Dealing With Evil

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For those without a fatal attraction to the extreme, evil is uncomfortable to approach and examine in depth. So how do we best deal with it in order to protect ourselves and posterity? 

Allegedly, Israel, Canada, and sixteen European countries have laws aimed at punishment for Holocaust denial. Well intended, no doubt! Those, who suffered untold losses during the war (i.e. the survivors and their relatives), are meant to be spared insults and humiliation, insensitivity and indecency — at least from those trying to rehabilitate the Third Reich.

The Holocaust has taken up a lot of space in public debate since the 10/7 atrocities last year. In the same period, anti-Semitism has returned with a vengeance, driven by Islamists and anti-Western “Marxists” (if that is an accurate characterization, given their presumed alienation from theoretical studies) in unison. However, do we really do the Jews — or ourselves as free citizens, for that matter — any favor by outlawing the denial of their genocide? Who would publicly deny it, anyway? Well, for a start, mainstream Islamists, marginalized Neo-Nazi freaks, and other anti-Semitic extremists (in bed with the Islamists), including homeborn and Third-World Marxists. In other words, sworn enemies of the “open society” as defined by the philosopher Karl Popper.

It is of far-reaching importance for our self-understanding and moral integrity as Westerners to answer this question: Is it recommendable to outlaw certain opinions on history because they originate from suspected malice and are pronounced by malicious agents against their better knowledge? On closer reflection, does it serve the true long-term interests of our society, founded as it is on principles from the Enlightenment, to silence its enemies? Are we not laying the groundwork for our own destruction inasmuch as we exclude certain ideas from public debate and thereby risk contradiction? It could be interpreted by the enemies of freedom as if we applied double standards and were hypocrites.

In an open society, we should never fear honest competition of opinions (ideas). On the contrary, we should encourage it and accept the challenge. Where opinions clash in public, both explicit and implicit arguments may be tested in detail before the eyes of everybody. At best, public debate may contribute to clarification of concepts and eventual adoption of mature, responsible positions. Political-moral ideas immediately condemned by the majority as morbid and deviant may be fully exposed and subjected to the rebuke, shaming or ridicule that is due to them. 

A ban on repugnant ideas in public debate is unlikely to eradicate them. Instead, it relegates the conspirators, with reinforced prejudices about society, to secret forums. Without public oversight, they may well be further radicalized. Simply to outlaw certain ideas is, in reality, to flee from them rather than to take up the fight and refute them by means of factual argument, standing on a foundation of empirical (historical) evidence, concern for human dignity, and loyalty to justice. (A point made by Deborah Lipstadt who is known to have challenged historian David Irving for downplaying the scale of the Holocaust.) 

In analogy with children, opinions usually benefit from coming out into the open rather than living in the shadows where they may grow crooked. Basic assumptions, including those of racial or religious supremacism, and lines of argument underlying publicly stated opinions should therefore be analyzed and tested. If need be, they must be vigorously contested and refuted.

In the open society, it is — in principle — incumbent on everybody to participate in public debate; it is not a “special treat” reserved for academia or the political elite. However, it requires both commitment and courage. It would be inconsiderate of us to allow misguided loyalty to convention and fear of (causing) offense to cripple our resolve. If free at heart, speak out! At bottom, that is what freedom is all about. Of course, we cannot expect to debate publicly with each other without disagreeing and — occasionally — offending each other. That is not to say that offense should ever be an end in itself if we are honest and decent people searching for the truth. On the other hand, the risk of disagreement should never deter us from telling the truth as we see it.

As long as we resist the temptations of “cancellation” and violence, which express varying degrees of totalitarian oppression, disagreement — the dynamic competition of ideas — may be a source of deeper insights and progress for society as a whole. To stipulate agreement in advance and to prohibit positions that the other party may find offensive (or outright impermissible) is tantamount to prohibiting the open dialogue that befits a democratic society. That is how it works in a static, closed society. To a large extent, citizens of Western societies, which have unlimited access to knowledge nowadays, are allowed to be ignorant, bigoted, and unreasonable; they may hold naïve, inconsistent, and ridiculous opinions. However, they are not excluded from participation in the management of society for that reason.

As a first line of defense, the appropriate response to politically (ideologically) motivated disinformation is well-founded, reliable information. Usually, culture wars are wars of attrition. It takes confidence, perseverance, and bravery to win them. Lies, whether spread by internal or external enemies, should never be tolerated at face value, but always countered with truth. In a manner of speaking, evil must be driven out with good. Thus, we patiently try to convince our opponents of their mistake, assuming good faith and relying on arguments that may be independently verified and corroborated.

We may rightly wonder at our enemies, fearing their motives and power. At the same time, however, we should try to keep calm, adopt a Socratic approach, and put our trust in the inherent goodness of man. Those posing as our enemies should be (a) given the benefit of the doubt, (b) invited to explain themselves, and (c) defeated by means of arguments, including appeals to “primal instincts” for logic and fairness (i.e. preceding ideological prejudices), rather than flesh wounds.

In truth, the enemies of the open society have a fundamentally different approach to those whom they claim to despise and conspire to defeat. With an avowed desire for reconciliation, the upfront debater on the side of freedom may be slow to realize that his counterpart (a) is not genuinely open to civilized conversation, (b) refuses to allow any room for doubt in his mind, and (c) is solely concerned with silencing the rest of us by whatever means, ranging from cancellation (disreputation) to violence.

At present, there is ample opportunity to study the anti-Western enemies on American campuses. In the guise of “students” (including opportunistic troublemakers from outside), many of whom wear masks to hide their identity, they call for the annihilation of the Jewish state and pay tribute to the Islamist terrorists who carry on the sadistic legacy of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen. Some of the young protesters, deplorable products of a school system on the edge of collapse, are clearly ignorant of what the conflict is about. However, they participate in the anti-Semitic campaign for social reasons, waving banners and shouting from the crowd like “useful idiots,” while others, the real organizers, act out of vicious, macabre motives.

Only when our enemies resort to violence, denying the rest of us our freedom and openly challenging the social order, we must be resolute, apply the law, and restrain them by force. If we ever set out to censor ideas held by others, because they are in conflict with the opinion of the majority, we lose our innocence and destroy the foundations of the open society.

In the West, we owe our philosophical and technological development, our ethical and aesthetic singularity, to freedom of thought. The proud tradition goes back to the ancient Demosthenes and Cicero. Our dignity as free citizens derives from our right and courage to exchange opinions without having to be accountable to the law (i.e. with the exception of libel). Neither truth nor justice is served by silence.

Image: Public domain.