Response to Dallmayr

Fred Dallmayr and I share concern with the problem of evil and willingness to call it by its name. In the end, this is more important than what divides us, the issue of how best to conceptualize its origins. It is with this in mind that I respond to his thoughtful comments. Dallmayr's basic strategy seems to be to force me into the internalsources-of-evil camp, labeling my many references to interaction as concession, ambivalence, and so forth. He then calls attention to the importance of external sources, arguing that an explanation that ignores these sources cannot be adequate. In fact, this is characteristic of number of debates within political theory lately. An author's emphasis on complexity, subtlety, interaction of several important factors, and so forth is frequently labeled ambivalence, evidence of incompatible commitments, and so forth. Why? Why is theoretical purity important, especially if the world really is characterized by (in this case) the interaction of internal sources of evil with external events that draw it forth, or contain and integrate it? If the world is this way, so too should our explanations be. Is it possible that behind the concern with theoretical purity frequently lies certain skepticism? That is, since it is so difficult to know reality, and impossible to know it for sure, then our theories ought to tell the best story, frequently defined as the most hopeful one, or the one that lets us off the hook. I admit to contributing to this categorizing tendency in Dallmayr's analysis in one respect. When I say that a focus on the evil within explains the origins of evil, whereas the compliance perspective tends to make it the unexplained property of twisted few, what I mean is that focus on the evil within is necessary to complete explanation, one that is both necessary and sufficient. Obviously I do not mean that focus on the evil within is both necessary and sufficient, as my many references to the importance of interaction of external and internal sources makes clear. My thesis is really very simple. Explanations such as Arendt's and Lifton's, when read closely, are incomplete, as they make organized evil transmission-belt phenomenon

Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification