I've been reading for my upcoming classes on Everyday Evil for ACU's Summit. As a part of that reading I'm getting into the literature of the Holocaust looking for lessons that might apply to everyday life. I'm looking for psychological dynamics that are latent in each of us that are, in fact, the seeds of something much darker. All that is needed is the water, the right context and pressures...
Right now, as a part of my search, I'm reading Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees. While reading I cam across this quote by Toivi Blatt, survivor of Sobibor:
People asked me, "What did you learn?" and I think I'm only sure of one thing--nobody knows themselves. The nice person on the street, you ask him, "Where is North Street?" and he goes with you half a block and shows you, and is nice and kind. That same person in a different situation could be the worst sadist. Nobody knows themselves. All of us could be good people or bad people in these different situations. Sometimes when somebody is really nice to me I find myself thinking, "How will be be in Sobibor?"
I think this is a really, really important insight. Perhaps the greatest insight from the death camps. Nobody knows themselves. Which means that we have to admit that we are extraordinarily vulnerable to evil. Our "virtue" is so very fragile.
And this insight is related to the cognitive psychology noted in my last post, the two distinct processing systems in the brain. System 2, our conscious deliberative selves, is very transparent to introspection. But System 1 is dark and murky. Introspection doesn't penetrate much at all. Which means that large portions of the Self are unknown. That is the cognitive science behind Blatt's observation. Sitting here, right now, my self-assessment is that I'd never be a sadist in the death camps. I'm better than that. But I've not fully encountered myself. System 1, the system that kicks in when my survival is at stake, is untouched by my self-examination. Large portions of my mind are unseen and, thus, unpredictable.
Nobody knows themselves.
