaviors, seeing her life rather as part of a pre-ordained pattern. As I am writing this, a sniper has killed eight people in the Washington, DC area. He left the following message at the scene of one of his shootings: “Dear Policeman. I am God.”[xxxvii]

A less extreme, but still dangerous, version of inflation is egotism or high but unstable self-esteem. An egotist believes himself or herself to be the absolute center of the universe around which all else revolves. Egotism leads people to value their own personal wealth, power, fame, body, possessions, and so on, above all else in the world.

“Are You Talking to Me?”

Research by Michael Kernis and others shows that people who have high but unstable self-esteem are especially prone to violent hostility.[xxxviii] They often seek out or deliberately provoke challenges to their egos, such as by getting into arguments in bars or insisting on deferential treatment by policemen. As soon as anyone shows any disrespect, questions them, or offends them in any way, they respond with violence.[xxxix]

People who have inflated self-esteem tend to receive a lot of feedback that threatens their self-image, simply because there is such a discrepancy between their image and reality. It is these people who tend to become dangerous in their attempts to ward off the threats to their self-image.

Such people often overestimate the degree to which the other person’s actions are meant as insults. Psychologist Roy Baumeister says: “This hypersensitivity to insults also makes it possible to understand what might otherwise appear to be senseless violence. A man who beats up his girlfriend or stabs a stranger in a bar might seem a malicious villain to observers. In his own eyes, however, he is merely defending himself against an attack. Many violent people believe that their actions were justified by the offensive acts of the person who became their victim.”[xl]

High but unstable self-esteem often accompanies major attachment problems. One expert who has studied people with antisocial personality disorders describes them as having a “narcissistic and grossly inflated view of their self-worth and importance.”[xli] They are a small minority of the population but commit a disproportionately large share of the crimes, especially violent crimes (by one estimate about half of the crimes in the United States and Canada).[xlii]

Threatened egotism is particularly susceptible to violence when the ego is threatened in the presence of some audience, as often happens on the world’s political stage.

People with inflated self esteem find it easy to see themselves as being on the side of “good.” Becker’s argument is that in the process of taking the side of life and of good, we project our shadow onto an enemy. Then we try to kill it.

Psychologist Baumeister reached a similar conclusion: a major cause of evil in the world is the idealistic attempt to do good. Some examples include the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years’ War in Europe in which Catholic and Protestant troops devastated much of Germany in attempting to wipe out the “evil” version of the Christian faith represented by the other side, murders committed to prevent the “evil” of abortion, and the Stalinist and Maoist purges in Russia and China. He points out that “studies of repressive governments repeatedly find that they perceive themselves as virtuous, idealistic, well-meaning groups who are driven to desperately violent measures to defend themselves against the overwhelmingly dangerous forces of evil.”[xliii]

In many ways the Nazis were idealists. The Nazi SS was composed of the elite, the noblest of the population, yet they committed the most horrible deeds. The Nazis wanted to transform their society to make it perfect. They wanted to root out the elements that they considered “evil”. Yet they almost never considered their own actions as evil, perhaps at worst an unfortunate necessity in carrying out a noble enterprise. [xliv]

The Nazis projected filth and evil onto the Jewish people and then tried to establish a “pure” state by eliminating the Jews. One of the professed motivations of racist lynchings in our own history was to maintain the “purity” of the white race. Many animal species, including coyotes, wolves, and prairie dogs have been irrationally persecuted by humans in the name of eliminating “varmints” and “filth” and “disease-carriers.” Enemies are “dirty.”

Historically nations have been aroused to war by the depiction of the enemy as pure evil. In cases of reciprocal violence, such as war, each side tends to see itself as the innocent victim and the other as the evil attacker.

How does this relate to our present situation? We’ve heard President Bush frame the war on terrorism as a war of “Good against Evil.” This is irrational and dangerous. No one person, let alone a nation, can be all “good.” Let the one who is without sin launch the first missile. Tellingly, Osama Bin Laden also frames the issue as one of Good against Evil: “These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of believers and the side of infidels, may God keep you away from them.”[xlv] Ayman al-Zawahiri said of his terrorist activities in Egypt, “we had to fight the government, which was against God’s Sharia and supported God’s enemies.”[xlvi] Each side sees nothing but evil in the other.

