The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence

was some resistance, but most Jews did as they were told. Victims were also mostly passive in the other three cases we shall consider. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes victims deny the reality to defend themselves against the intense anxiety that would result from seeing the intentions of the harm-doers. More importantly, the victims face overwhelming, brutal force. Often, the population is also antagonistic, and they stand alone. As the continuum of destruction progresses, there is a parallel progression of psychological changes in victims. They give up hope, moving along a continuum of victimization.

The behavior of victims affects the perpetrators’ resolve. It can make the devaluation of victims, the evolution of a genocidal ideology, and its expression in action easier or more difficult. But it is not the origin of the motivations that lead to mass killing or the cause of victimization.

Complex analyses of the origins of the Holocaust. Especially in the last decade historians have offered increasingly complex analyses of economic and political forces that preceded the Holocaust and presumably contributed to it. They have examined the role of elites, the relationship between big business and Hitler, the nature and impact of mass politics, the circumstances of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the unification of Germany under Bismarck within a highly authoritarian political framework, the rapid industrialization of Germany, and so on.²⁵I believe, however, that the basic sources of genocide are cultural characteristics, difficult life conditions, and the needs and motives that arise from them. Many economic and political processes are affected by, or arise from, and in turn serve these needs. Leaders who consciously manipulate the people to serve their political purposes are likely to share these needs. Channeling frustration, offering scapegoats, and creating ideologies may help both members of the group and leaders to deal with their needs. Thus psychological needs and political purpose coincide. This integration of different motives is itself satisfying and may become a motive in its own right.²⁶

Some further comparisons: (a) Continuity and discontinuity. In explaining genocide, some authors stress discontinuity between past and present. Dekmejian suggests that in situations of social turmoil new elites arise, who are usually highly marginal groups.²⁷ They respond to social conditions with a pervasive identity crisis, which leads them to adopt an extreme and rigid identity. Hartt stresses the importance of structural change “as exemplified in the concept of national upheaval – an abrupt change in the political community, caused, for example, by the formation of a state through violent conflict.”²⁸

In all four cases I discuss, a new government had come to power not more than eight years before the genocide or mass killing began, with new leadership groups except in Argentina. However, only in Cambodia did a violent civil war bring the new elite to power.

Changes in the form of government and the associated changes in society contribute to the likelihood of genocide by creating or intensifying difficult life conditions. Turkey and Germany changed from monarchy to some form of electoral system (followed in Germany by totalitarian rule), which required changes in the populations’ societal self-concepts and world views. In Cambodia many changes took place in the preceding forty years, with the change just before the genocide the most wrenching. Lack of experience and of a tradition of rule would make new leaders insecure and threaten their identity as they face intense difficulties of life, which in part they have created. Their need to form their own identity and separate themselves from the traditions of the past may increase their readiness for violence. Nonetheless, the new leaders and their followers are rooted in the culture, frequently a homogeneous one with a limited set of dominant values. I see the shared needs and dispositions of the whole group and a cultural continuity as especially important in understanding the roots of genocide.

(b) The role of the state and social structure. Some authors touch on the role of state structure in genocide. The state is an organization with interests of its own. It needs to survive in a world of competing and often hostile (or perceived as hostile) nation-states. In this view, to maintain its power, to bring about obedience, and to unite the group, some states commit genocide.

But not all states do. Different organizations, including states, have different perspectives on reality, methods of operation, and motives. We must come to understand the origins of motives and the evolution of destructive tendencies as exemplified by elements of culture, ideologies, societal and institutional norms that allow destruction, and institutions that come to serve destruction and whose very nature may in extreme cases require violence.

Summary: a conception of motivation and evolution

Although genocide results from a number of influences working together, these influences (see Table 1) can be divided into a few important classes.

My focus is motivation, its origins and consequences. Individuals and groups have many needs, goals, and desires. Which ones will become active and exert influence at any given time? I will describe and employ personal goal theory to specify how an active motivation to harm a subgroup of society arises and how it intensifies in the course of a social evolution that ends in genocide. I will also discuss how the normal inhibitions against harming and killing people decline, partly by excluding victims from the moral universe.

The conception and its elaboration in the analyses of specific cases give us ways of identifying conditions under which genocide and mass killing are more or less probable. The conception may help us predict the occurrence of genocide and specify interventions by other nations that would inhibit mistreatment with genocidal potential. It provides a basis for a long-term agenda: the creation of caring, nonaggressive people and societies. In the next four chapters I discuss in detail different components of this conception of the origins of genocide.

^a Psychological processes include the thoughts and feelings of individuals, the meanings they perceive in events. Culture includes the thoughts, feelings, and ways of perceiving and evaluating events and people shared by members of