What’s the point of studying history? Well, for a start, there are
some really great stories – giving substance to the claim that truth is
stranger than fiction. But surely the main reason we study history is to guide our
futures. What worked well in the past that is worth repeating? What didn’t go
so well that we should avoid? All neatly summed up in Santayana’s pithy dictum “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
One of the great fallacies in history, and one that denies us the opportunity
to learn, is that the greatest atrocities were acts committed by the ‘wicked’
or ‘mad’ man – the idea that he did what he did because he was ‘evil’. And no
more needs to be said in explanation.
Most obviously this is often repeated when we look at the Nazis
and the actions not only of their leaders, those who were responsible for
designing the polices (lebensraum and the final solution, among others) that
led directly to the deaths of millions, but of those ‘ordinary’ Germans who
implemented with enthusiasm a plan that would inevitably lead to those deaths, the
attempted eradication of entire races. It may be argued that many Germans were
shocked to discover, when war ended and they were presented with the terrible
truth, what their leaders had done in their names. Well, it’s a moot point. But
the policies could not have been enacted without the complicity of many of
their fellow citizens.
And it is here that we often get lazy and we opt for the simple
answer: Hitler was plain ‘mad’ and/or ‘evil’. As were his immediate entourage.
And his high command. And his troops. And the many civilian functionaries who
worked within the military-industrial complex that was the final solution …
While there is obvious illogicality to ascribing simultaneous
madness/evil to an entire population, or substantial parts thereof, we are also
thereby betraying the whole reason we study history. To learn the lessons so
that the mistakes of the past should not be repeated. When we ascribe atrocities
to the actions of a mad man, we are abrogating any responsibility to learn the
truth. It is all too easy – and does nothing to further our understanding. Perhaps
it made contemporary Germans feel better – that was not us, that was the action
of a madman and his crazed gang. Perhaps it makes us later generations feel better
– that could not be us, for we could never be led down that path by those who
are palpably unfit to rule.
The great German political thinker Hannah Arendt spoke of the ‘banality
of evil’ when she covered the trial of Adolph Eichmann – a man not responsible
for devising the final solution but an integral part of its implementation. She
observed him first-hand and concluded that he was an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat
– ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’ but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He was, she
noted, disengaged from the reality of his acts – a man who was shallow and clueless,
someone in search of a purpose and direction – and finding that he could prove
his worth by carrying out the commands of his superiors without demur and with ruthless
efficiency.
Arendt was much criticised for her description – as it appeared to
some to ‘normalise’ the atrocities and deny their evil. It was doing no such
thing. Instead she was highlighting the important truth of this period of
history, that ordinary people could be moved to do evil acts, especially if
those acts became routine and served what they had become used to regarding as a
greater good (Goebbels ‘If you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it).
It is an important lesion of history – that context is all, and that
ordinary people are capable of extraordinary acts – sometimes for the good and
sometimes with the most terrible outcomes.
No comments:
Post a Comment