In our name President Bush has asked the question, “Why do they hate us?” In our name he has answered, “They hate our freedoms…our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” This answer reveals the undeniable and praiseworthy “light” of the United States of America. But it does not confront what we do not want to face: that our economy sucks the life blood out of much of the world in a disproportionate use of resources, that we refuse to work with other countries in trying to solve global warming or banning land mines, that our tax dollars have been spent spreading defoliants and depleted uranium over many areas of the world, that we helped kill over a million people in the Viet Nam war, that our country imprisons a greater percentage of its population than any other country on earth, that we are the world’s biggest arms merchant, that the most powerful economy in the world has somehow allowed the impoverishment of so many, that our media push violence as a solution to problems, that we have trained and equipped death squads and bullied many countries, that we apparently funded and trained Osama Bin Laden himself.

This is not to exonerate the other parties in our conflicts. Neither is it to say that we should tolerate terrorist attacks. It is simply to say that we also have some work to do. This work is not easy. It takes a certain amount of maturity. When I counsel people who are in conflict I suggest they apply the "80/20 rule": 80% of what the other person says about you may have no basis in fact, but probably 20% does have some basis. We need to take a look at the 20%. When we ask, “Why do they hate us?” we cannot get the answer by listening only to ourselves. Sometimes it’s helpful to get the perspective of a neutral third party, someone standing beside us who can yet see our shadow while we are mesmerized, moth-like, by our own light.

Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has offered us a third-party perspective. In a recent interview in Newsweek he says:

"The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken. Unqualified support of the Shah of Iran led directly to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Then the United States chose to arm and finance the [Islamic] mujahedin in Afghanistan instead of supporting and encouraging the moderate wing of the government of Afghanistan. That is what led to the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the most catastrophic action of the United States was to sabotage the decision that was painstakingly stitched together by the United Nations regarding the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace." [xlvii]

If we as a nation do not do our own “shadow” work, we will simply respond to violence with more of the same, thereby modeling violent behavior and creating trauma and attachment problems. We ourselves will perpetuate evil.

Once a person has decided that some other is evil, the decision helps justify behaviors that tend to belittle or punish the other. Such behaviors are precisely the behaviors that justify the other person in seeing the first person as evil. This reciprocal projection and dehumanization usually leads to a downward spiral.

Patterns of violence often do grow worse over time. The typical pattern for marital violence and violence among strangers is for minor insults and slights to escalate more or less slowly to physical attacks and violent aggression.[xlviii]

One of the reasons violence tends to spiral downward is that there is typically a huge discrepancy between the importance of the act to the perpetrator and to the victim. Baumeister calls this the magnitude gap.[xlix] For example, rape is a life-changing event for a woman, while it may be only a few moments of excitement and limited satisfaction to the rapist. Whether an SS officer murdered 25 or 30 Jews in a given day was a matter of additional work for the SS officer, but a matter of life and death for the 5 additional Jews.

The magnitude gap functions in a way that makes evil worsen over time. In a pattern of revenge, as occurs in terrorism and occupation, the roles of victim and perpetrator are constantly being reversed. The perpetrator (A) may think he has harmed the victim (B) only at a level of, say, one damage point. The victim (B) however feels harmed at a level of ten points. To exact tit-for-tat revenge, B perpetrates harm on A at a level of ten, which from B’s point of view may seem only fair, but from A’s point of view may feel like harm at a level of 100. This of course seems totally out of proportion and requires further revenge as A and B switch roles again.

Becker’s analysis offers a way to understand the instances of genocide and mass murder in human history. He suggests, chillingly, that one way to gain the illusion of psychological power over death is to exert physical control over life and death. He points out that the killings at the Nazi concentration camps increased dramatically toward the end of the war, when the Nazi’s began to have a sense that they might actually lose. Mass slaughter gave the illusion of heroic triumph over death/evil.

The School Playground

Attachment problems, trauma, modeling, and the heroic desire to triumph over evil can reinforce each other to perpetuate evil. There are, unfortunately, plenty of examples of this toxic reinforcement on the world stage today. There are also plenty of examples closer to home.

The following incident happened on the playground of a local public elementary school. Yesterday at recess a boy began dropping gravel over a wall onto the heads of some children below. The children asked him to stop. He refused. One thing led to another and soon two groups of boys were hurling fistfuls of gravel at each other. Fortunately no one was blinded by the time a teacher arrived to put a stop to the battle.

Several of the boys who had asked the first boy to stop were good kids who seldom got into trouble. Yet they wound up retaliating and soon became enmeshed in a major battle with the potential for someone getting seriously hurt. All the kids in this school have had some training in conflict resolution techniques. Competent and concerned teachers were available for help. What happened here?

