Customer Reviews

The Roots of Evil

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This book provides a cogent analysis of evil and along the way presents many interesting topics linked to moral values, responsibility and ethics. One important point is the recognition that evil is not mysterious but is part of the ambivalence, contradictions and propensities of human nature. Hence, contrary to the Enlightenment naive optimism, it is implausible (in view of human history) that evil will ever be completely

eradicated from human society. What one can expect is to minimize it and protect society from its terrible effects.

To do that one needs to understand the mechanism (internal and external) and causes that lead to evil actions. First step is to recognize there are different types of evil and the author tries to extract some pattern from unequivocal instances of evil, namely the Albigensian crusaders, Robespierre's reign of terror, Stangl's command of Treblinka, Argentinian "dirty-war" torturers, Charles Manson murders and a psychopath's career.

Overall it provides a rational, secular and objective discussion. The weak point is the proposed solutions to deal with evil. One proposal is to help people develop a "moral imagination", sources of which could be found in reading the classics. This sounds like the usual naive Enlightenment optimism once again. After all classical education didn't prevent the horrible instances of evil in the recent past; moreover, how on earth one is supposed to instill an interest in the classics nowadays, in our age of fast and superficial information, in which new media formats compete, through direct emotional appeals, to an increasingly impatient audience? Maybe the author develops these ideas in his other books.