Monday 29 June 2009

What is Evil?

The judge, in sentencing Bernie Madoff to 150 years in prison, called it "extraordinarily evil."

A friend, though, who I was talking with over the phone stated that you really can't call him evil. No doubt, the damage was catastrophic but was it "extraordinarily evil?"

Let's look at the total picture. He was doing this for over 30 years, through other recessions, and throughout this time, for years, he gave people "returns on their investments" that were extraordinary. This time, though, the recession was just too intense and so clearly unforeseen that he could not whether the storm caused by the great number of calls for the principle. Somehow, he must have just thought that he would never be caught and that the whole scheme would come crashing down. Wrong? No question. But is this extraordinarily evil? I would think that there are other crimes, perhaps not as extensive, that may "deserve" that label more.

Yet, he did destroy the lives of so many who, because of their age, cannot recover and are faced with spending their last years in misery. Individuals who worked hard so they would have some nest egg in their retirement -- and now are left with nothing. What about all the charities that lost so much and now are not able to meet the needs of their constituencies? Yet these same charities had extraordinary returns for years and were able to, thus, serve their constituencies better.

Evil. Is it measured by the harm it caused? Is it measured by some malicious intent and the extent of this extent? Or is it possibly to be just measured by the deviation from the truth? Regardless of anything else, Madoff misrepresented what he was doing. Maybe he thought, in some misguided way, that it would all work out in the end. Maybe the thought the that benefit he would bring to some people would cover the pain he would cause others. Maybe it just got out of hand and he did not know how to fix it. Applying all these various yardsticks will leave us eternally arguing about whether it was extraordinary evil. It would leave us arguing over the very nature of evil. In a certain way, though, it all comes down to emet, truth. The seal of God is emet. When you start to deviate from that simple standard, you really don't know where it will end up. And the result is Madoff. And regardless of the consequences, its all the same root of evil.

Rabbi Ben Hecht

2 comments:

micha berger said...

Somehow to me, a big part of the evil, which belies the "just got out of hand" perception, is that smirk on his face when confronted by the media. Madoff is a psychopath (and I believe I'm using that term in the technically accurate way), who doesn't even feel anything because of the lives he damaged.

-micha

Rabbi Ben Hecht said...

I think that you significantly point out a distinction between the evil act and the definition of the person as evil. The question thus is how to identify the evil person. In Madoff's case, the focus seems to be on the obvious evil act of the Ponzi scheme with my question being the ability to determine the evil within this person from this act. Then the further quetion would be how to determine the extent of the evil in this act. By its consequences? By its intent? What you, and I believe correctly, point out is that the determination of personal evil may actually arise from another act, such as this smirk. Then, again, someone else mentioned to me that the smirk may have just been a nervous reaction due, perhaps, to some pangs of conscience.

Rabbi Ben Hecht