THE BANALITY OF EVIL.

A remnant of what I would call the pagan worldview is the belief that people can be possessed by demons.

The belief in the demonic,

in the spawn of Satan, in his creatures that haunt people who serve as their bodily vessels, is the desire to make the greatest possible distinction between oneself and a demon.

If one is seen as non-human, as one who is literally possessed by a demon and acts as its walking vessel of speech, then I am fully justified in categorising such a possessed person as non-human.

The horror-inducing growls, grunts and hisses, the inhuman laughter and speech in foreign tongues are artful depictions on canvases and in films.

Like The Exorcist,

for example, or paintings and other works of art that show the devil as a grimacing, fanged hybrid creature with a tail and horns and rudimentary human features.

The endeavour to portray abysmal evil and give it an appearance presumably stems from an inner primal fear of being attacked, overwhelmed and bitten to death by predators. And to mix this primal fear with present-day fear pointed towards human beings. So that this mixture of monster and human is created in a person's imaginative mind. But it does not stem from real encounters in the real world. It is the human imaginative ability.

I doubt the existence of demons that enter a person as disembodied beings and rule them from there.

Isn't it quite interesting that a person is capable of imagining such a fantastic figure? Since we have all seen such devilish grimaces and Satanic figures before, we are familiar with them. And of course, when we describe ourselves as Catholics who think of such demons to be true, we think that we could never be haunted by such a force. If only we are and remain firm in our faith. But others have been and still are afflicted. Strangely enough.

I should say, rather, that this scary, peace-shattering experience can certainly be genuine and have a haunting character when you dream, for example. Everyone knows nightmares, they have a strong effect on the dreamer.

But I want to get to the point

where I said to put the greatest possible distance between yourself and the characterisation of a demon.

If I characterise another as truly possessed (and not metaphorically), the more I am convinced that I have a firm belief that is capable of warding off such creatures, the more I refrain entirely from considering myself as ever being possessed. Then I claim to regard other people as demonic. After all, why would I label people as demon-possessed if I could not simultaneously assign them all the characteristics of the demon?

This chick which has won the european song contest thing, was taken as one example of a walking demon.

While I agree that screaming into the mike that "I am a wiiiiiiiiiitch"

and saying "I am special because I am queer" is a low and embarrassing performance and it makes me cringe, I would not say that this young woman is possessed by satan. She forgot that her performance on stage has to end after the performance is done on it, and shall not be continued off stage.

When a devoted catholic thinks that evil walks around in the gestalt of humans, he says at the same time that such humans are non humans. I would in no way confirm that.

The demons is not these folks, since they clearly perform confusion, vanity and pride and more failure to behave mature, but the sheer banality through which these pathetic acts are encouraged is written in law.

The banality of evil

can be found in the administrative acts of a bureaucracy that, because naive politicians' minds made it possible, erect letters as barriers between people. The banal thing about this is that official letters with official stamps - pieces of paper with paragraphs - are able to prevent genuine and unadulterated encounters and conflict resolution between people.

To believe of either a performer on stage or a politician to be a demon, that gives them quite some power, does it not? That makes them non-humans whom one has to fear.

Here, I come to the crux of the matter: If I am afraid of young people who act like they are demonic, but aren't, and if I am afraid of encountering people, the last place where I would want to look is the mirror. To see, if I am capable of supporting the banality of evil myself.

Now, I find THAT scary. That we, the people, let ourselves being played out against each other.

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Picture source:

Von Siyah Qalem - İpşiroğlu, Mazhar Şevket (1985) Bozkır Rüzgarı Siyah Kalem. Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kitaplığında Bulunan Üstad Mehmet Siyah Kalem'in Resimlerinin Tıpkı Basımı, Istanbul: Ada Yayınları, after p. 40, fig. 40via Imago, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte, Humboldt-Universität Berlinvia Prometheus (PID: imago-3f8ada870f95cf8d2a23f08b4411a5c9f357a5bf), Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62262423