“The worst kind of evil, and the basis of the others, is the refusal to recognize morality at all, for it denies the possibility of goodness.” Susan Neiman, Call it Evil: Understanding the Trump Era
Our recent politics has made me think more deeply about evil. Is it accurate and/or useful to categorize people like Donald Trump or Mike Johnson or Elon Musk as ‘evil’?
The advantage of this label is that it may capture the radical character of their actions, allowing us to see them as no longer in the realm of ordinary political or business practices, but as having crossed a moral line. The disadvantage might be that someone defined as ‘evil’ cannot be tolerated, cannot be compromised with; your only meaningful option is to neutralize or destroy them. Seeing someone as evil requires an absolute us-them distinction and ends the possibility of political engagement.
My starting point for this inquiry was an understanding of evil as this: a person is evil if they take or support actions that they know are wrong and likely to inflict serious harm on others, to advance their personal interests. These interests may be money, or power, or status, or pleasure. Evil in my understanding is a type of radical selfishness, in which my own desires trump all other considerations, and this is done knowingly.
Hence a person who is unable to distinguish right from wrong, or to perceive or imagine accurately the effects of their actions on others, is not truly ‘evil,’ though they may do terrible things. We do not generally think of people with serious mental illness as evil; they are no longer in touch with reality.
For this reason I am not sure if Trump is evil, since I believe his narcissism is so extreme that he is unable to distinguish between his own interests and the real world. For Trump, what is in his own interest is always true. Trump is not in my opinion lying when he says the election was stolen; he cannot tell the difference between the world as it is and the world as he wants it to be. This is the source of his authority and charisma—he is not faking, he is entirely sincere in what he asserts, even if it is manifestly inaccurate. But this judgment is uncertain, and Trump’s actions are undoubtedly evil.
Even if Trump himself is not truly evil, the same can’t be said about many others who are not insane, who repeat and further lies for personal advantage. The most obvious are those who turned quickly from denouncing Trump and his claims, to endorsing them, obviously to advance themselves or to avoid political threats. Figures such as Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio are high on the list of such hypocrites. J.D. Vance is a recent addition to the tribe. These are people who say and do things that they do not believe and know are damaging, often profoundly damaging, to individuals as well as to core American institutions. They say and do these things to further their own careers and the success of their party. Hence they meet the definition of knowingly acting in ways that inflict serious harm, for their own advantage.
The realm of business and finance is also rife with evil. We can point to many egregious cases, like tobacco company executives, the heads of major oil companies, investment bankers, the Sacklers, who suppressed clear evidence that their products cause great harm. People inside these companies knew the truth and told those in charge, but their warnings were ignored and their findings buried. Few have been recognized and punished appropriately.
Today we have many examples of evil people running the world’s wealthiest and most powerful companies. Social media giants routinely design products to be addictive and divisive, with terrible effects on children and adolescents. Elon Musk grinningly went about ‘throwing USAID into the wood chipper’ without regard for the resulting suffering and death. The companies pouring trillions into AI do not even bother to hide the judgment of their own experts that their inventions could do grave damage to humanity, or even wipe humanity off the face of the earth.
The main objection one might make to this claim is, how can we be sure that these people know what they are doing is harmful? How can we be sure they don’t genuinely think that lowering taxes for the rich is good for average Americans, or that the potential benefits of AI justify the risks? In fact, aren’t those in business, in particular, convinced that by definition whatever they do that generates profits is beneficial to mankind at the same time it benefits them personally? The free market sorts out what is good and bad, and the ‘invisible hand’ ensures that their success contributes to the greater good.
The philosopher Susan Neiman, in her recent book Call it Evil: Understanding the Trump Era, argues that this kind of market fundamentalism is the definition of evil: that there is nothing but self-interest, and self-interest is good. Self-interest is ‘rational’, defined narrowly and circularly as the capacity to figure out how to achieve what we want. In her reading it is the creation of business interests and modern economists, like Milton Friedman, who have carefully misunderstood Adam Smith and invented a narrow caricature of human nature to justify self-interest as the only possible measure to judge our actions.
