Res Publica (2009) 15:97–101 DOI 10.1007/s11158-008-9062-2
Has Evil Run its Course? Phillip Cole, The Myth of Evil, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2006, 256 pp Niall Scott
Published online: 5 November 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
The Myth of Evil does not just concern the words in the title, but is a sophisticated treatment of evil in general, focussing strongly upon both the coherence of the concept and the attribution of the description ‘evil’ to phenomena and human behaviour. Cole’s aim throughout the book is to show that evil is a myth, that as a concept it is neither philosophical nor psychological, nor religious, which is quite a challenge. Although he argues that we would be better off without the concept of evil altogether, flying his flag in this way from the outset does not diminish how serious he takes the discourse of evil to be. This is evident in his willingness to recognise how the term and associated adjectives are used. In his introductory chapters, he provides a truly illuminating history of the devil, and challenges what is meant in descriptions of human behaviours as diabolical or demonic. Although predominantly a politico/philosophical enquiry, the book offers much more than this. It is an argument drawing upon literature, history, and popular visual culture, and as a result it speaks to a range of disciplines. Cole addresses contemporary questions that have arisen around the multi-faceted concept of evil, such as fear and horror. This is also a political work that does not just provide a treatment of evil as a myth. It engages directly and importantly with the now frequently encountered political discourses regarding the holocaust, terrorism, Iraq, and the Bush and Blair administrations’ participation in disseminating discourses of fear and (in)security. These use the terminology of evil, the demonic, and the monstrous in contemporary conflicts, and the frequent occurrence of ‘evil’ functions as an explanatory device in the justification of appalling human behaviour. Cole provides four possible ways of conceptualising theories of evil. They are: (1) a monstrous conception, (2) a pure conception, (3) an impure conception, and (4) a psychological conception. The monstrous conception identifies the monster as in a class beyond humanity where such a being pursues the infliction of suffering for its N. Scott (&) University of Central Lancashire, Preston, Lancashire PR1 2HE, UK e-mail:
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own sake. Here evil gives a complete explanation of monstrous agents’ actions, but is also beyond comprehension in its inhumanity. Although the monstrous agent appears in fiction where its otherworldliness sidesteps explanation, it does not clarify how humans can have the radically different nature of the monster. Cole points out throughout the book that the employment of the monster of fiction as a real world description of human acts is unsatisfactory in identifying a suitable response to those things that, for example, the popular media identifies as monstrous. Later, it is clear that, as with other fictional and mythical expressions of evil, the metaphor of the monster has a function. After all this is part of the etymology of the word ‘monster’: it is a portent, demonstrating something, but it needs quite a bit of tempering in relation to evil. The pure conception of evil Cole identifies as thoroughly human. It is the idea that all humans have the capacity to pursue the destruction of others for its own sake. This is grounded in an idea of human freedom that admits the possibility of all kinds of action, including extreme acts aimed at the destruction of others. Both the monstrous and the pure conceptions of evil for Cole will not go away. The reappearance of evil as a problem to be dealt with is no less harrowing than the horror film. The denial of this possibility is exemplified in the third conception of evil, the impure conception, which Cole later identifies with Immanuel Kant’s characterisation of evil in Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone. The impure conception involves the instrumentalisation of evil, that is to say, the use of an evil act as a means to some other end and not for its own sake. Cole finds support for this position in David Hume and Thomas Hobbes. This position then suggests that it is impossible for humans to engage in acts that are purely diabolical. In the psychological conception, evil is rejected in favour of the discovery of a causal account of acts that are described as evil, but are better understood under some other, empirical explanation. One might be compelled by circumstances to act in an extreme way, or one might be compelled by mental illness to act such that rational or free choice is not possible. However, Cole suggests that there can be something unsatisfactory in this latter treatment. This is because it may be difficult to make sense of a world without a conception of evil, let alone why evil has a strong, persistent voice and a long history. In presenting philosophies of evil, Cole displays a seductive writing style, introducing familiar literary examples before delving into more dense philosophy. In the text, philosophies of evil come after Satan and the supernatural have been dispatched and we are left with the possibility of evil human agency. He gives poetry the compliment of overcoming those philosophies where humans can adopt the principles of the devil. But as Cole’s brief critical foray into the Faustian stories shows, we are confronted with ambiguity in a figure who is a victim of evil, a victim of a divine struggle between God and Satan, similar to the biblical Job’s position of a rebel imitator of Lucifer in pursuit of power and knowledge. As difficult as it is to find a coherent account of evil in the Faustian narrative, so too the modern serial killer oscillates between the thoroughly human and the monstrous, perhaps even supernatural. Here the appeal to evil in coming to terms with the motive of the serial killer generates the unsatisfactory response ‘because he/she is evil’ to the question of motivation. Where literature is revelatory but does not help us move on in our understanding of evil, Cole looks to philosophy.