The boy who started it all seems to meet many of the criteria for a child with attachment problems: no close friends, no remorse at hurting others, denial of any culpability. With little impulse control and no empathy he began tormenting some other boys. The modeling given by our society guides boys toward solving problems through violence. The boys who retaliated were trying to rid themselves of this “evil”, first by using words and then with fistfuls of stones. They were drawn into a war just as surely as good citizens are drawn into a war to destroy the evil enemy. I can imagine some innocent kid walking by getting hit with some stones from the “good” boys, getting angry and siding with the “evil” boy in order to get rid of the “evil” boys who had thrown stones at him.

On a larger scale, the interaction of the components of the axis of evil can lead to things like the Columbine massacre and the war in the Middle East.

Systemic Evil

The axis of evil, especially the heroic desire to eliminate evil, often produces systemic evil.

Many studies in the field of conflict resolution show that some conflicts are caused not by the people involved but by the system or social structure within which they are obliged to operate. Even if you were to insert two saints into such a system the saints would soon end up in conflict with each other. Such a conflict may harm others. The harm may be an unintended consequence. We could call the consequence simply “bad” if the people in the system are unaware that their behavior produces the consequence. If however the people in the system persist in their behavior despite awareness of the bad consequences, or persist in denying the bad consequences despite clear evidence, we would be justified in considering the perpetrators to be complicit in an evil of the system, or systemic evil.

Some people may find themselves participating in systemic evil despite their better judgment. For example, it’s clear that mass use of private automobiles is destroying the atmosphere, thereby harming ourselves, our neighbors, and future generations. It has been estimated that we would need nine additional planets’ worth of atmosphere to absorb the greenhouse gasses produced if all the world’s people pumped pollution aloft at the North American rate.”[l] Yet despite this awareness many people find it impossible to forgo the automobile when our infrastructure and land use patterns makes it so easy to drive and so difficult to walk or use public transportation. In our society, living simply is complicated.

An important example of systemic evil is the so-called “tragedy of the commons.” The “tragedy of the commons” expresses the idea that when everyone has access to a resource, say pasturage, then everyone will seek to maximize their own take, resulting in the depletion of the resource. Classic examples of this include depleted fisheries resulting from over-fishing and polluted air resulting from minimally regulated emissions from combustion, landfills, and industrial processes. The tragedy of the commons becomes the evil of the commons when those who would maximize their own take do so with the conscious understanding that their actions will deplete the commons and thereby harm others.

In Becker’s terms, people who maximize their own take are maximizing the “side of life” narrowly understood as their own welfare. They act to eliminate the “evil” of their own impoverishment. They ignore the fundamental fact of our human interrelatedness, a fact attested to by spiritual traditions throughout history.[li] This narrow view is possible only if one is ignorant or is defending against awareness with psychological denial and/or if one has basic attachment problems.

Scholar and poet Gary Snyder points out that in pre-modern times the commons did not devolve into tragedy because “the commons was a social institution which, historically, was never without rules and did not allow unlimited access.”[lii] In other words, the tragedy of the commons comes into existence only when the relevant relationships are missing or defective. Missing or defective relationships point to attachment problems with other people, with the environment, or with both.

The Force of Social Psychology in Systemic Evil

If Hitler had asked you, would you have executed a stranger? Most of us would like to think we would have said “no.” Yet a classic experiment by Stanley Milgram suggests that given certain social circumstances, nearly two-thirds of us would comply with this evil request. Milgram’s experiment involved subjects (“teachers”) who were instructed by an authority figure (the experimenter in a white lab coat) to deliver electric shocks of increasing intensity to a confederate (“learner”) who would scream in feigned pain and beg for release as the shocks reached high voltages. The majority of the subjects continued to deliver apparently painful and potentially lethal shocks, even when the “learner” had mentioned having a heart condition.[liii]

Milgram found that certain social psychological conditions supported obedience to evil authority. People were more likely to comply when the person giving the orders was close at hand and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure, when the authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution, when there were no role models for defiance of authority and when the victim was depersonalized or at a distance. (The first three of these conditions speak to the power of modeling. The last has to do with a capacity for empathy: an attachment issue.) If these conditions are present in a social system, they create the potential for systemic evil.

Another classic experiment shows clearly how much a social system can shape our behavior for good or evil. In the Stanford Prison Experiment a group of ordinary college students was divided at random into “prisoners” and “guards”. The “guards” kept watch over the “prisoners” at a simulated prison set up in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department building. Experimenter Philip Zimbardo had to end this two-week study after only six days, because in that brief period the social situation had begun to turn the “guards” into sadistic mental torturers, while the “prisoners” either broke down or succumbed “in cowed and mindless obedience.”[liv],[lv]

The key learning from both these experiments is that ordinary people—you or I—under certain social circumstances can be turned into perpetrators of evil. Here are some of the social dynamics and beliefs that may contribute:[lvi]

· Social norms such as ignoring the starving beggar in the street

· Customs such as female circumcision or murder of female offspring at birth

· Values of male sexual conquest or of personal success at any cost

· Beliefs such as the “just world” view that victims of circumstance have deserved their fate

· Myths of racial or ethnic superiority

· Religious doctrines such as that women or black people have no soul

· Political ideologies that are fascist, despotic or that permit slavery.

