Evil, Alive Posted by Michael Signer

Probably anyone in the Washington area who read the front page of their Washington Post this morning experienced the same sensation I did, reading the right-hand column over my coffee -- a queasy, flat, cold feeling of observing, at a distance, evil.  Zacarias Moussaoui, in case you missed it, testified on his own behalf yesterday, and what he said was so chilling it's just cold:

Taking the stand for the second time at his death-penalty trial, Moussaoui calmly and matter-of-factly said that the sobbing Sept. 11 survivors and family members who testified against him were "disgusting," that the testimony of one man who crawled out of his burning Pentagon office was "pathetic" and that executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was "the greatest American."

I'm not sure if there's really much of a point going into this.  This gets into that gray area of whether zealotry is a matter of rational conviction, filtered through unusual mania, and ending in unusual conclusions, or begins with an insane mindset.  He did say:

"If I testify truthfully, I know that God will help me and I will not be executed," he said.

Is this man trying to propagandize (as he claimed)? 

"This is what I call psychological war or propaganda," he said.

To become a martyr?  What could motivate someone to behave like this, when his situation is so futile?  Why would he hate so much?

Hannah Arendt wrote eloquently of the banality of evil in reference to the Nazi Adolf Eichmann.  But her point was that Eichmann was essentially normal, that evil was attainable through ordinary processes, and thus had to be guarded against that much more vigilantly.

Reading the Moussaoui story, I wondered about that.  Is this banal?  Or extraordinary?  I guess the real stakes of the question for me are this:  is it worth understanding Moussaoui?  Does he deserve our study and comprehension?  Or is it more powerful just to dismiss him as an outlier, a speck rubbing the underbelly of the human condition? 

I think he is extraordinary, not ordinary.  What he represents -- the mania and eccentrism, the willingness to buck and torment civil society, and the absorption in a hatred that not only dehumanizes its objects but alters the souls of its bearers -- are the worst that a human can get.  And I pray that his audience -- all of them -- will grasp how warped and beyond the pale this is, and that he will effectively propagandize against himself.

But then that's just hope speaking.

Comments

[Jack H]

One of the differences between Eichmann and Moussaoui is that Eichmann was banal only after his cause was lost (if it is lost - what with the Islamist revival of Hitler's dream). Eichmann at Nazi rally would have been as fervent and dogmatic and "enthused" as Moussaoui still is. On those rare occasions when a fanatic is not on his topic, he seems quite normal. We are not children, to believe that the way people seem is the way they are. We are not judged by our best moments, but our worst.

Moussaoui still has hope. He has faith. Even if his particular and rather inane hope, that he will not be executed, is dashed, even in the death chamber he will have the greater hope that his cause will prevail. Eichmann didn’t have that, in the end.

You’ve charactericed M as extraordinary. I disagree. He is a typical zealot. That he would die, and kill, for his cause is no rare thing in human history. He anticipates a greater reward. I wouldn’t honor him by saying he has the courage of his convictions, but I will say that, in terms of universal human psychology, it is only his cause, and not his fervor, that is distressing. I’ve just written something tangental to this, on my own wonderful blog:

http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2006/04/pornography.html

and while I’m at it,

http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2006/04/lion-falters.html

I do go on, though.

Best,

J

[Scott Brison]

"Well Mr. Moussaoui, if you look around this courtroom today — every person in this room … (is) free to go anyplace they want. They can go outside. They can feel the sun. They can smell the fresh air. They can hear the birds," Brinkema said.

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