Fifty Shades of Evil
By Hans Vogel – Substack / Unz Review, March 23, 2025
Some questions concerning the currently prevailing “hit parade of evildoers,” arguing that it is historically impossible to qualify or quantify evil.
Who would you say is the most evil person in World History? Most people would answer immediately: Hitler. Many would say Stalin and a few others might perhaps come up with Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who lived about eight centuries ago, or with another historical character from a distant past and a faraway place.
So far, so good, because there appears to be somewhat of a consensus. And don’t we all just love democracy? After all, democracy, in the guise of consensus, has come to dominate even science, where “scientific consensus” today equals truth, as is evident from “climate science.” Dissenting opinions are easily swept off the table and labelled as “fake science” or even “disinformation.” In the historical discipline, where hard evidence is a rarity, this practice has existed even longer. That is how the world turns today.
Thus, back to evil and its perpetrators, how should it be defined? Unfortunately, evil has many faces, or many shades. All are ugly, yet some are well-disguised and might even seem pretty, yet most would agree that the most evil deed than can be committed is to take the life of a fellow human being. In other words, killing is evil, but there are some nuances and attenuating circumstances here. For instance, if you kill someone who is trying to kill you, that is self-defense. And while killing is normally prohibited in most societies, in war it is allowed on a massive scale, but civilians ought to be left unharmed. There are special laws and conventions prohibiting that, but many political and military leaders as well as soldiers don’t seem to bother.
It may safely be assumed that all national political leaders, politicians in high office, save those who remain in power but briefly, are guilty of committing the supreme evil. That is because during their watch people are always killed, either intentionally or by accident, and then of course the leader must be held responsible. That’s right: just about all political leaders everywhere who remain in power for more than, say, half a year, are guilty of killing.
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