Dark Days Ahead: Resisting the Language of Good and Evil in the Face of Terror
In the face of horrific human suffering, our faculty of language often escapes us. Trying to earnestly convey a sense of grief, of pain, and, most importantly, of empathy, can too often be lost in the use of language between common people. Speaking at the memorial address for the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shared this sentiment in an effort to remember those who were murdered, and to comfort and console their loved ones who survived them:
“What words adequately express the pain and suffering of 50 men, women and children lost, and so many injured? What words capture the anguish of our Muslim community being the target of hatred and violence? What words express the grief of a city that has already known so much pain?”
In her 925-word address to the memorial attendants, the people of New Zealand, and the larger globe, Ardern described the terrorist attack as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”. However, in describing the horrific and despicable actions of the gunman, 28-year old Australian Brenton Tarrant, Ardern chose not to use the word “evil”. This curious observation raises some key questions: What reasoning exists for resisting the language of good and evil in the face of terror? Are acts of terror and terrorism fundamentally evil? And, perhaps most importantly, do we as human beings have a moral responsibility to use the language of good and evil in the face of human suffering?
As philosopher Richard J. Bernstein argues in “Are Arendt’s Reflections on Evil Still Relevant?”, the discourse of good and evil in politics reflects a dangerous mentality: “a mentality that is drawn to absolutes, simplistic and clear dichotomies, and alleged moral certainties” (66). This mentality encourages the conception of absolute evil, which Bernstein considers to be profoundly anti-political. For Bernstein, characterising someone as “evil” is “a cynical political weapon to stifle critical thinking and obscure complex issues” (66). The language of good and evil manipulates people by appealing to and playing on their worst fears and anxieties. Bernstein sees the current or modern use of the language of good and evil as a form of corruption in contemporary politics.
In this way, we might view Ardern’s reluctance and hesitancy to use the word “evil” as a desire to cultivate a less politicised discourse in the wake of horrific tragedy, an effort not to cheapen and manipulate public opinion. However, as philosopher Susan Neiman argues in Evil in Modern Thought (2015), in choosing to acknowledge evil actions as evil, reluctance is not the same as refusal: “Dividing evils into greater and lesser, and trying to weigh them, is not just pointless but impermissible. To call something evil is to say that it defies justification and balance. Evils should not be compared, but they should be distinguished” (286).
For Neiman, terrorism and acts of terror produce reactions that traditional forms of morality aim to prevent — namely fear and death — through the use of malice, intent and forethought: “Terror is meant to strike us dumb. Finding words with which to face it is an act [of] reconstruction… We face new forms of danger. But they are not, I submit, new forms of evil. The difficulties of coping with terrorism are not conceptual difficulties” (283). In light of this, we then must ask: Are acts of terror and terrorism fundamentally evil?
At the level of a strict definition, we can conceive of evil actions as being those which are profoundly immoral and wicked. Within conceptions of morality, evil is then typically associated with actions that are dishonourable, corrupt, sinful and morally wrong. In the preface to his poem “The Lisbon Earthquake,” Voltaire discusses the nature of evil: “If the question concerning physical evil ever deserves the attention of men, it is in those melancholy events which put us in mind of the weakness of our nature” (5). For many people, the destruction and suffering wrought by the 1755 Lisbon earthquake was previously unfathomable in its scope and intensity. As a type of melancholy event, the ferocity and force of natural disasters like the Lisbon earthquake stretched Voltaire’s ability to comprehend and understand how evil and suffering could persist in the world. For Voltaire, “man’s understanding is as weak as his life is miserable,” and “there is evil as well as good on the earth; [where] no philosopher has ever been able to explain the nature of moral and physical evil” (7).
