Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin
This is interesting. The conversation about "Evil" and who is "Mr Evil" has gone on for two days now. You never know what will have legs on a thread.
The three above were thugs who rose through the Communist organizations they belonged to. They had proved to be adept at rising in a bureaucracy. Hitler formed and led his own out of the various Nationalist organizations that were in Munich at the time of his rise.
None of them walked around wringing their hands and saying, "I'm Evil! I'm Evil!" They all thought they were fine fellows who were leading their countries to a better place. Anybody killed was killed for the "Good of the country."
But we all love to read about and discuss evil people. "George Washington" types bore us. Sinners are much more fun. And the more they sin, the more we enjoy them.
The better the villain, the better the theatre. The handsome hero with his derring-do is fine, but his opponent had better be good. The best "Bond" movies are the ones with the best "bad guys."
When I get cynical about it, I am always reminded of the "Devils" speech in "Don Juan in Hell," the third act of "Man and Superman," by G B Shaw. It reads well, but Charles Laughton would bring you out of your seat when he did it.
Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. What is his religion? An excuse for hating me. What is his law? An excuse for hanging you. What is his morality? Gentility! An excuse for consuming without producing. What is his art? An excuse for gloating over pictures of slaughter. What are his politics? Either the worship of a despot because a despot can kill, or parliamentary cockfighting.
I spent an evening lately in a certain celebrated legislature, and heard the pot lecturing the kettle for its blackness, and ministers answering questions. When I left I chalked up on the door the old nursery saying "Ask no questions and you will be told no lies." I bought a sixpenny family magazine, and found it full of pictures of young men shooting and stabbing one another.
I saw a man die: he was a London bricklayer's laborer with seven children. He left seventeen pounds club money; and his wife spent it all on his funeral and went into the workhouse with the children next day. She would not have spent sevenpence on her children's schooling: the law had to force her to let them be taught gratuitously; but on death she spent all she had. Their imagination glows, their energies rise up at the idea of death, these people: they love it; and the more horrible it is the more they enjoy it. |
