Absolutely Impossible

I went to see a play yesterday about Hermann Goering, Hitler's second in command. It was fascinating, to say the least... especially coupling that with an autobiography I'm reading right now by Hitler's secretary. It was unlike many plays I've seen because it didn't have a clear message -- it didn't try to say that Goering was an evil man, though he certainly perpetrated evil acts. It didn't try to say that Goering was a good man, though he certainly had a way of charming the people you'd least expect -- like his Jewish psychiatrist. The message it sent, the message I understood - is something I've been thinking about for a long time.

It is not only ignorant, but actually harmful for people to oversimplify individuals' characters as wholly "good" or "evil." Not only are the terms subjective, they are also completely impossible descriptors. Yes, Hitler, Goering, and his entire posse committed or sanctioned atrocities beyond my imagination. But each of these "evil" men had a family, a hobby, a sensitivity that any human can connect to. Hitler had a pet dog that he trained and loved; Goering, who showed no signs of regret for his actions, broke down in tears like a baby after his wife visited him in prison.

It is so often preferable to ignore these endearing traits and to dehumanize them on a surface level. But this overly simplified analysis of them-- be it Goering, Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Mussolini, Kim Jung Il, Mbutu, Castro, Saddam, whomever -- is dangerous. It strips away our ability to understand that the capability for evil is within all of us. It creates a dualistic world in which "we" are always good and "they" are always bad. And one in which "we" could never be "them". But if you look at the actions of the world, the events of history, it is so easy for the tables to be turned.

If Germany had won the war, it would be Franklin Roosevelt who would be vilified for allowing the Japanese interment camps, the atomic bombings and resulting death of undetermined numbers of people at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It would be Churchill who would be condemned for indiscriminately bombing civilians in the city of Dresden, after German surrender. There are enough evil acts to go around. But I doubt anyone would go so far as to claim the Roosevelt or Churchill are evil. In fact, they are known as the champions of democracy.

So it is true, the winners write the history books, and everyone is more complex than they seem. There are no justifications for the wrongs committed in history, and I am not one to believe that we cannot pass judgment on actions. We do, and we must, so that we can attempt to achieve progress. But we must do that while remaining cognizant of the fact that all humans are complex, no one is simply "evil," or simply "good," and that by labeling people as such we are doing a disservice to our understanding of humanity.