Our social circumstances can either inhibit evil or reinforce our acquiring evil as a habit. If evil behaviors bring some sort of rewards, albeit meager, the behaviors will be reinforced. After enough reinforcement, the behaviors become part of a person’s self-concept, for example: “I am a person who gets what I want through violence.” In his book The Roots of Evil, Ervin Staub shows that patterns of evil behavior often begin with relatively minor harmful acts such as name-calling or ostracism. When these behaviors bring satisfaction to the perpetrators, further and more extreme acts of harm becomes more likely. Staub suggests that one of the most effective ways we can work to prevent great evil is by speaking or acting against the smaller evils that precede it.[lvii],[lviii]

So, What is “Evil”?

In some ways evil is quite human, and quite understandable. It has deep roots in our mental processes and social conditions. This has been proven by a huge amount of research. There are undoubtedly other factors at work. We know for example that all over the world the bulk of violence is perpetrated by young adult males. Yet understanding the malignant combination of attachment problems, trauma, modeling, shadow, projection, inflation and social influences can help us see evil in a new light. Gene Knudsen Hoffman, therapist and international peace worker says, “an enemy is one whose story we have not heard.”

Instead of an inflated heroic effort to destroy evil, we can work on relationships through prevention of child abuse, support for the development of attachment skills, especially in the first three years of life, parenting skills training, and relationship skills training (including relationships with the natural world). We can work to ensure that every child feels part of a loving community, and receives education in diversity skills and tolerance for ambiguity. We can encourage positive role models in the media and from our civic and business leaders. As a nation and as individuals we can reclaim our shadow projections. Of course such approaches are not replacements for firm action against an imminent threat. They are ways to reduce the potential for evil over the long haul.

Understanding the maleficent seven psychological factors gives us the opportunity to make wiser political and social decisions. We must always work to thwart evil actions. Force will sometimes still be necessary. But if we want to deal with the root causes of evil, we cannot rely on warfare or violence. Any money or lives expended there would simply be squandered. What’s worse, we would end up creating more of the evil we sought to destroy.

Chris Hoffman is an ecopsychologist, professional counselor, and organization development consultant. He is the author of The Hoop and the Tree: A Compass for Finding a Deeper Relationship with All Life (Council Oak Books), recently published in German as Lebensbaum und Lebenskreis (dtv - Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag). More information is available at www.hoopandtree.org.

NOTES:

[i] Mitchell, Stephen. (1988). Tao te ching: A new english version with foreword and notes. New York: Harper & Row. 69.

[ii] Axelrod, Robert. (1990). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Penguin. (First published 1984).

[iii] Bowlby, John. (1973) Separation: Anxiety and Anger. New York: Basic Books.

[iv] Kohut, H. (1978). The search for the self: Selected writings of Heinz Kohut, 1950-1978. Vol 1. Madison, CN: International Universitites Press.

[v] Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge, New York & Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

[vi] Kohut, H. (1978). The search for the self: Selected writings of Heinz Kohut, 1950-1978. Vol 1. Madison, CN: International Universitites Press.

[vii] Fonagy, P. (1999). Male perpetrators of violence against women: An attachment theory perspective. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1, 7 – 27.

[viii] Kaplan, Robert D. (2000). The lawless frontier. The Atlantic online. September, www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/kaplan.htm.

[ix] Fonagy, P. (1999). Male perpetrators of violence against women: An attachment theory perspective. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1, 7 – 27.

[x] van der Kolk, B. A. (1989) The compulsion to repeat the trauma: re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12 (2) 389-411.

[xi] van der Kolk, B. A. (1989) The compulsion to repeat the trauma: re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12 (2) 389-411.

[xii] van der Kolk, B. A. (1989) The compulsion to repeat the trauma: re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12 (2) 389-411.

[xiii] Levine, Peter A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. 222.

[xiv] Miller, Alice. (1983). For your own good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux. 240.

[xv] www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/alice_miller2.html

[xvi] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 49.

[xvii] Wright, Lawrence. (2002). The man behind bin laden. The New Yorker, September 16, 56-85.

