Atrocities

An atrocity is morally wrong behavior that is so horrendous that it reveals a brazen disregard for the humanity of the victims. The aim of an atrocity is not just to harm the victims, but to desecrate them. Not every moral wrong, then, counts as an atrocity. The typical lie or act of shoplifting is hardly an atrocity. Not even murder need be about desecrating the victim. The list of atrocities that human beings have committed throughout history is disconcertingly long. During the 1990s, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis occurred in Rwanda, where leaflets and posters were distributed by Hutus characterizing Tutsis as snakes and cockroaches. Symbolically, snakes and cockroaches are rivaled only by rats as creatures that are viscerally the antithesis of what it is to be a human being. In Rwanda, it was blacks desecrating blacks. In the Asian world, Asians have desecrated Asians, as with China and Japan. In the Muslim world, Muslims have desecrated one another. Saddam Hussein, for instance, treated Shi‘ite Muslims in a way that calls to mind the Nazi treatment of Jews.

The atrocities of the Nazi era represent the most sophisticated and sustained desecration of people to have taken place in the 20th century. And while it is clear that the extermination of the Jews was the central aim of the Nazi regime, it is equally clear that an ineliminable part of that aim was also to kill the Jews in a most dehumanizing manner. From transporting Jews to concentration camps in trains that had no restroom facilities of any form to making them dig their own graves to the brutal ways that they were used in so-called medical experiments, the aim was to peel away the Jews' sense of humanity.

Strikingly, atrocities are often committed by individuals who regard themselves as decent individuals. For instance, the lynching of blacks by whites in the United States in the Old South was typically committed by whites who considered themselves to be God-fearing Christians. The aim of lynching was not merely to punish blacks, but to revel in an utter disregard for the black body. During times of war, it commonly happens that male soldiers who think that rape is reprehensible nonetheless rape women who are identified as being on the side of the enemy. Needless to say, rape is one of the most profound ways in which a body can be desecrated, where the aim is not at all about killing the victim.

Evil Behavior and a Sense of Community

How can psychologically healthy people who take themselves to be decent individuals collectively do the unthinkable to others? Two important considerations present themselves. First, a defining feature of human beings is that they are capable of symbolic representation. A symbolic representation can be ephemeral and of little social significance as with the white glove that was once identified with Michael Jackson. Symbolic representation can also be imbued with enormous meaning and thereby occasion visceral feelings, as has been the case with two pieces of wood whose formation constitutes a religious symbol, namely the cross. People, too, admit of symbolic representation. Owing to upbringing, even psychologically healthy individuals may reach adulthood with a wealth of visceral feelings that are positive toward some individuals and negative toward others. Most of us rarely act on our negative feelings alone.

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