The cunning of evil

In her book on the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt famously, and controversially, wrote of the ‘banality of evil’. The contemporary variant is the awesome banality of much of the analysis and soul-searching that evil provokes. Since the horrific murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, there has been a spree of such commentary.

The rest of the world treats America like a dominant but dysfunctional family. So great is the cultural reach and ‘soft power’ of the United States that an atrocity of this kind quickly assumes almost global significance and is treated, quite inappropriately, as a metaphor for all manner of modern pathologies. What dark impulses coursed through the mind of the 23-year-old South Korean Cho Seung-hui as he gunned down his fellow students will never be known. But that has not deterred an army of self-appointed social commentators from drawing sweeping conclusions about his actions.

The most profound error has been to use the tools of psychotherapy rather than traditional morality to analyse the slaughter. America is once again on the couch, as everything from the Iraq war to video games to the pressures of modern university life is scrutinised as a possible contributing factor.

It is certainly plausible to argue that Cho exhibited the symptoms both of maniacal narcissism and a crushing inferiority complex. In his deranged writings, he railed against ‘rich kids’, ‘debauchery’ and ‘deceitful charlatans’ on the campus. ‘You caused me to do this,’ he wrote — strengthening the argument of those who believe that such actions are the product of society’s pressure-cooker rather than of cold-blooded choice.

On Wednesday, the Independent declared that American society ‘is more divided, more pressured and more ruthless in almost every way than any society in Europe….