Banal Evil, Free Speech

February 10th, 2005 at 22:15 Björn Hallberg

Ward Churchill’s apt observation about the September 11 attack seems to be causing a lot of slur these days. Ironically almost no one, including myself, read his original article for about three years. Now, all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose when Churchill is refused and then rescheduled to speak at various universities. In fact, Ward Churchill seems to be all over the news. His every written word is being twisted and turned to find something to use against him. Did he call the 9/11 victims Nazis? Did he deny the holocaust? There is a frenzy going on. And most of it is plain rubbish and conjecture by his ideological opponents, neocons as it were.
CBS even put their best legal expert on the case. That guy sure seems to have no idea what he is talking about and should stick to practising law. This clearly falls under the domain of social science. But it is evident that most of Churchill’s critics don’t have a clue. They lack the basic understanding of the term "Banality of Evil", Eichmann, Arendt’s works and indeed America’s role in the world. So it’s tough to find an angle to even begin to convince them. Churchill chose the aggressive, provocative approach and I have to commend him for it.

What people are saying:

Here is an example of an industrious chap who wrote a letter to his university president, outlining threats and blackmailing if they, the univ, accepted Churchill as a speaker. Pretty mature. Apparently the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater did allow Churchill to speak in the end. Good for them. It’s in everyone’s best interest that debate be kept in the open.

Here is another article, featured in Commondreams, with some more thoughts on the matter. Overall, the author is sharing in the mainstream contempt of Ward Churchill and try to distance himself from anything he has to say.

Ward Churchill himself recently wrote a piece in Counterpunch outlining what he meant by his original article. Some clarification is perhaps in order as the media and Churchill’s critics have spun the story far beyond the scope of the core idea.

What I am saying:

Bottom line, Ward Churchill is correct in his somewhat grim interpretation of 9/11 and the US. Who ever said reality was fair and balanced. His critics are too busy being disgusted to really combat Churchill’s arguments.
Of course it’s also a case of Goodwin’s Law. Not that there is anything wrong with Goodwin’s Law. I use it all the time. Everyone uses it. It relates to one of the most potent and far reaching metaphors of contemporary human history. We’ve all heard variations of it in terms of "Axis of Evil" and so on and so forth. I think we can all come up with a few examples of our own.

As for Eichmann, Churchill brings up a very interesting, although somewhat obvious point. In it’s simplest form, all Americans are responsibly for the actions of their government. Even Churchill. Even I, as a non-American, when I buy American products.
But far from all Americans are Eichmanns just as far from all Germans during WWII were Eichmanns. One has to draw the line somewhere and pen a definition. America traditionally sets its standards pretty low. Remember the denazification hearings after WWII for example. The Americans were convinced that Germany had to be cleansed of Nazi sympathizers as they saw them. No matter if they were just average people who had obviously not consciously aided the government. In fact they were troubled to find that when the war was lost, the extremism was gone as well. It wasn’t what the Allies wanted to hear. The point is that whether to view the population as accomplishes to crime and terror depends on a great number of things. In this case it also helps of course that most Americans can’t understand that their government has perpetrated crimes in their name for decades. Just as few people in Germany anno 1940 would have had much to complain about as long as the tide was in their favor. As Churchill points out, during the war German financiers and the civilian economic machinery was targeted as it contributed to Germany’s war effort. If that was fair or not is beyond this discourse but it was a conscious decision and the 9/11 attacks can be seen in the same light. The trick being of course to use only a small part of the WWII era only, and not get overly ambitious. As can be witnessed here, in the media discourse, people apparently can’t hold more than one idea at a time. Consequently, the use of Nazi references brings the entire realm of the Nazi Party into focus. Soon the US is being likened in full with Nazi Germany. The entire travelling circus comes crashing down as soon as anyone asks for cotton candy. Ah, that was a lousy metaphor but I’m sure you can appreciate the point I’m trying to make.

At any rate, Eichmann, as correctly characterized by Hannah Arendt was not the monster many had thought and perhaps wanted to see. In fact he was quite mundane, to the point of being dull, i.e. "banal". In Arendt’s coverage of the Eichmann trial, which later resulted in the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem - A Report on the Banality of Evil", it became apparent that Adolf Eichmann was the embodiment of thoughtlessness. Arendt was struck foremost by his style of communication as it left much to be desired. In essence, Eichmann spoke only in short bursts of propagandistic clichés. He seemed in many ways unable to speak for himself, as opposed to many of the Nazi elite who were tried at Nürnberg and who put on quite a show, much to the dismay of the Allies.
Eichmann’s indifferent and unreflective appearance however indicated that he was as Arendt put it, "terribly and terrifyingly normal". Arendt portrays Eichmann as a conformist, one who for that reason and not for ideology or hatred chose to carry out his work. It is in that light we must see Eichmann and judge Churchill’s metaphor.

Of course, again any effective understanding builds upon acknowledging that America has in fact committed crimes against humanity, is off course and is gearing up to worse crimes still. Maybe that is a more resonable start than to right away convince the extremists that they deserve what happened. But my patience is wearing thin too and I guess that if I’d been in Churchill’s shoes and fought my entire life against injustice, and got nothing back, I’d do far worse.

It didn’t take long before the issue of free speech came up also. Some question if Ward can say what he said (even though it was three years ago and no one did mind until a month ago). And if should be allowed to keep his tenure. There are even those that question if Academic freedom of speech should exist and if the universities of the US have been staffed by "liberal extremists" (and that they should be removed). Ignoring of course the the BY FAR likeliest explanation — that the superior intellectual capacity that rests with these institutions is in a position not only to see through but also to threaten the governing elite.

On another matter, I do deplore Churchill’s use of the word "technocrat" in this context. It’s not wrong per se but as I myself am active in the "ideology" referred to as "technocracy" I have to protest. He is not alone however. I am sensing a deepening contempt towards technical experts and while experts too can serve the wrong purpose, it should be pointed out that the solution is not to deprive technocrats of power but rather grant them more of the same. Technocrats powerless to object or hindered and indoctrinated to prevent reflection are the real Eichmanns, and governments all over the world depend on their loyal dirty work every day. It would also be helpful to make sure that technocrats of all fields, not just economics, law, the usual suspects as it were, emerge and be more active in shaping society.
I know Churchill did not intend to defame technocrats. In fact he is somewhat of a technocrat himself, being an academic and all. These technocrats in particular are making sure the empire runs smoothly, he is correct there, and it makes sense, but it’s not them we are really after. And we must make sure we do not stop there, accept them as scapegoats and let the real culprits elope.
Technocracy per se is not bad, but obviously if you train experts in torture, war and terror, that kind of expertise could be considered bad, if applied. Also likening technocrats with Eichmann in the sense that they aren’t reflexive about themselves and the world is interesting. But that is also not a necessary development for a technocrat. In many ways we have yet to see any true technocrats emerge and  it is unlikely that they can function as intended (other than obvious scapegoats when things go awry) as long as the world is run by a political elite and the Dilbert Principle. Just a little obvious statement before we get all antagonistic towards technocrats. I couldn’t help notice the use of the word.

“The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.” - Ward Churchill

See also: Killing the Messenger: Ward Churchill’s Sins Against the Empire

Entry 30 filed under: Social Science. This entry was posted 3 years, 9 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.