#understanding evil

"Many of the Chukiren have died since I last spoke with them. The others are failing rapidly. I'm not sure I ever really came to understand them. But that is not because what they did is beyond understanding, not because evil is some kind of mystery. In some ways, it is all quite simple. If I had been a 19-year-old when my country entered into a genocidal war, I would have done the same thing everybody else did. That's true for most of us. Making monsters is a straightforward process, and ­nation-states are expert at it."

"Many of the Chukiren have died since I last spoke with them. The others are failing rapidly. I'm not sure I ever really came to understand them. But that is not because what they did is beyond understanding, not because evil is some kind of mystery. In some ways, it is all quite simple. If I had been a 19-year-old when my country entered into a genocidal war, I would have done the same thing everybody else did. That's true for most of us. Making monsters is a straightforward process, and ­nation-states are expert at it.

"I do not escape choices by not judging. Not judging is a choice."

"Sitting with the men, I think: I have no right to be here. I have no right to ask these questions. But I have put myself here specifically as an interviewer, which means that, as a matter of training, I must enter their homes without judgment."

"'Evil' can be a sloppy word, an impediment to understanding. It means 'bad' plus 'unidentified metaphysical stuff.' Saying something is evil is often a way of ending a conversation, stopping further analysis, letting ourselves be satisfied with thought-dulling mystery. 'Evil' can also be a dangerous word. To say something is evil is to say it can't be understood; it can only be hated. We use the word 'evil' when we need to prepare ourselves to do violence. Evil is the ultimate 'other.'"

"The more-enduring confusion of working with perpetrators. . . wasn't personal. It was conceptual. My interviews raised questions I couldn't answer. I left the tapes untouched in a file cabinet for more than a year because I couldn't resolve the paradoxes. By representing atrocity, are we giving voice, and therefore respect, to the victims who have been silenced? Or are we sensationalizing the private stories of those who have already been violated? When we take evil that is beyond understanding and put it into words, are we bringing healing clarity to the raw confusion of trauma? Or are we falsely packaging and simplifying something that ought never to be reduced, translating inexpressible evil into something common just for the sake of sharing a story?