Confronting the Uncomfortable: Postmodernity and the Quandary of Evil

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil
but as a necessity, or even a duty.

—Simone Weil

The world, he believed, is a globe of men who
Are trying to reach one another and can best do so
by the help of good will plus culture and intelligence.

—E. M. Forster

"For the kairos, it is a-changing," to paraphrase Bob Dylan. Since the events of September 11th, a series of shifts has occurred within conventional political wisdom. Ideological differences that were once clear, namely, the distinctions between the views of the political left and those of the right, have begun to blur. ¹ Such blurring is encapsulated in a number of public statements by influential members of the American Left. Examples include Michael Walzer, coeditor of Dissent, who penned the inflammatory essay "Can There Be a Decent Left?" which castigated American leftists who blamed America for the events of September 11th. ² There too is the case of a recent New York Times Magazine article where Walzer joined a dialogue with George Packer, David Rieff, Leon Wieseltier, and Paul Berman in which they candidly expressed their perplexity and tormented support for George W. Bush's campaign for the war against Iraq. ³ Packer even optimistically claims their "liberal hawk" positions could help lend legitimate support for Bush's war aims and persuasively influence "suspicious Europeans" and "wavering fellow Americans." ⁴

Adding to this political shift, several of my colleagues within this forum allude to Christopher Hitchens' conversion from being a former firebrand for the Nation and New Left Review to being a cheerleader for Bush's domestic and global antiterrorism campaign. ⁵ My point is not to defend the merits of these "liberal hawks" but rather to draw attention to the way the events of September 11th have deeply affected the American and international cultural psyche. ⁶

As John Angus Campbell, Robert Hariman, and James P. McDaniel observe, such psychic impact finds expression in the intense forms of polarizing rhetoric that is being voiced in American political discourse today. Such antipodean rhetoric can be found in the almost ubiquitous use of the term "evil" by President George W. Bush to describe the terrorist acts that are driving this discourse. ⁷ The rhetoric of evil, especially when applied to political actions, is contentious. ⁸ It is also, as Campbell observes, fecund in terms of its inventive and heuristic power to generate discursive excitement in the agora. ⁹ Whether we like it or not, President Bush is setting the tone for much of contemporary American political discourse, especially as it relates to events impacted by 9/11. On numerous occasions, Bush has used the polysemic and epideictic term "evil" to characterize the actions of terror perpetrated by those who are increasingly referred to as militant Muslims, Islamacists, Islamo-fascists, and jihadists who are focused on destroying or disrupting American society and culture. ¹⁰

The trope of evil and its attendant existential "extremes of harmfulness," as Hariman calls it, are a complex affair. ¹¹ For the purposes of my analysis I will employ the term "evil" to include actions that embody the egregious use of malevolent will-to-power. As such, McDaniel has done a cogent job adumbrating the sociorhetorical dimensions at play within the "figures shaping and channeling public consciousness" concerning the reality of evil. Hariman too has explored the challenge malefic acts of the "deepest betrayal of human relationality" offer to the "lexicon of liberal-democratic political thought." Amid the often comprehension-muting power of malevolent evil, James Arnt Aune, Campbell, Dana L. Cloud, and Rosa A. Eberly attempt to make sense out of that which is often fundamentally irrational and inscrutable—Aune via blaming Christian theology, Campbell with his aesthetic parallels to Hitler, Cloud by employing a Marxist hermeneutic, and Eberly with an appeal to postmodern humanism.

What shines through each of these essays are six keen thinkers in search of a...