[xviii] Perry. B.D. (1997). Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the ‘cycle of violence’,. In: J. Osofsky (Ed.), Children, youth and violence: The search for solutions (pp. 124-148). New York: Guilford Press.

[xix] www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/alice_miller2.html

[xx] Gottfredson, M. R. & Hirschi, T. (1990). A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

[xxi] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 14.

[xxii] Perry. B.D. (1997). Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the ‘cycle of violence’,. In: J. Osofsky (Ed.), Children, youth and violence: The search for solutions (pp. 124-148). New York: Guilford Press,

[xxiii] Kaplan, Robert D. (2000). The lawless frontier. The Atlantic online. September, www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/kaplan.htm

[xxiv] Harman, Danna. (2002). Liberia: From oasis of freedom to ongoing civil war. The Christian Science Monitor. June 12, 2002. 7.

[xxv] Cialdini, Robert B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

[xxvi] Eron, Leonard D. (1999). Effects of television violence on children. Testimony before Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Regarding Safe Harbor Hours in TV Programming, Senator Ernest Hollings, Chair. May 18. See also: www.4children.org/news/1-97/toxl.htm

[xxvii] Emery, Fred & Emery, Merrelyn. (1975). A choice of futures: to enlighten or inform. Canberra: Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University. See also: Emery, Merrelyn. (1985). The social and neurophysiological effects of television and their implications for marketing practice. Doctoral dissertation. Australian National University. Canberra.

[xxviii] Connolly, P. Smith, A. & Kelly, B. (2002). Too young to notice? The cultural and political awareness of 3-6 year olds in northern ireland. Belfast: Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.

[xxix] Pollack, William. (1998). Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York: Random House. xxi, 11.

[xxx] Perry. B.D. (1997). Incubated in terror: Neurodevelopmental factors in the ‘cycle of violence’,. In: J. Osofsky (Ed.), Children, youth and violence: The search for solutions (pp. 124-148). New York: Guilford Press.

[xxxi] Becker, Ernest. (1975). Escape from evil. New York: The Free Press.

[xxxii] Becker, Ernest. (1975). Escape from evil. New York: The Free Press. 109.

[xxxiii] Bly, Robert. (1988). A little book on the human shadow. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

[xxxiv] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 43-44.

[xxxv] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 91.

[xxxvi] Daniels, Michael. (2001). Towards a transpersonal psychology of evil. Transpersonal Psychology Review 5(1), 15-27.

[xxxvii] Campbell, Kim. (2002). As sniper hunt grows, role of media blurs. The Christian Science Monitor. October 10. 4.

[xxxviii] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 148-149.

[xxxix] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 149.

[xl] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 45.

[xli] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 138.

[xlii] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 137-138.

[xliii] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

[xliv] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 34, 38.

[xlv] As Reported by USATODAY.com on Sunday, October 7, 2001

[xlvi] Wright, Lawrence. (2002). The man behind bin laden. The New Yorker, September 16, 56-85.

[xlvii] Newsweek, September 10, 2002. Also: http://www.msnbc.com/news/806174.asp?0bl=-0&cp1=1#BODY

[xlviii] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 283.

[xlix] Baumeister, Roy F. (1997). Evil: Inside human cruelty and violence. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. 18.

[l] Ryan, John C., & Durning Alan Thien. (1997). Stuff: The secret life of everyday things. Seattle: Northwest Environment Watch. 67. See also their article in The Futurist, March, 1998. p. 28.

[li] Hoffman, Chris. (2000). The hoop and the tree: A compass for finding a deeper relationship with all life. San Francisco: Council Oak Books.

[lii] Snyder, Gary. (1990). The practice of the wild. San Francisco: North Point Press. 35.

[liii] Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. Hew Yourk: Harper & Row.

[liv] Haney, C., Banks, W.C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology & Penology, 1, 69-97. See also: Zimbardo, P.G. (1999). Stanford Prison Experiment Slide Show [On-line]. Available http://www.prisonexp.org. And: Zimbardo, P. (2002). The psychology of evil [On-line] Available http://www.psichi.org/content/publications/eye/volume/vol_5/5_1/zimbardo.asp.

[lv] Zimbardo, P.G., Haney, C., Banks, W.C., & Jaffe, D. (1973, April 8). The mind is a formidable jailer: A Pirandellian prison. The New York Times Magazine, 122, 38-60.

[lvi] Daniels, Michael. (2001). Towards a transpersonal psychology of evil. Transpersonal Psychology Review 5(1), 15-27.

[lvii] Staub, E. (1989). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge, New York & Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

[lviii] Daniels, Michael. (2001). Towards a transpersonal psychology of evil. Transpersonal Psychology Review, 5(1), 15-27.

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