The widespread acceptance of this view has corrupted both leaders and led. Neiman quotes the late Russian dissident Aleksandr Navalny, who said of Putin: “Putin doesn’t have to convince you he’s not corrupt. He just has to convince you that everyone else is.” When this happens you lose your ability to make moral judgments. Trump’s self-dealing and deception becomes not just normal but admirable; as one MAGA supporter said recently, the $3 billion he has added to his fortune since being elected is a sign of how smart he is. Too many feel justified in voting for a traitor and convicted felon because the price of eggs is too high.
Neiman points to the growing influence of the political thinker Carl Schmitt, a Nazi jurist, writer and Jew hater who continued his Nazi apologetics until his death in 1985. Schmitt is a darling of today’s Right—in Russia too—for his anti-liberal teaching that politics is nothing but a conflict between friends and enemies. It has no moral dimension. He is quoted approvingly by JD Vance. Only power matters.
The idea that morality is nothing but ‘the interest of the stronger’ long predates Schmitt, of course. Plato’s dialogues have several characters who argue this position. What may be unique to our time, however, is to see this view publicly adopted and defended by major political movements and leaders. Whatever princes and their advisors might have thought in private, previous ages feared to go so far. No longer. Now it is acceptable to tell an ally, during a public meeting, that you ‘don’t have the cards.’ Followers call this ‘honesty’ and ‘telling it like it is,’ rather than an embarrassing betrayal of American principles.
Trump’s up-front amorality is not the problem. Con-men and shysters have always been with us. The problem is the willingness of so many political actors to mirror him, and so many American citizens to nod along. They are aware that great damage is being done, but don’t care as long as they and their movement thrive. Often they delight in the damage.
This chilling level of acquiescence stems, in part, from a shift in norms that makes it acceptable to exalt self-interest. The ascendance of market fundamentalism began with Reagan and the 1980s mantra that ‘greed is good’, and it has spread like a stain into our politics and every aspect of society.
What Would Dante Think?
Few have dissected the different types of evil as carefully as the great medieval Italian poet. His portrait of Hell in The Divine Comedy describes 9 distinct levels of ever-greater evil, with multiple sub-divisions.
An interesting exercise is to guess where Dante might have consigned Trump and those around him. What punishments await? It is hard not to conclude they would be severe. The lowest level of Hell, where Satan presides, encased in a lake of ice, is reserved for those Dante calls ‘betrayers’. There are four types: betrayers of kin, betrayers of countries and parties, betrayers of guests, and betrayers of friends and benefactors. These last, the worst of the worst—Judas, Brutus, and Cassius—are endlessly chewed in one of Satan’s several mouths.
Trump himself might belong with the betrayers of countries and parties. He is an insurrectionist who violated his oath to the Constitution, and the de facto follower of a foreign leader, Vladimir Putin. He would be forever frozen under the ice, barely able to move his head. Many of the Republicans who have gone MAGA and betrayed their longstanding convictions would join him.
I would argue however that Lindsay Graham deserves even worse and should join Judas in Satan’s mouth. Lindsay was for many years a close friend of John McCain, but after McCain’s death he sucked up to a man who belittled McCain and did his best to destroy everything McCain worked for. This betrayal of a friend is particularly unforgivable.
What about Elon Musk, Mark Andreesen, and the multitude of ambitious rich men who are bankrolling Trump and falling over themselves to seek his favor? The sin of avarice is punished higher up in the 4th circle, where the squanderers fight tooth and nail with the hoarders. However, Dante judges flattery to be far worse, because flattery is not a private vice like greed, but undermines the basis of community. He consigns flatterers to Hell’s 8th circle, where he describes them as “People immersed in filth that seemed to drain from human privies.” An image to ponder.
We must still consider the cases of Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon and others who are not opportunists, but true believers in MAGA’s ideology of power and ethnic purity. Many of them are Christian nationalists who have perverted Christian teachings to support cruelty and selfishness, and so might be punished with the heretics, purveyors of false religions, also in the 8th circle. The heretics are regularly chopped in pieces by devils, and heal, just in time to be chopped again. May it be so.
(Quotes from The Divine Comedy are from the Robert Pinsky translation, 1994.)