"you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer,
fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it"
As an optimist and humanist, a shocking revelation for me was hearing
of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa. (I
think via a talk by Chomsky or Zizek)
Many atrocities were committed by both sides during the Apartheid era.
Enough said.
Years later the Government of National Unity wanted to heal the
country, to bury festering resentments and feuds. Perpetrators and
victims were brought together under supervision to talk openly and
work toward forgiveness. It's a great idea in principle. Although the
commission is widely considered successful, a strange thing occurred,
something that we also buried at the Nuremberg trials.
A quite small but significant group were not merely unrepentant, they
used the commission as a platform to attack and abuse their victims
again. "I'm really glad I tortured your children, let me tell you
about how they screamed", and so on.
Sure, always aim to "star man" in debate, but one must be hard enough
underneath to expect occasionally to be shot out of the sky, not by an
uncharitable or entrenched interlocutor but by an plain old evil
asshole. They exist. They're not "psychopaths" or even "trolls", but
get a thrill out of acting so as to add chaos and pain to the world.
It was very probably Zizek who talked about this. And definitely a
talk rather than words I read. Sorry I can't be more helpful. For the
Nuremberg angle then see Adam Curtis's "Pandora's Box" in which the
trial of Eichmann is centre stage of one episode. Eichmann effectively
cannot comprehend there was anything morally questionable about the
'final solution' and instead of apologies or reflection he repeatedly
doubles down and hammers home his reasonable justification for the
slaughter.
As an optimist and humanist, a shocking revelation for me was hearing of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa. (I think via a talk by Chomsky or Zizek)
Many atrocities were committed by both sides during the Apartheid era. Enough said.
Years later the Government of National Unity wanted to heal the country, to bury festering resentments and feuds. Perpetrators and victims were brought together under supervision to talk openly and work toward forgiveness. It's a great idea in principle. Although the commission is widely considered successful, a strange thing occurred, something that we also buried at the Nuremberg trials.
A quite small but significant group were not merely unrepentant, they used the commission as a platform to attack and abuse their victims again. "I'm really glad I tortured your children, let me tell you about how they screamed", and so on.
Sure, always aim to "star man" in debate, but one must be hard enough underneath to expect occasionally to be shot out of the sky, not by an uncharitable or entrenched interlocutor but by an plain old evil asshole. They exist. They're not "psychopaths" or even "trolls", but get a thrill out of acting so as to add chaos and pain to the world.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commi...