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Immanuel Kant’s extensive treatment of evil in religion within the boundaries of reason alone is quite neatly summarised by Cole. It is accurate to hold that Kant sees moral evil as any deviation from morality, but any reader expecting a very detailed treatment of Kant’s conception of evil will not find it here. Cole’s main aim is to use Kant as an illustration of the impure conception of evil and thus place evil action in the human realm, giving it moral and political importance since evil is an export of human free choice. So, the interesting challenge Kant provides is whether it is at all possible for humans to be purely evil, to be genuinely diabolical. Cole reads Kant as rejecting this possibility as well as affirming that evil in the impure sense is a thoroughly human phenomenon. Evil is thus not part of an animal nature. As hinted at above, there is an opportunity here to delve into a deeper questioning of Kant, that is, where the human agent can freely choose to follow the dictates of a categorical morality, could one also not follow the dictates of a categorical evil? If it is impossible for humans to be purely evil in the Kantian argument, then it must also be impossible for humans to be purely moral. This is an insight that moral philosophers may want to see Cole expand upon, but this is to miss the aim of Cole’s book. One might have the sense that he is rushing through these philosophies to get to his point, which may be a little frustrating to those hoping for a more detailed treatment of these top protagonists, but it becomes clear that there is important material to cover, including fear, and the difference between horror and terror. Nietzsche provides a critique of Kant, as well as an alternative take on evil albeit a rejection of it. This moves Cole’s argument along towards evil as an unhelpful myth and throws up the condition of fear that undermines reason. Cole writes: Being scared of the dark only makes sense if something evil lurks there, hidden from our eyes. If we realise there is nothing there at all, and yet remain scared of the dark we have to admit that our fears and panics are irrational and meaningless, but they remain with us, undermining reason itself (75). Cole turns outward to deal with fear in the community and how communities are maintained by fear and threatened by monstrous enemies, anticipating his final chapter that addresses contemporary fears surrounding discourses of terror. An example is the transformative power of the vampire and its role in sustaining ideas of infiltration found in fear of the immigrant and asylum seeker. Drawing on his previous work on immigration, Cole aligns the use of the mythology of evil with liberal political strategy of legitimating exclusive membership to a community. From the outward to the inward, we are asked to visit the enemy within, explored in the monsters of horror films and literature. Through insights provided in the psychoanalytic contribution on philosophies of evil, we can come to understand the mechanism of fear as largely self-generated. A core theme in The Myth of Evil is the role of evil in coming to terms with the Holocaust. Cole provides two routes for investigation of this subject. One considers how we can come to terms with the Holocaust through an explanation of the histories and context of these events without looking for excuses or diminishing the horrific nature of the deportation and massacre of the Jews. The second involves looking at how both explanations and justifications can allow us to cope and place
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such human actions as human. In this, he appeals to Hannah Arendt’s reflections on evil as banal. Herein lies the challenge for both routes, that is, treating acts that are described as evil, and often elevated to the mythological status that is the target of Cole’s criticism, as thoughtless and banal. How do we cope with actions such as Arendt’s encounter with Eichmann when they turn out to be thoughtless to the extent that they are barely actions at all? A resort to evil mythologies may well be an attempt to flee from the banality of evil. The response that Arendt gives is that we must employ the imagination as a counter to thoughtlessness. Here though I feel Cole needs to provide more explanation, as it would seem that it is this very creative use of the imagination that generates the mythologies that he so much wants to see removed. Of course Arendt’s employment of the imagination here is, as she is quoted, the thing that allows us to see things in their proper perspective. So then this imagination may well have its roots in authenticity, and even be a pre-moral requirement if we are to respond appropriately to phenomena and actions that cannot be digested without recourse to evil. One has the view then at this stage that Cole’s treatment of the Holocaust involves the need to humanise evil, and it is difficult to come to terms with the idea that humans are the very kinds of beings that are capable of such atrocity. The warning of thoughtlessness is valuable, as Cole places it right at the heart of contemporary problematic political dealings with immigration, suggesting that the potential to do unacceptably malevolent harm to others is never that far away. The concluding chapter presents a challenge to the reader where it addresses the contemporary state of world politics in the context of discourses of evil, with a detailed analysis of terror, terrorism, and violence. Cole spends time laying out the Iraqi problem, drawing parallels between the language of terror and fear and the phenomenon of witch trials and the eastern European vampire myths dealt with earlier in the book. Cole’s strategy is again seductive. At times, he tempts the reader into agreeing with the description of, for example, the western regimes and the terrorist as monstrous and demonic. However, it is clear that if one has paid any attention to his preceding argument, such very understandable, but simplistic assessments of terrible and horrific human actions require a more responsible treatment. So he refers to the sheer monstrous arbitrariness of terrorist victims in recent terrorist activities, and rhetorically asks that ‘Surely this arbitrariness fits the model of Monstrous evil?’ (234). But it is this very description that he challenges. We can move beyond evil in our understanding of such events and come to a position that even the arbitrariness is not without significance, and this reminds us that literary monsters have a history of grievance and need not be characterised in terms of a model of monstrous evil. The Myth of Evil maintains a tension between being completely eliminativist in removing the concept of evil altogether and preservationist in keeping and recognising the literary and metaphorical functions of evil. Cole wants to banish it, and ensure that it remains in its proper place. This is clear in his recognition, for example, of the existence of Satan and evil as narrative, where it has an adversarial function, but needs to be recognised as being not real. Things go wrong when evil is removed from the page and forced into the world as a true description of people and events. Reading this book provides one with the relief felt in the horror film when
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we realise that it is a game—that Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining stays on screen and that I need not be terrified of meeting him in person. His argument provides the possibility of some hope of remembering the narratives, recognising their function, but ultimately leaving the stories of evil behind in search of better ways of dealing with the atrocious side of human behaviour. When the language of evil rears its unwelcome head, Cole’s writing achieves a calming effect which is most welcome.
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