David, I am stunned by this. I had read the articles you have woven into this framework of deeper thought and personal storytelling.
I am struggling to find a frame for telling why I reject the arguments of equivalence that I see being made by journalists, politicians, and academicians. I feel my key is in the history of a people who lost their place and wander the world, always the stranger, the other, and in troubled times, the mistrusted ones. But I do not have a personal story with which to humanize it, only an amateur historian's dry and philosophical observations.
Somewhat like you, I wish I could explore or explain the paradox of good and evil coexisting in the same person, what causes it, what can be done to ameliorate it. I feel it is deeper than the trilemma of ignorance, stupidity, or evil intent. There are emotional and situational components as well, and sometimes a warped psyche or soul. These ideas are still percolating up from some mental subterranean chamber in my mind.
I wish we could sit for the better part of a day with a big pot of tea and talk.(Perhaps under a large tree at a rustic table with an old brass wood-fired samovar.) I have questions that are not yet questions - half formed, swirling in my head like birds in the evening sky trying to find a perch; they have not yet settled into a coherent form, but would take shape in the course of a conversation. I believe our thoughts run parallel, yet we approach things differently enough that it could be a lively and elucidating tea party.
I am so glad I subscribed to your SubStack. Thanks again.
Thanks for your thoughts, Steve. And thanks for the kind words about my Substack! As for the trilemma, you may be right. It certainly is a simple way of describing a nuanced and complex aspect of human behavior. I hope it understood that some of my posts are also half-formed ruminations, thoughts being thunk out loud, topics I will perhaps return to down the line in more refined form. That said, I cannot think of a fourth category. But yes, tea and an afternoon of questions sounds delightful.
The ignorant can gain knowledge, the stupid may be taught to think, and even a fool over time can learn wisdom (or at least how to emulate the wise,) but what makes some men evil and how can they be turned from their wicked ways? Are there evil people who are rational, educated, and not sociopaths? What is driving these people? Often it is ideology, with or without religious underpinnings. How do I convince a dogmatic ideologue to accept my Judeo-Christian / Liberal-Enlightenment value system?
You and I are cerebral, well educated, and our approach to those who have erred is rational. (I have a friend who says I have a Processor mode during which talking with me is like talking with a computer.) But much of the world is ruled by their emotions, passions, and appetites. (Even in Seattle.) The emnity of the Gazans and the unyielding judgements of the Progressive youth (separating the oppressed Palestinian sheep from the oppressor Israeli goats) are driven by emotions, enflamed by rhetoric that has bypassed the cerebral cortex and headed straight for the hippocampus. Unencumbered by the thought process, they allow their passions to carry them to the darkest extremes of their unforgiving ideologies whence evil rears its ugly head. (Sorry, I am addicted to flowery, poetic language.)
There is a way out, but their zeal must be drained and someone must cause them to question their bedrock beliefs. This conversion from their dehumanizing belief system takes time and dedication, but Daryl Davis showed it can be done even with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.
SO, if you are in the Midwest, anywhere near Chicago or Milwaukee, with an open day on your schedule, I would love to light up a samovar, get out the good china, the primo tea, honey, cream and sugar. I'll make us some snickerdoodles, or I have sources for pretty good Хачапури and the famous Racine Kringle (a Danish confection in a variety of fruit flavors).
I think there are evil people who are rational, educated and not sociopaths. Good-hearted people who truly believe they are doing the right thing, yet whose actions actually cause great harm and suffering. And I agree, often ideology is at play in this, whether we're talking about the majority of Nazis—who were not sociopaths, which is a rare condition, but regular folk (the "banality of evil") who truly believed they were doing the right thing—or pro-Hamas activists. Wow, the tea conversation is sounding better and better. I do not have Chicago on my planner in the near future but have long wanted to pay a visit, and now I have a particularly good reason.
“They had a daughter and three sons, including my great-grandfather Ignacy who, after Wikency’s death, moved to the village of Horodziej, which was about one-third Jewish, where he and his wife Sofia had four sons named Josef, Fyodor, my great-grandfather Ignacy, and Wladzimir.”
At the risk of nitpicking, I was befuddled by the above paragraph so I tried to work out your family tree:
- Great-great-great grandfather
Wikency Wołodźko m. ?
Purchases lot in Bojary in 1863, lives there until he dies
Had a daughter and three sons, including
- Great-great grandfather
Ignacy Wołodźko m. Sofia
Moves to Horodziej after father’s death
Had four sons: Josef, Fyodor, Wladzimir and
- Great-grandfather Ignacy (the fire-fighter.
Is this correct?
---
As for the substance of your essay, I need to ponder it. At the time your great-great-great grandfather was purchasing land in Bojary, my great-great grandfather was sending his four sons off to fight for the privilege of enslaving human beings. According to family lore, when my great grandfather, the sole surviving son, chose parole over imprisonment in a Union POW camp, his father was furious.
Thank you for the message. I removed the family stuff and reposted the above piece focusing only on decolonial philosophy. I'll publish the family stuff as a separate, expanded post of its own. But for now, yes, that part of the family tree is correct. It may be a bit confusing since there are several men in my family named Ignacy, or Ihnat, which is a rare name in Russia but the most common name among the men in my family.
David, I am stunned by this. I had read the articles you have woven into this framework of deeper thought and personal storytelling.
