Off the Mark

  Written as part of final exam for Sociology 469.04 Seminar in Sociological Institutions - Modern Morality. Fall 2001 at Illinois State University.
 

1.  Discuss Todorov’s theory of totalitarianism and how it accounts for the widespread use of concentration camps and for related crimes in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.  Interpret this statement of Todorov’s:  “Totalitarianism reveals what democracy leaves in the shadows – that at the end of the path of indifference and conformity lies the concentration camp.”  Distinguish between moralism and the moral judgment that is a component of moral virtue.  Discuss the lessons to be learned from the concentration camps about moral values.

   Todorov’s theory of totalitarianism centers on its influence on individual moral behavior.  He believes that traditional explanations are lacking.  Some have blamed the amount of evil on pathologically abnormal people.  But evidence shows a very small percentage of people who could be considered pathological, and millions committed the evil.  Some have posited a reversion to bestial or primitive instincts.  But, he says “that torture and extermination have not even the remotest equivalent in the animal kingdom.” (Todorov, 123)  Lastly, some have claimed that it is a direct outgrowth of ideological fanaticism.  But, he claims that the number of fanatics was no larger than the number of sadists.  Most involved were conformists.  “[T]hese crimes were new, right down to the principle on which they were based, and thus require new explanatory concepts.” (Todorov, 124) 
 

    This evil was banal in that it was committed by people who were “terrifyingly normal.”  A convicted Nazi speaking about the Auschwitz exterminations said that “there is a limit to the number of people you can kill out of hatred or a lust for slaughter”—so much for fanaticism and sadism—“but there is no limit to the number you can kill in the cold, systematic manner of the military ‘categorical imperative.’” (Todorov, 125)  Todorov says that we must look to the character of the society that issues such imperatives.

    He claims that the societal trait that allows such crimes is
totalitarianism.  He also claims that totalitarianism has three main
characteristics which are important in its influence on individual
moral behavior.  The first of these traits is that of the internal
enemy.  If the individual is not with the state, then he is against
it.  This leads to dividing humanity into two groups of unequal worth.
The inferior beings are usually punished or even exterminated.  This,
in turn, leads to a certain form of moral behavior.  One comes to the
enjoyment of power over one’s ‘enemies.’
 

   The second characteristic is that “the state becomes the
custodian of society’s ultimate aims.” (Todorov, 127)  The state places
itself between the individual and his values and as such, “the state
replaces humanity as the standard by which to distinguish good from
evil and thus determines the direction in which society will evolve.”
(Todorov, 127-8)  This leads the individual to the feeling of relief
from personal responsibility for decisions.  The state restricts its
subjects to instrumental thinking and the treating of all actions as
means.  This is precisely how such “ordinary people” are capable of
such evil.  The state accomplishes its goals without disturbing the
individual’s moral conscience; it is simply replaced with a new one.

   The third characteristic is that “the state aspires to control
the totality of an individual’s social existence.” (Todorov, 128)  The
state controls who works, where they work, what kind of job they get,
if they can travel, where they can travel, whether they can own
property, whether they can live, and so on.  Almost all aspects of life
are under the control of the totalitarian state.  This leads to social
schizophrenia.  The individual must exhibit public docility at least.
This social schizophrenia is a weapon in the hands of the state
though.  “[I]t lulls to sleep the conscience of the totalitarian
subject, reassures him, and lets him underestimate the seriousness of
his public deeds.  Master of his heart of hearts, the subject no longer
pays much attention to what he does in the world.” (Todorov, 129)   

   This is the manner in which totalitarianism accounts for the
widespread use of concentration camps.  The state, by setting societal
goals and aspiring to control all of an individual’s existence,
relieves the individual from responsibility for decisions, encourages,
and in fact, requires instrumental thought, and creates a sort of
social schizophrenia within the individual.  This then is the power
that the state uses to disconnect the moral individual from what they
actually do in the world. 