On this question of moral and physical evil, the character of Ivan in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880) uses the suffering of children as an example to explain the nature of evil and suffering. For Ivan, human beings represent innate cruelty in our ability to inflict pain and misery on others: “a beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel” (Dostoevsky 311). Describing humanity’s proclivity for violence and hatred, enacted through rape, murder and infanticide, Ivan argues that if the suffering and torture of innocent children is allowed to exist, then the truth of God’s existence is to be rejected for this represents the ultimate evil: “I don’t want anyone to suffer anymore. And if the sufferings of children have gone to replenish the sum of sufferings that was needed in order to purchase the truth, then I declare in advance that no truth, not even the whole truth, is worth such a price” (Dostoevsky 320). For Neiman:
Thinkers like Voltaire raged at God for His failure to uphold the elementary moral rules human beings try to follow. Children should not be suddenly and brutally tormented; something as big as the difference between life and death should not depend on something as small as chance. Natural disaster is blind to moral distinctions that even crude justice draws. Terrorism deliberately defies them. (282)
This idea of deliberate defiance speaks to the malice, intent and forethought in acts of terrorism mentioned above. Likewise, Nietzsche saw a fundamental distinction between “bad” and “evil” actions; namely, of “evil” as being a more direct personification and antagonistic view of human action: “how different these words ‘bad’ and ‘evil’ are, although they are both apparently the opposite of the same concept ‘good.’ But it is not the same concept ‘good’: one should ask rather precisely who is ‘evil’ in the sense of the morality of ressentiment” (“First Essay” 40). Central to Nietzsche’s notion of ressentiment was that of bad conscience, where the internalisation of fear, anger and distrust in fellow human beings, breeds a cycle of violence and hatred:
All instincts that do not discharge themselves externally now turn inward — this is what I call the internalisation of human beings… Those terrible bulwarks with which the state apparatus protected itself against the old instincts of freedom — punishments above all belong to these bulwarks — managed to turn all those instincts of the wild, free, roaming human beings backward against human beings themselves. Enmity, cruelty, lust in persecution, in assault, in change, in destruction — all of that turning against the possessors of such instincts: that is the origin of ‘bad conscience.’ (“Second Treatise” 273)
What’s clear from analysing these thinkers, is that evil actions and how we perceive of them in terms of morality results more from the intentionality of human beings — through casual agency, choice and will — than any underlying ontological distinction in the world between good and evil. However, while Ardern might have been hesitant to label Tarrant’s actions in Christchurch as “evil,” other commentators were not so reluctant. In a 74-page manifesto uploaded online shortly before his attacks began, Tarrant described his motivations, rationale and utter lack of empathy and remorse for his actions. Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Koziol notes that while “[Tarrant] made several references to Australia, there is little in the document to suggest an explanation for his evil actions lies in some direct experience of the country or its politics”.
Throughout his manifesto, Tarrant “regurgitated familiar objections to immigration and multiculturalism, and [lamented] the “decaying” culture of the white, European West”. The gunman also fervently believed in a conspiracy theory known as ‘The Great Replacement’ (also the title of his manifesto), “a dominant concept of the extreme right, focusing on a paranoia that white people are being wiped out through migration and violence”. In response, Tarrant chose to target innocent Muslims who he saw as foreign invaders, hoping to ignite a racial war for the ethno-nationalist cause. Curiously, in his manifesto, Tarrant also chooses not to use the word “evil” in describing the perception of his actions, or the actions of others. However, Tarrant does use the ‘idea’ of morality in rather nebulous and shaky terms (somewhat echoing Ivan’s sentiment for moral relativism in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov):
If you lose, no matter how you acted in your loss; whether that is heroically, cowardly, violently, peacefully, virtuously or criminally, if your enemies are writing the history, they will describe you as a devil. Do not fret on the manner of how victory is achieved, all methods are possible, in the face of ethnic genocide, all morality is ambiguous.
In the closing pages of “The Great Replacement,” Tarrant’s final declaration is: “All I know is the certainty of my will and the necessity of my cause”. What’s clear is that Tarrant had the personal will and motivation to carry out his crime, and his manifesto reads like the written confession of malice, intention and forethought which Neiman uses to characterise acts of terror and terrorism. What the events of the Christchurch mosque shootings and Jacinda Ardern’s address as a response to them show us, is that the use of the language of good and evil is not necessary or contingent for our understanding of what constitutes evil actions. As Neiman insists:
Those who care about resisting evils must be able to recognise them however they appear. Surrendering the word evil to those who perceive only its simplest forms leaves us fewer resources with which to approach the complex ones. Evils can be acknowledged as evils without insisting that evil has an essence. (286)
Recognising that acts of terrorism are fundamentally evil ensures that we uphold our moral responsibility to use the language of good and evil with nuance and consideration, as a form of respect and remembrance to all the victims of terrorism around the globe. In her closing remarks to the memorial address, Ardern insists that the answer to the problem of evil and terror lies within our very humanity:
“These stories, they now form part of our collective memories. They will remain with us forever. They are us. But with that memory comes a responsibility. A responsibility to be the place that we wish to be. A place that is diverse, that is welcoming, that is kind and compassionate. Those values represent the very best of us.”
Works Cited
Bernstein, Richard J. “Are Arendt’s Reflections on Evil Still Relevant?” The Review of Politics, vol. 70, 2008, pp. 64–76. Cambridge Core, doi:10.1017/S003467050800017X. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. 1880. Translated by David McDuff, 2nd ed., Penguin, 2003.
Neiman, Susan. Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. 2002. Princeton UP, 2015.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Second Treatise: ‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad Conscience,’ and Related Matters.” Excerpt from On the Genealogy of Morality. Beyond Good and Evil / On the Genealogy of Morality. 1887. Translated by Adrian Del Caro, vol. 8, Stanford UP, 2014, pg. 246–85.
Voltaire. “The Lisbon Earthquake.” The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version. 1904. Translated by William F. Fleming, vol. 36, Gordon P, 1975, pg. 5–18.
