Feb 8, 2017
You gotta love ‘em Archons. When they’re not reptilian space lords bent on whatever they’re bent on, they’re the overseers of all fate in a rickety universe, the godly entities that keep humanity...
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You gotta love ‘em Archons. When they’re not reptilian space lords bent on whatever they’re bent on, they’re the overseers of all fate in a rickety universe, the godly entities that keep humanity...
Unlike other cosmic villains, the Archons in Gnosticism weren't interested in temptation or overthrowing good. Their methods of control were quite modern.
O životnim preprekama i njihovom nadilaženju
"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."
— James Dawes, 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.
Why the war criminals did what they did—in the end, that is not what I find hard to understand. What I find hard to understand is what must it be like to be the person who did those things. When we imagine getting perpetrators into our hands, the first thing we think about is punishment, what we as a society are going to do to them. But I think the real and final punishment is having to be the person you are."
— James Dawes, Understanding Evil
"I do not escape choices by not judging. Not judging is a choice."
— James Dawes, Understanding Evil
"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."
— James Dawes, Understanding Evil
"'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.'"
— James Dawes, Understanding Evil
"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?
'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.'
But to talk about these men, I need a word that insists there are acts that exceed our normal categories of wrong. I need a word that insists that, no matter how long you stare at it, no matter what light you put it in, there will always remain something beyond what you are able to see or say. These were evil men."
— James Dawes, Understanding Evil