Nathan,
I don't shy away from the word evil. I just don't thibk it precludes attempts at explanation. On the contrary I think it equires them. Incidentally, I think that evil can operate on a very small scale, one one one. It doesn't require a large canvas. Unfortunately I have encountered some of that small scale evil in my work. However, this is by the way. Now, when I say we must attempt to explain evil, e.g., Sept 11, on a far greater scale, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, etc., do not entertain the Laplacean conceit that if we knew all the laws of nature and society and the initial states of the main actors, that we could predict what would happen. I don't even think that prediction and explanation are symmetrical, and I don't think that are any social laws that are more than rough and ready. I also believe in "singular" causation--one-off explanations of single events ("The cup spilled because I knocked into it"--there are no laws, not even worthwhile statistical ones linking cup-spillings with knockings-into.). So just because some event is unique, nonreplicable, and the product of extreme circumstances does not mean that it is inexplicable. Indeed, your Durkheimian references to extreme circumstances is a sort of explanation.
But I do think that it is absolutely necessary to make an effort to understand what happened, precisely because we condemn it. One might take as models, for instance, Hannah Arendt on Nazism (Eichmann in Jerusalem), or Raul Hillberg or Arno Mayer on the Holocaust, or Seymour Hersch or Frances Fitzgerald on Vietnam. One might, indeed, go back to Marx on the suppression of the Commune ("This civilization and this justice reveals itself as lawless savragry and barbarous revenge."). --None of whom could be considered "soft" on the evil that was their target.
I think you are compitted to the background framework of metaphysics that anti-determinists share with hard determinists, that if all of our actions can be causally explained, it must be the case that we are not responsible for them. The HD say, so we are not responisble. You antideterminists say, so not all of our actions are explicable. Interestingly, you depart from Kant, for whom our moral actions were inexplicable because they are free to argue that it our worst actions that are inexplicable, so we may feel more comfotable condemning them.
But it is not true that to understand all (even if we could) is to excuse all. I think of the great Hungarian journalsit Gitta Serelny,who wrote a magnificant book, _Into That Darkness_, based on interviews with Franz Stangl, Kommandant of Treblinka. Shee told him, "I want to understand _why._ You understand that nothing you say will ever change one iota what I think of what you did. But I must know _why_, and I will tell your story fairly." She did too, and it's about the best book I know on Nazism. From your perspectivem it was a colossal waste of time that would have been better spent simply reviling Stangl and the Nazis. But they, you see, we'd know less.
jks
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
>
>
> > I am flabbergasted. The firsttime I read your post excerpted below, I
> > thought you were making some such subtle point as, there si no
>sociological
> > explanation of what tips a few people over theedge to do evil (or indeed
> > good), because sociology is statistical. That's psychology, not
>sociology,
> > maybe.
> > But on rereading, I see that you actually actively reject the attempt to
> > explain great evil, apparently on the theory that evil would be excused
>or
> > justified or condoned if it could be explained.
>
>I know- you and Doug find it odd that a sociologist-trained person rejects
>sociological explanations in any situation, but at some point, social
>theories that depend not just statistically but ultimately ontologically on
>some idea of the mean of human nature fail in the face of extreme actions.
>
>Social science would love to reach the Newtonian conceit that if we could
>just understand the initial positions of each cosmic billiard ball, we
>could
>predict every future position and alignment of matter. But that conceit
>has
>failed in the face of quantum indeterminancy and complexity theory of
>shattered patterns.
>
>A good student of Durkheim will note that extreme conditions will make
>certain anti-social acts, from suicide to crime, more likely. Fair enough.
>But that is an analysis of irrationality being bred in extreme conditions,
>not of linking particular causes with particular effects.
>
>There is no explanation for any single act of irrationality or, to step
>away
>from Durkheim, evil that suddenly is unleashed at the extreme. Such acts
>of
>extreme irrational hatred and self-destruction are not within any rational
>calculus of likely cause and effect, of game theory, or any other approach
>to understanding particular conflict.
>
>There is not some continuum between protest rally and mass murder in
>understanding the escalation of conflict-- there are disjunctures where the
>bell curve of action jumps the tracks, crashes into chaos, and the actions
>we see in the world are irrational and unexplainable by any useful social
>science calculus.
>
>I insist on the word evil, much to Doug and yours chagrin, because it
>captures exactly the inexplicable nature of certain acts that go beyond the
>limits of the typical means-ends dillemmas we all face to a completely
>different realm outside normal human calculation of right and wrong acts.
>
>I am a rationalist but one who, through rational understanding, recognizes
>the limits of that very rationality. There are human acts that are
>unexplainable- we deal with them, we may even try to reduce the conditions
>of misery that increase the sum total of irrational extremes, but that does
>not mean there is any rational explanation of any particular act on that
>fringe, since the form it may take is chaotic and unknowable. Any nominal
>motives or explanations are merely gloss, like kids seizing on computer
>games or heavy metal music in clothing their school massacres.
>
>All that said, I've clearly argued that the left response to the talk of
>war
>should be to argue for broad solutions to alleviate human misery, to
>isolate
>would-be mass murderers from the support networks that make the scale of
>their damage possible, and so on. One thing extreme misery does is make
>otherwise rational people not recognize the evil and irrational among us
>and
>thereby helps them seize power and influence.
>
>Sociology can therefore explain Nazi sympathizers but not Hitler or his
>inner circle. Similarly, sociology can explain Palestinians cheering in
>the
>streets of Nablus, but not Bin Laden and his network.
>
>While I find leftwing attempts to "explain" the causes of Sept 11
>ridiculous
>and offensive, I find those "explanations" of the Right equally sad and
>offensive. A bit more security on our airlines - start with paying more
>than minimum wage to the security guards is a start - is a smart response
>but the global hysteria seeking explanation of THIS event is doomed.
>
>I don't believe in God but most religious thought is as easily understood
>as
>parables of grappling with the unknowable in life. "Evil"- or if you
>prefer statistically chaotic activity of a negative form - happens. The
>test is not explaining it or, to a certain extent, even stopping it
>(although its effects can be limited), but in how we ourselves confront it,
>whether matching it with our own irrational hatred or rising above and
>recognizing our better humanity.
>
>I think there is plenty of opportunity by the Left to encourge the latter,
>but harping on ultimately unexplainable causes is a dead end and far more
>likely to awaken the former.
>
>Nathan Newman
>
>
>
>
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