Back in my professing days, I used to try to “bring history alive”, as it were, by “humanizing” historical figures. Let’s stipulate that Adolf Hitler was evil, I’d tell my students. Still, he obviously didn’t think of himself that way. Like all of us, he thought well of himself. In his own mind, he was a good person doing good things (or, at worst, doing bad things for good ends). We won’t learn anything meaningful about Hitler’s policies, I told them, unless we try to understand how he saw himself, as an historical actor.
If I thought it would help, I’d quote Machiavelli at them, to the effect that it’s impossible for a person to be thoroughly, consistently evil, even when it’s obviously to his best advantage. If I thought they were capable of grasping it, I’d follow by observing that this quote is just Machiavelli restating – in his inimitable style – the thoroughly conventional, utterly uncontroversial, indeed banal, opinion that people like to think well of themselves, and balk at doing things which make them bad people in their own eyes.
By that point, I’d have lost all but the sharpest undergrads, so I’d spell out the lesson Machiavelli intended us to take from his observation: While no one wants to think of himself as doing evil, when it comes to something that’s obviously advantageous, pretty much any rationalization will do.
Severian, “Acid”, Founding Questions, 2020-12-17.
July 15, 2023
QotD: Historical figures didn’t think of themselves as doing evil
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