"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."-Friedrich Nietzche
Something about the above always struck me as being a crutch at best and a moral copout at worst.
All the way back to when I first saw Return of the Jedi, I was a little weirded out by these lines from Papa Palpatine: "Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards The Dark Side will be complete..."
Being a fairly simple-minded kid at the time, as 90% of us who have seen Star Wars once were, this line made no sense to me. Luke was fighting to stop an unambiguously evil Empire that had the blood of billions of beings on its hands. Yet somehow, killing the irredeemably evil man responsible for it all would irrevocably turn Luke into a moustache-twirling champion of villainy with seemingly no regard to context.
It hadn't spoiled my view of the movie, but this contrarian reaction would influence my thoughts on dealing with exceptionally evil people for years to come, mostly in fiction, but I can think of a few people in real life who deserve worse than mere imprisonment or execution.
Nietzche's quote above seems to be a sweeping slippery slope fallacy warning against such attitudes, and despite the argument I plan to put forward, it's not entirely without merit. However, the people who do fall into the trap the quote warns against are, in my frank opinion, idiots of the highest caliber.
There is little I find more loathsome than a person who has been legitimately wronged taking out his or her pain on innocents, just to get even with the person who wronged them (if they even try to get even with that person, and aren't just venting on someone unrelated altogether). Examples of people who fall into this trap are the many, many guerilla groups and governments in African and Middle Eastern countries, who kill indiscriminately while paying lip service to some cause supporting their own people.
Though regardless of what motivates a person to do "wrong," I'm willing to hold "He Who Fights Monsters" on the moral high ground, even applaud them, if, and only if their victims consist solely of other, possibly worse "monsters." Most instances of Nietzche's worry are based on the assumption that making this distinction magically becomes impossible once you've crossed some arbitrary line.
In a civil, industrialized society, torture isn't necessary, especially when there's reasonable doubt that the person being convicted of whatever crime they were accused of is innocent. It's also wholly unnecessary for things like white collar crime, mugging, petty theft, maybe even some instances of homicide.
However, war criminals, for a classic example, the Nazis, have gleefully murdered millions without thinking twice about it, even believing it to be a moral imperative. At that point, putting a bullet into their head or giving them a Colombian necktie and being done with it is almost as evil as letting them go, as you're giving them a luxury their victims didn't have. Yet someone who fears HWFM would assume that anyone willing to go that far would do the same to J. Random German who happened to be walking down the street, somehow believing him to be just as responsible for the Death Camps as J. Random SS Officer.
Post War Germany managed to underscore the importance of accountability, something I believe is key in defying Nietzsche's quote. The worst the Western Allies did to the German people as a whole was march everyone within walking distance into a concentration camp to show them what their tax dollars paid for, then dig graves for their victims. They only needed guilt to do the rest and sent them on their way to carefully think about where their votes went when elections came back to West Germany. The actual top dogs of Nazi Germany instead got a fair trial and those that weren't hanged spent the rest of their lives in prison...
...The problem was that they were just hanged, when their own millions of victims suffered far, far worse.
If I had any say in how Justice was carried out back then, the only thing I would have changed was to invite the strongest/most rehabilitated Death Camp survivors over as witnesses, hand them rocks, then point them at the condemned and tell them to have fun. I would, of course, tell them to wait one minute while I remind the Condemned to spend their last moments lucid thinking long and hard about why this is about to happen to them and if their actions were worth the risk.
After all, they couldn't spare people who previously would have done them no harm the same mercy. Why should we do the same?
And speaking of Nazis being on the wrong end of a massacre, here's an example of HWFM defied: The Dachau Massacre. The victims, after all, consisted solely of SS Camp Guards and collaborators, and surviving prisoners took part in the executions as well. I think it's safe to say nothing of value was lost that day, and that the men responsible did not go on to kill random German children in their sleep.
So readers, does anyone here think there's a line that someone can cross, so incredibly heinous, that you will not be considered a bad person for doing the same things to them and them alone?
