Evil and Understanding

In my Idea Explorer post "Group Interaction" I discussed in abstract terms my analysis of what could happen when two isolated groups first interact, and vaguely referenced current events it might apply to, along with my assessment of how it relates to the world' reaching critical environmental limits. Here, I will be more explicit and personal.

The current context is, of course, the occasion of savage terrorist attacks in Paris late last week. I consider them acts of evil that cannot, and should not, be excused, despite my attempts to understand them. Based upon my valuing all human lives equally, the only acceptable reason for intentionally killing people or increasing their chance of dying is to keep them from killing someone else, and only when the threat is direct, imminent, unambiguous, and all non-lethal options have been exhausted. Clearly, the attacks do not meet that test (nor, incidentally, do most acts of war).

Curiously, I had a much more visceral reaction to a news story I saw while on vacation a few days before. The pastor of a church, attended by presidential candidates, was ranting about the evil of homosexuality and advocating that gays and lesbians be killed if they didn't repent. It was the most vile speech I have ever heard, and reminded me of my most lasting reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001: that there are people among us who are willing to kill others so they can have a better chance of going to heaven. If heaven is their reward, then it must surely be indistinguishable from hell.

These were the events I recalled as I was using my model of group interaction to examine the "threat" to cultural purity that a small group could expect from a large group it came in contact with, a threat that included the possibility of physical and cultural extermination. For a group unwilling to surrender its uniqueness (cultural or in terms of personal characteristics), the most practical option is to reestablish isolation, which is realistically not practical at all. To someone who accepts the existence of a supernatural world that can be accessed after death, practicality is irrelevant, and the irrational options of dying or trying to kill large numbers of the larger group will come under serious consideration.

I understand that my perception of their actions (attacks) and preferred actions (assassinating homosexuals) as evil stems from my thinking of all of humanity as just one group, with differences that do not rise to the level of deserving death, except where they lead to death (based on the high value I place on people). I can therefore accept cultural diversity as long as it does not increase the rate of death, now or in the future, especially through the consumption patterns and values that I modeled as "culture."

Through this lens, my native culture is extremely unacceptable, with its emphasis on excessive consumption, competition that devalues the lives of those we compete with, hubris that dismisses the wisdom of other people and cultures that may contribute to common survival and happiness, and willingness to kill people without proof of a direct and existential threat. I choose to try influencing it to change within the limits of my values, through discourse like this, and altering my own lifestyle (which includes avoiding support of actions I find offensive). While I respect the humanity of everyone, I reserve the right to be angry about gross violation of my values by others, and to make their lives uncomfortable enough to question their own values and perceptions as I have continued to question mine.

Memories of 9/11

On September 11, 2001, I was still living in Windsor, Colorado, where my father had died nine years earlier in a futile attempt to change the way kids are educated. I was commuting in a van pool to Westminster, a suburb of Denver, where I would soon move to be closer to my job as a technical writer at Avaya.

I was listening to the car radio while driving to the Windsor Park N'Ride soon after the first plane hit. The first reports said that a small plane had accidentally hit the World Trade Center. During the time that it took to get to Avaya, the second plane crashed, and it was clear that both crashes were part of a coordinated attack.

The company had invited everyone into its large auditorium to watch the unfolding events on a large screen TV. While there, we learned of the Pennsylvania crash, saw the World Trade Center towers collapse, and watched the aftermath of the Pentagon crash. I was sitting next to my boss, whose brother was working near the section hit at the Pentagon.

Realizing that no one would be productive after that, the company sent us all home. The most direct evidence of what had just happened was the silence above us as all air traffic was grounded; it was the first time in my life that something wasn't flying overhead. When I got home, I obsessively watched the news, which would become a habit for years afterwards, and processed what had happened with my friends and family.

There was no doubt that the attacks were pure evil. That someone would plan the execution of thousands of people was unfathomable; that they would actually do it was reprehensible in the extreme. At the time, I didn't know that the perpetrators had declared war on us, that our government knew such attacks could happen, or that there was a part of the world that viewed us as a mortal cultural and economic threat. When it came out that the hijackers believed they were on a holy mission that would be rewarded with sex in heaven, it became clear that faith was the enabler of this evil, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, and as such it might be practically unstoppable.

Practically everyone I knew became a lot more cautious, and paranoia seemed to grip the country. We were encouraged to report any suspicious activity, but not informed what that might be. I saw a photo in Newsweek soon after we invaded Afghanistan, of someone who looked a lot like Osama bin Laden, and was surprised that he wasn't identified as such; dutifully, I sent an e-mail to the FBI about it, and never got a response.

By 2003, after numerous terror alerts, the level of paranoia was still high enough for most people to support the invasion of Iraq, despite shaky evidence. I'm proud to say that I wasn't one of them; in fact, by that time I had come to distrust both the judgment and veracity of the Bush administration, and found the cost-benefit analyses I was hearing totally unconvincing.

That opinion was reinforced in the intervening years, and it became clear to me that people like Bush were using threats and disaster for pure political and economic gain, sabotaging the Constitution, destroying anyone who got in their way, and therefore making them a greater threat than the enemies who attacked us on 9/11. Unwilling to just complain, I became politically involved in ensuring that such people never held such power again.