I am struggling to find a frame for telling why I reject the arguments of equivalence that I see being made by journalists, politicians, and academicians. I feel my key is in the history of a people who lost their place and wander the world, always the stranger, the other, and in troubled times, the mistrusted ones. But I do not have a personal story with which to humanize it, only an amateur historian's dry and philosophical observations.
Somewhat like you, I wish I could explore or explain the paradox of good and evil coexisting in the same person, what causes it, what can be done to ameliorate it. I feel it is deeper than the trilemma of ignorance, stupidity, or evil intent. There are emotional and situational components as well, and sometimes a warped psyche or soul. These ideas are still percolating up from some mental subterranean chamber in my mind.
I wish we could sit for the better part of a day with a big pot of tea and talk.(Perhaps under a large tree at a rustic table with an old brass wood-fired samovar.) I have questions that are not yet questions - half formed, swirling in my head like birds in the evening sky trying to find a perch; they have not yet settled into a coherent form, but would take shape in the course of a conversation. I believe our thoughts run parallel, yet we approach things differently enough that it could be a lively and elucidating tea party.
I am so glad I subscribed to your SubStack. Thanks again.
Thanks for your thoughts, Steve. And thanks for the kind words about my Substack! As for the trilemma, you may be right. It certainly is a simple way of describing a nuanced and complex aspect of human behavior. I hope it understood that some of my posts are also half-formed ruminations, thoughts being thunk out loud, topics I will perhaps return to down the line in more refined form. That said, I cannot think of a fourth category. But yes, tea and an afternoon of questions sounds delightful.
The ignorant can gain knowledge, the stupid may be taught to think, and even a fool over time can learn wisdom (or at least how to emulate the wise,) but what makes some men evil and how can they be turned from their wicked ways? Are there evil people who are rational, educated, and not sociopaths? What is driving these people? Often it is ideology, with or without religious underpinnings. How do I convince a dogmatic ideologue to accept my Judeo-Christian / Liberal-Enlightenment value system?
You and I are cerebral, well educated, and our approach to those who have erred is rational. (I have a friend who says I have a Processor mode during which talking with me is like talking with a computer.) But much of the world is ruled by their emotions, passions, and appetites. (Even in Seattle.) The emnity of the Gazans and the unyielding judgements of the Progressive youth (separating the oppressed Palestinian sheep from the oppressor Israeli goats) are driven by emotions, enflamed by rhetoric that has bypassed the cerebral cortex and headed straight for the hippocampus. Unencumbered by the thought process, they allow their passions to carry them to the darkest extremes of their unforgiving ideologies whence evil rears its ugly head. (Sorry, I am addicted to flowery, poetic language.)
There is a way out, but their zeal must be drained and someone must cause them to question their bedrock beliefs. This conversion from their dehumanizing belief system takes time and dedication, but Daryl Davis showed it can be done even with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.
SO, if you are in the Midwest, anywhere near Chicago or Milwaukee, with an open day on your schedule, I would love to light up a samovar, get out the good china, the primo tea, honey, cream and sugar. I'll make us some snickerdoodles, or I have sources for pretty good Хачапури and the famous Racine Kringle (a Danish confection in a variety of fruit flavors).
I think there are evil people who are rational, educated and not sociopaths. Good-hearted people who truly believe they are doing the right thing, yet whose actions actually cause great harm and suffering. And I agree, often ideology is at play in this, whether we're talking about the majority of Nazis—who were not sociopaths, which is a rare condition, but regular folk (the "banality of evil") who truly believed they were doing the right thing—or pro-Hamas activists. Wow, the tea conversation is sounding better and better. I do not have Chicago on my planner in the near future but have long wanted to pay a visit, and now I have a particularly good reason.
Terrific piece.
Amazing work. Brilliant. Best thing I’ve read in a long time.
“They had a daughter and three sons, including my great-grandfather Ignacy who, after Wikency’s death, moved to the village of Horodziej, which was about one-third Jewish, where he and his wife Sofia had four sons named Josef, Fyodor, my great-grandfather Ignacy, and Wladzimir.”
At the risk of nitpicking, I was befuddled by the above paragraph so I tried to work out your family tree:
- Great-great-great grandfather
Wikency Wołodźko m. ?
Purchases lot in Bojary in 1863, lives there until he dies
Had a daughter and three sons, including
- Great-great grandfather
Ignacy Wołodźko m. Sofia
Moves to Horodziej after father’s death
Had four sons: Josef, Fyodor, Wladzimir and
- Great-grandfather Ignacy (the fire-fighter.
Is this correct?
---
As for the substance of your essay, I need to ponder it. At the time your great-great-great grandfather was purchasing land in Bojary, my great-great grandfather was sending his four sons off to fight for the privilege of enslaving human beings. According to family lore, when my great grandfather, the sole surviving son, chose parole over imprisonment in a Union POW camp, his father was furious.
Thank you for the message. I removed the family stuff and reposted the above piece focusing only on decolonial philosophy. I'll publish the family stuff as a separate, expanded post of its own. But for now, yes, that part of the family tree is correct. It may be a bit confusing since there are several men in my family named Ignacy, or Ihnat, which is a rare name in Russia but the most common name among the men in my family.
I do hope you repost the family stuff bc it’s fascinating
Thanks, I definitely will, and with more details once I gather them all.