The lines most cited in Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech were those about evil: “Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism--it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
These lines won approbation from both liberals and conservatives. Former Clinton aide Bill Galston praised them as an example of Obama’s “moral realism.” According to neoconservative Bob Kagan, Obama didn’t “shy away from the Manichaean distinctions that drive self-described realists (and Europeans) crazy.” Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said the lines marked the speech as “very American.” “He didn’t speak as kind of the citizen of the world, as sometimes he has in the past,” Gerson added approvingly.
I am not a self-described realist, and I am a Chicagoan by birth, yet I don’t care for these lines. While I don’t object to the idea of just war, and have supported the various wars that Obama cited in his speech, and wouldn’t balk at calling Al Qaeda or Hitler evil, I think Obama ventured onto dangerous terrain by invoking the existence of evil as a justification for war. That kind of argument suggests neither moral realism nor prudent idealism, but the crusade-like, messianic foreign policy--pitting good against evil--that got the country into so much trouble during the last administration.
At the risk of appearing pedantic, I want to say something about the use of the term “evil,” which has a different linguistic status than terms like “bad,” “naughty,” “mean,” or “nasty.” Unlike these other terms, the term “evil” has a religious connotation suggesting that people are possessed by it. Moreover, when one says there is “evil in the world,” one seems to be referring to a something and not merely a passing quality or affliction--such as, say, unhappiness. As a result, saying there is evil carries a certain weight of argument.
At the same time, there is no fixed meaning for the term “evil.” Like the term “beautiful”--which expresses high praise for how someone looks but doesn’t imply whether they are a blond or a brunette--the term “evil” expresses condemnation of an individual or institution without implying clearly what they have done wrong. Within a community, or nation, there can be agreement at the very extremes about the term’s use--for instance, most Americans believe Hitler was evil--but little agreement on most examples. For instance, a considerable number of liberals, but very few, if any, conservatives, would describe Dick Cheney as evil. Some wacky conservatives think Obama himself is “the epitome of evil in every sense of the word.”
The proper question to ask about this term is not what it means--as if there were a distinct substance that it referred to--but the kind of activities or individuals that it is used to condemn. Instead of a defining list, there is a set of rotating attributes. These would include, for instance, the willful disregard of other people’s lives and treating a race, ethnic group, or sex as less than human. Evil is also often associated with the notion that a particular individual or regime is unredeemable--not subject to change by persuasion or conventional inducement. But none of these attributes is defining. One can always find counter-examples. For instance, some people might believe that the financier Bernie Madoff is evil without thinking that he is beyond rehabilitation. Or one can think Stalin was evil without thinking that he wasn’t amenable to negotiation.
In conversation, calling someone evil usually indicates that an argument has gotten out of hand. It’s the verbal equivalent of hitting someone. In foreign policy discussions, it often indicates an attempt to cut short rather than to advance an argument. Like a comparison to Hitler, the attribution of evil to a leader or regime doesn’t add a new detail to a discussion, but usually stops it in its place. Implicitly, a speaker is saying, “He’s evil--what more needs to be said?” In this sense, the term possesses weight, but not substance.
Outside the context of a particular argument, calling a nation or regime evil doesn’t entail any particular action in relationship to it. It’s not like saying someone has pneumonia or swine flu. A variety of people in the United States and Europe could agree that a regime (say, that of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov) is evil without agreeing on any action that should be take in relation to it. But the term’s iconic status means is that if someone does try to justify a course of action by invoking evil, it becomes more difficult than usual to reject that course of action. It appears to justify, say, military intervention, without the person advocating intervention having to go into the details of why, for instance, the U.S. needs to overthrow Saddam or defeat the Taliban.
Thanks for taking on this subject in a thoughtful way. I've been uncomfortable with the use of the word by Presidents since Reagan's (in my view) asinine "Evil Empire" reference to the Soviet Union. Accusing a country, political group, and/or it's leaders of being evil can't help if we need to negotiate with them at some point in the future. If you call someone evil, they are unlikely to reflect on it and think to themselves "You know, he's right - I really am evil." Instead the response is likely to be anger and defensiveness. The only thing one accomplishes with the word is to rouse the support of a simple-minded, angry mob.
Thanks for taking on this subject in a thoughtful way. I've been uncomfortable with the use of the word by Presidents since Reagan's (in my view) asinine "Evil Empire" reference to the Soviet Union. Accusing a country, political group, and/or it's leaders of being evil can't help if we need to negotiate with them at some point in the future. If you call someone evil, they are unlikely to reflect on it and think to themselves "You know, he's right - I really am evil." Instead the response is likely to be anger and defensiveness. The only thing one accomplishes with the word is to rouse the support of a simple-minded, angry mob.
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