   In his chapter entitled, The Perils of Judgment, Todorov
states that: “[T]otalitarianism reveals what democracy leaves in the
shadows—that at the end of the path of indifference and conformity lies
the concentration camp.” (Todorov, 253)  It is in this chapter that he
details the four circles of moral responsibility.  He is discussing the
fourth circle, the populations of the free countries, when he makes
this statement.  The ‘secrets’ of the stalags and gulags were not, in
fact, secret.  Yet little to nothing was done.  “Why?” he asks.   

   The answer seems to be that the allies didn’t want “the transfer
of odium from the German to Allied Governments,” as stated in a State
Department document. (Todorov, 250)  We have no room for others’
misfortunes if we have to sacrifice our own comfort.  We still turn a
deliberate blind eye to extreme poverty, homelessness, and other moral
dilemmas of our day.

   Thus, what Todorov is saying is that the resignation, deliberate
blindness, and fatalism that is present in today’s technological
democracies can easily lead a society down “the path of indifference
and conformity” to the concentration camp.   

   Moralism is the invoking of a set of principles without acting on
them, or without placing oneself at risk.  It makes one feel superior,
“I’m good, you’re evil.”  According to Jacques Ellul, it is “one of the
worst scourges of human existence.”

   Moral judgment involves oneself in the decision as to what action
to take.  It involves the risk to oneself that one may go against the
group.  And, it involves acknowledging moral complicity in evil.
According to Jacques Ellul, moral judgement is “the highest expression
of individual freedom.”
 

   According to Todorov, for an action to be moral, it must be:
subjective, you believe in it; performed by an individual who exercises
moral judgment; and, it must be directed toward other individuals.
Whether these three criteria are necessary I do not know, but I do
believe them to be sufficient criteria for an action to be moral.
Thus, moralism does not allow for moral action. 

   Todorov discusses a few “moral lessons of the camps and of the
actions that took place in them, around them, and in response to them.”
(Todorov, 289)  Then he draws a few conclusions.   

   He says the first lesson has to do with the reason for the
extraordinary growth of evil in the twentieth century.  He doesn’t
think that the nature of evil has radically changed.  Todorov believes
that it is “two common, altogether ordinary attributes of our daily
lives: the fragmentation of the world we live in and the
depersonalization of our relations with others.” (Todorov, 289-90)
Increasing specialization brings about fragmentation and
compartmentalization.  Instrumental thinking applied to interpersonal
relations leads to depersonalization.  “In other words, those qualities
appropriate to teleological activities (specialization, efficacy) have
also pervaded intersubjective activities, and it is this change that
has increased immeasurably a potential for evil not so different from
that of earlier centuries.” (Todorov, 290)

   The second lesson is about the “status of good in a century whose
emblematic feature is the concentration camp.” (Todorov, 290)  I am not
convinced that the concentration camp is the symbol he claims it to
be.  It certainly is for some people, but for how many?  I’d maintain
that it’s not a significant portion of the world’s population.  But
I’ll give him the point for argument’s sake.  Todorov believes that the
amount of good has stayed the same during the past century, but that
evil has grown.  This is another concept that I have a hard time coming
to grips with.  I have absolutely no idea how to measure the value of a
‘good,’ much less to measure good (or evil) at its most abstract.   

but then what kind of scale
compares the weight of two beauties
the gravity of duties
or the ground speed of joy?
tell me what kind of gauge
can quantify elation?
what kind of equation
could i possibly employ?
  (DiFranco, school night)

   I think he may be referring to what appears to me, at least, to
be the appearance of greater evil and less good.  I think that the
technology, both material technology and technique, available to
mankind since the turn of the century has had a major impact on the
perception of the growth of evil.  We now have the capability to cause
destruction on such a large-scale and to bring it live into the living
rooms of most homes around the world each evening that it surely
appears as if evil is increasing.  Good news rarely sells, it’s not
spectacle, so we hear little of it.   

   I’ll grant that the instantaneous delivery of the media was quite
a bit less during the days of the holocaust.  But he also easily
brushes aside any possible historical equivalents.  I do agree with him
though that increased fragmentation and depersonalization have
certainly opened the door to the possibility of increased evil.  I
still would have a problem quantifying it though.

