| Getting back to the evil question, the thing that ties together Nazism, Communism, Islamic totalitarianism, and other evil political cults, is murderous fanaticism. No one cared if the tales about Jewish bankers, bourgeois exploitation, or the Great Satan were true, they served as a conduit of rage, and enabled one to focus one's discontent. It was a relief to find the enemy and plot against him. It is the irresponsibility and willingness to rush to judgment that is evil; the resistance to acknowledging complexity or considering what you might be culpable for if wrong; the eagerness to surrender responsibility and merge with the group, or to consider how much of one's lot might be one's own fault, or no more than bad luck; in sum, the embrace of murder as a first resort in order to exalt oneself and one's fate........ |
