The complication of the untested evil-doer

One of my most important claims is that “evil is as evil does”, that we should measure others by their actions, not their opinions. (This with several variations, e.g. “fascist is as fascist does” and, in a wider context, the need to judge by actions and not claims, including e.g. with many businesses, politicians, and co-workers whose actions are contrary to their claims.)

A potential weakness of this attitude is that two equally good/evil/stupid/whatnot individuals can differ in their actions through different opportunities and abilities, different levels of material need, different exposure to provocations, and similar. What if the one has proved himself X and the other is currently untested? What if the one has hung over a volcano and the other has not?

A consequence of this weakness is the need to only make comparisons between people who have gone through sufficiently similar situations. For instance, comparing the character of Stalin with that of the office cleaning lady will be futile in almost all cases, because their lives have been too different: with the tables turned, the cleaning lady might have been a genocidal dictator, while Stalin might have been a conscientious cleaner.* We might still consider it unlikely that the cleaning lady would prove herself such a monster through statistical considerations (especially, when she has a good record within her prior opportunities and whatnots), but we cannot rule it out.

*We further have to differ between two variations: Firstly, my main focus in this text, a prior life that has simply revealed too little of the character of someone, e.g. in that the someone who would or would not commit mass-murder given the chance has never had the chance. Secondly, more tangentially, a prior life that has changed the character, e.g. in that a series of traumatic experiences created an unreasonable hatred.

Similarly, we cannot say that someone who has not done X would be incapable of X because he is currently innocent of X, consider someone harmless because of a lack of prior evil actions, etc.

However, and this is where the Left so often goes wrong, we equally cannot and must* not condemn someone because of something that he might or might not have done in an alternate reality, or might or might not do in the future—especially, at the word of his opponents. This with an eye on at least the following:

*Regrettably, this seems to often be a deliberate Leftist strategy, not just a lack of understanding of the problems involved, including variations like guilt-by-association, use of straw-men, and severe distortions of opinion.

1. The presumption of innocence and its underlying principles. If in doubt, everyone is vulnerable to such accusations, including members of the Left. Indeed, guilt-by-association could easily be used against the Left too. If every nationalist (who is almost invariable and ipso facto condemned as nazi, fascist, racist supremacist) is just waiting for an excuse to invade Poland and kill Jews, then imagine what can be said about large parts of the Left, in light of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et co.

   A reasonable world requires that we are condemned only for what we have done—not what our opponents claim that we would do when we finally have the opportunity. Some extrapolation might be justified for a changing situation, but only to the degree that it is made likely by prior own actions and statements, e.g. in that someone with an own record of political violence is deemed unsuitable for political offices by voters, who might then legitimately fear an abuse of the office to continue such practices on a larger scale. (Ditto e.g. someone with a record of embezzlement or great incompetence.)

2. Given sufficiently extreme circumstances, most people can be brought to out-of-character, out-of-norm, or even outright horrendous acts, implying that the mere potential vulnerability in some set of circumstances is not enough—the circumstances have to be sufficiently applicable and likely. Moreover, because the extremity of circumstances, if any, that bring a given individual over the edge are not knowable before they have actually occurred, it might be better to avoid speculation altogether and (again) apply the presumption of innocence.

   For instance, someone strongly opposed to stealing might not be able to resist the temptation when it is a matter of life-or-death, especially when a spouse or child is concerned.* Even murder might be a possibility for many or most: imagine someone pointing a gun at your children and threatening to shoot them, unless you press a button to cause a sweet old lady to be electrocuted—what would you do? (And: if you do press that button, would that make you more or less suitable for a political office than if you did not? Than if you never had been forced to make the choice?)

   *In some circumstances, this might even be legally allowed; however, there is no blanket exemption.

3. Most people would, if at all, only become genocidal dictators or whatnot under truly extreme circumstances. For instance, the vast majority of even political extremists (let alone the overall population) has never killed a single human. How, then, can we assume that a specific individual would do this-or-that without a backing evidence well beyond “he is a political extremist”—let alone the much vaguer (and much more common) “I don’t like his political positions”?*

   *An added complication is that many on the Left seem to consider someone “not sufficiently Left” as “extremist”, regardless of other facts, and/or consider any “Right-wing” position as “extremist”.

   Even someone who does have a strong predilection will not necessarily act upon that predilection. For instance, there might be members of the extreme Left who would like to start a revolution in principle, but who deliberately abstain from any such attempt for various reasons, e.g. respect for the law, fear of setting a precedent for other movements, an unwillingness to cause the inevitable bloodshed.

   Assuming that someone with a certain predilection will act on this predilection is similar to assuming that someone who likes to eat will be obese: some are, most are not.

(Much of the above amounts to seeing a test correctly: If someone has been tested and passed, we can make a positive statement; if someone has been tested and failed, we can make a negative statement; but it is a fallacy to assume that being untested is the same thing as having failed (or passed) the test.)

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