   There is some hope Todorov admits.  It seems that there are quite
a few more acts of kindness than those generally recognized by
traditional morality.  This is one lesson of the camps.  People in the
most adverse of circumstances were still capable of performing simple
acts of kindness.  Todorov says that it is up to those of us not facing
extreme hardships to “recognize and acknowledge these acts of dignity,
caring, and creativity, to confirm their value and encourage them more
than we habitually do, for while everyone is capable of them, they
represent one of the supreme achievements of the human race.” (Todorov,
291)  I could not agree with him more on any point than this one.  The
“banality of good” is such a beautiful concept.
 

   Todorov thinks that the lessons of the camps may shed some light
on the ages old moral debate of human nature vs. duty.  The people who
performed these acts of kindness did so out of human nature; it most
certainly was not from a sense of duty.  But, these natural acts were
the voluntary actions of a person free to choose their behavior.  All
in all, this still leaves us somewhere between the two extremes of
purely human nature vs. duty.  The extreme of duty has a much weaker
claim now though it has been shown to be false in these sorts of
extreme circumstances.  Maybe duty still has a large place in the
morality of the normal, but that is not Todorov’s goal.

   The third group of lessons for Todorov has to do with the
relation between gender and moral values as evinced in the series of
oppositions which he has drawn.  He first split human actions and
qualities into the teleological and the intersubjective.  Then the
intersubjective was divided into public and private activities.  This
led to the division of politics and morality.  Moral action called for
the difference between ordinary and heroic virtues.  Within the
ordinary virtues, he then distinguished between the morality of
principles and that of sympathy.   

   Todorov sees these as “a kind of double necessity: even though
these are real oppositions that admit of no synthesis, both terms are
equally crucial to the life of the individual and to that of society.
Work must be efficient and human relations must not be sacrificed to it….” (Todorov, 293)  Is this tension surmountable?

   He also sees how European societies, this includes America, have
split these values along gender lines.  Men value work, politics,
public affairs, heroic virtues, and the morality of principles.  Women
value the opposites: human relations, the private sphere, ordinary
virtues, and the morality of sympathy.  These are not exclusive
assignments, but are highly preferential.  These terms are not equally
appreciated.  The ‘male’ terms are far more highly valued by most
people in these societies or at least by those in power.
 

   The conclusions Todorov derives are few, but they are extremely important.

   First, he says “we must renounce the ideal of unity….  The two
terms of each opposition are not contradictory, strictly speaking; yet
embodied in concrete actions, they can not be practiced by the same
person at the same time.  Both are necessary, however….” (Todorov,
294)   

   Based on the above conclusion, he states that “we must recognize
that the complete moral being may not be the individual but…the couple,
which must in turn be built on a compromise between the two types of
values, each serving to temper the other.” (Todorov, 294)  It is
essential that both types of values are preserved and acted upon.  It
is also essential that we attempt to break the European split of these
values into masculine and feminine.  Every gender should practice and
express each of the values as appropriate. 

   The third lesson Todorov draws is that we must be on guard for
the day when ordinary virtue is not enough.  If and when that day
comes, whether in the life of the individual or of the society, then
people must be willing to take risk upon themselves and those close to
them, even for a stranger.  That is, there comes a time when the heroic
virtues of courage and generosity are just as necessary as the ordinary
ones.
 

   The tragic, final lesson of the camps for Todorov is that people
who can display the heroic virtues, even to a stranger, are few in
number. 

   Another lesson I believe that was at least confirmed by the
horrors of the camps is that: “All, or almost all, of us prefer comfort
to truth.” (Todorov, 156)
 

Sources

   DiFranco, Ani. school night on reckoning. Righteous Babe Records, 2001.
 

   Todorov, Tzvetan, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps, (NY: Henry Holt, 1996)

 
  Afterthoughts and Notes:
 

Written as part of final exam for Sociology 469.04 Seminar in
Sociological Institutions - Modern Morality. Fall 2001 at Illinois
State University.  Sorry I don’t have the 2 Ellul citations.  Someday,
when I get a chance, I’ll look for them.  Actually, I think they may
have come from lecture notes and thus I never had a correct citation.
There didn’t seem any need to cite the prof to the prof.