Something about the above always struck me as being a crutch at best and a moral copout at worst.
All the way back to when I first saw Return of the Jedi, I was a little weirded out by these lines from Papa Palpatine: "Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards The Dark Side will be complete..."
Being a fairly simple-minded kid at the time, as 90% of us who have seen Star Wars once were, this line made no sense to me. Luke was fighting to stop an unambiguously evil Empire that had the blood of billions of beings on its hands. Yet somehow, killing the irredeemably evil man responsible for it all would irrevocably turn Luke into a moustache-twirling champion of villainy with seemingly no regard to context.
It hadn't spoiled my view of the movie, but this contrarian reaction would influence my thoughts on dealing with exceptionally evil people for years to come, mostly in fiction, but I can think of a few people in real life who deserve worse than mere imprisonment or execution.
Nietzche's quote above seems to be a sweeping slippery slope fallacy warning against such attitudes, and despite the argument I plan to put forward, it's not entirely without merit. However, the people who do fall into the trap the quote warns against are, in my frank opinion, idiots of the highest caliber.
There is little I find more loathsome than a person who has been legitimately wronged taking out his or her pain on innocents, just to get even with the person who wronged them (if they even try to get even with that person, and aren't just venting on someone unrelated altogether). Examples of people who fall into this trap are the many, many guerilla groups and governments in African and Middle Eastern countries, who kill indiscriminately while paying lip service to some cause supporting their own people.
Though regardless of what motivates a person to do "wrong," I'm willing to hold "He Who Fights Monsters" on the moral high ground, even applaud them, if, and only if their victims consist solely of other, possibly worse "monsters." Most instances of Nietzche's worry are based on the assumption that making this distinction magically becomes impossible once you've crossed some arbitrary line.
In a civil, industrialized society, torture isn't necessary, especially when there's reasonable doubt that the person being convicted of whatever crime they were accused of is innocent. It's also wholly unnecessary for things like white collar crime, mugging, petty theft, maybe even some instances of homicide.
However, war criminals, for a classic example, the Nazis, have gleefully murdered millions without thinking twice about it, even believing it to be a moral imperative. At that point, putting a bullet into their head or giving them a Colombian necktie and being done with it is almost as evil as letting them go, as you're giving them a luxury their victims didn't have. Yet someone who fears HWFM would assume that anyone willing to go that far would do the same to J. Random German who happened to be walking down the street, somehow believing him to be just as responsible for the Death Camps as J. Random SS Officer.
Post War Germany managed to underscore the importance of accountability, something I believe is key in defying Nietzsche's quote. The worst the Western Allies did to the German people as a whole was march everyone within walking distance into a concentration camp to show them what their tax dollars paid for, then dig graves for their victims. They only needed guilt to do the rest and sent them on their way to carefully think about where their votes went when elections came back to West Germany. The actual top dogs of Nazi Germany instead got a fair trial and those that weren't hanged spent the rest of their lives in prison...
...The problem was that they were just hanged, when their own millions of victims suffered far, far worse.
If I had any say in how Justice was carried out back then, the only thing I would have changed was to invite the strongest/most rehabilitated Death Camp survivors over as witnesses, hand them rocks, then point them at the condemned and tell them to have fun. I would, of course, tell them to wait one minute while I remind the Condemned to spend their last moments lucid thinking long and hard about why this is about to happen to them and if their actions were worth the risk.
After all, they couldn't spare people who previously would have done them no harm the same mercy. Why should we do the same?
And speaking of Nazis being on the wrong end of a massacre, here's an example of HWFM defied: The Dachau Massacre. The victims, after all, consisted solely of SS Camp Guards and collaborators, and surviving prisoners took part in the executions as well. I think it's safe to say nothing of value was lost that day, and that the men responsible did not go on to kill random German children in their sleep.
So readers, does anyone here think there's a line that someone can cross, so incredibly heinous, that you will not be considered a bad person for doing the same things to them and them alone?
via JREF Forum http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=267097&goto=newpost
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