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Terrorists and witches: popular ideas of evil in the early modern period

2004; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2004.03.001

1873-541X

Johannes Dillinger,

Crime, Deviance, and Social Control

Abstract In the early modern period (16–18th centuries), churches and state administrations alike strove to eradicate Evil. Neither they nor society at large accepted a conceptual differentiation between crime and sin. The two worst kinds of Evil early modern societies could imagine were organized arson and witchcraft. Although both of them were delusions, they nevertheless promoted state building. Networks of itinerant street beggars were supposed to have been paid by foreign powers to set fire in towns and villages. These vagrant arsonists can be regarded as the terrorists of the early modern period. Witches were persons who had allegedly made a compact with the devil. They were thought to randomly use maleficent magic to harm individuals as well as whole regions. When law enforcement agencies and suspicious peasants or townspeople tried to identify persons who might be arsonist terrorists or witches they used the category 'Evil'. Anyone who ignored the behavioral standards of society ever so slightly could be suspected of being utterly evil. The concept of Evil linked petty, commonplace immorality and the worst crimes imaginable to each other and to the mindless hatred of demons. This pre-modern concept of the banality of Evil was called into question by the legal reforms of the 17th century. It was finally rejected by the enlightenment that negated the imagined continuum of Evil. Witches and arsonist terrorists shared a number of characteristics. They were both said to form conspiracies that mirrored everyday society like an evil twin. The crimes they perpetrated lacked any purpose or reason, they were motivated by sheer malice. The worst forms of Evil had certain qualities of an epidemic: Witchcraft and terrorism were supposed to be always on the rise. The evil people were victimizers as well as victims. The imagery of Evil even implied that the evildoers resembled those they were supposed to have harmed. The fear of terrorist vagrants and witches as well as other conspiracy theories can be traced back to the Black Death. The plague of the 14th century not only sparked anti-Semitism. It lend force and credibility to the idea of an irrationally destructive, ever-growing secret organization as the epitome of Evil. Keywords: EvilTerrorismWitchcraftBundschuhArsonPlague Notes 1 Christoph Schulte, Radikal böse. Die Karriere des Bösen von Kant bis Nietzsche (Munich, 1988), 323–364. 2 Herbert Haag, Teufelsglaube (Tübingen 2nd ed. 1980). 3 Noam Chomsky, 9–11 (New York 2001), 27–38. John Collins and Ross Glover, Collateral Language. A User's Guide to America's New War (New York 2002). 4 Martin Klingst, Wenn das Böse bleibt', Die Zeit (July 17, 2003), 3. 5 Maria Pia Lara, Rethinking Evil. Contemporary Perspectives (Berkeley, 2001). 6 Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought. An Alternative History of Philosophy (Princeton 2002). Erin Leib, Earthquakes. 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