2010+14eagleton:NS 29/03/2010 19:37 Page 28 Through a glass darkly: children are “only semi-socialised” ALAN HARVEY/MAGNUM PHOTOS©DAVID 28 | NEW STATESMAN | 5-18 APRIL 2010 2010+14eagleton:NS 29/03/2010 19:37 Page 29 THE NS ESSAY II Of men and monsters By Terry Eagleton The murderers of James Bulger have been demonised as evil, as if they were born that way. But is evil really innate? And do we need religion to explain the ills of the world? Fifteen years ago, two ten-year-old boys tor- A police officer involved in the case of the and it followed that they could not be punished tured and killed a toddler, James Bulger, in the murdered toddler declared that the moment for it as severely as he might have wished. This north of England. There was an outcry of public he clapped eyes on one of the culprits, he knew mistakenly implies that an action that has a horror, though why the public found this par- that he was evil. This is the kind of thing cause cannot be freely undertaken. Causes in ticular murder especially shocking is not en- that gives evil a bad name. The point of demon- this view are forms of coercion. If our actions tirely clear. Children, after all, are only semi- ising the boy in this way was to wrong-foot have causes, we are not responsible for them. socialised creatures who can be expected to be- the soft-hearted liberals. It was a pre-emptive Evil, on the other hand, is thought to be un- have pretty savagely from time to time. If Freud strike against those who might appeal to social caused, or to be its own cause. This is one of is to be credited, they have a weaker superego or conditions in seeking to understand why they its several points of resemblance with good. moral sense than their elders. In this sense, it is did what they did. And such under standing Apart from evil, only God is said to be the cause surprising that such grisly events do not occur can always bring forgiveness in its wake. Call- of himself. more often. Perhaps children murder each other ing the action evil meant that it was beyond There is a kind of tautology or circular argu- all the time and are simply keeping quiet about comprehension. Evil is unintelligible. It is just ment implicit in the policeman’s view. People it. William Golding seems to believe, in his a thing in itself, like boarding a crowded com- do evil things because they are evil. Some novel Lord of the Flies, that a bunch of unsuper- muter train wearing only a giant boa constric- people are evil in the way that some things are vised schoolboys on a desert island would tor. There is no context which would make coloured indigo. They commit their evil deeds slaughter each other before the week was out. it explicable. not to achieve some goal, but just because of the Perhaps this is because we are ready to be- Evil is often supposed to be without rhyme sort of people they are. But might this not mean lieve all kinds of sinister things about children, or reason. An English Evangelical bishop wrote that they can’t help doing what they do? For the since they seem like a half-alien race in our in 1991 that clear signs of Satanic possession policeman, the idea of evil is an alternative to midst. Since they do not work, it is not clear included inappropriate laughter, inexplicable such determinism. But it seems that we have what they are for. They do not have sex, though knowledge, a false smile, Scottish ancestry, thrown out a determinism of environment only perhaps they are keeping quiet about this, too. relatives who have been coal miners, and the to replace it with one of character. It is now your They have the uncanniness of things which habitual choice of black for dress or car colour. character, not your social conditions, which resemble us in some ways but not in others. None of this makes sense, but then that is how drives you to unspeakable deeds. It is not hard to fantasise that they are collec- it is with evil. The less sense it makes, the more So people like the policeman are really pes- tively conspiring against us, in the manner of evil it is. Evil has no relations to anything be- simists, even though they would probably John Wyndham’s fable The Midwich Cuckoos. yond itself, such as a cause. bristle at the accusation. If Satan is what you Because children are not fully part of the social In fact, the word has come to mean, among are up against, rather than adverse social condi- game, they can be seen as innocent; but for other things, “without a cause”. If the child tions, evil would seem to be unbeatable. And just the same reason, they can be regarded as killers did what they did because of boredom this is depressing news for (among other peo- the spawn of Satan. The Victorians swung con- or bad housing or parental neglect, then – so the ple) the police. Calling the boys evil dramatises stantly between angelic and demonic views of police officer may have feared – what they did the gravity of their crime, and seeks to cut off their offspring. was forced upon them by their circumstances; tender-hearted appeals to social conditions. t 5-18 APRIL 2010 | NEW STATESMAN | 29 2010+14eagleton:NS 29/03/2010 19:37 Page 30 THE NS ESSAY II t It makes the culprits harder to forgive. But it freedom are bound closely together. For those Wouldn’t a truly wicked Fagin succeed in cor- does so only at the cost of suggesting that this who do not grasp this point, trying to account rupting that will? Doesn’t the child’s un - kind of malignant behaviour is here to stay. for wicked acts is always a devious attempt assailable virtue unwittingly let the old rascal If the young killers of the toddler could not to let their perpetrators off the hook. But to off the hook? We might also ask ourselves, help being evil, however, then the fact is that explain why I spend my weekends cheerfully with Oliver’s impregnable innocence in mind, they were innocent. Most of us, to be sure, boiling badgers alive is not necessarily to con- whether we really admire a goodness that can- recognise that small children can no more be done what I do. Not many people imagine that not be put to the test. The old-fashioned puri- evil than get divorced or enter into purchase historians seek to explain the rise of Hitler in tan view that virtue must prove its credentials agreements. Yet there are always those who order to make him look more alluring. in strenuous combat with its enemies, and in believe in bad blood or malevolent genes. If It is also odd to assume that understanding doing so must expose itself to something of some people really are born evil, however, they is bound to lead to greater tolerance. In fact, their depraved power, has something to be said are no more responsible for this condition than the reverse is often true. The more we learn of for it. being born with cystic fibrosis. The condition the futile massacres of the First World War, which is supposed to damn them succeeds only forexample, the less we feel they can be justi- s far as responsibility is con- in redeeming them. fied. Explanations may sharpen moral judge- Men and women who are evil are sometimes cerned, Kant and a right-wing ments as well as soften them. Besides, if evil tabloid such as the Daily Mail said to be “possessed”. But if they really are the really is beyond explanation – if it is an unfath- helpless victims of demonic powers, they are to have a good deal in common. omable mystery – how can we even know Morally speaking, both hold that be pitied, not condemned. The film The Exor- enough about it to condemn evildoers? The cist is interestingly ambiguous about whether we are entirely responsible for word “evil” is generally a way of bringing argu- what we do. In fact, such self-responsibility we should feel loathing or compassion for its ments to an end, like a fist in the solar plexus. A diabolical little heroine. People who are sup- is thought to be the very essence of morality. Either human actions are explicable, in which On this view, appeals to social conditioning are posedly possessed raise the hoary old question case they cannot be evil; or they are evil, in of freedom and determinism in thrillingly simply a cop-out. Many people, conservatives which case there is nothing more to be said point out, grow up in dismal social conditions theatrical form. Is the devil inside the Exorcist about them. child the true essence of her being (in which yet become law-abiding citizens. This is rather The police officer’s use of the term “evil” was like arguing that because some smokers don’t die case we should fear and loathe her), or is it an clearly ideological. He was probably afraid alien invader (in which case we should feel pity of cancer, nobody who smokes dies of cancer. for her)? Is she just the defenceless puppet of It is this doctrine of absolute self-responsibility this power, or does it spring straight from who If evil is beyond which has helped to overpopulate the death she is? Or is evil a case of self-alienation, in the explanation, how can we rows of US prisons.