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The democratization of evil
By Fania Oz-Salzberger

In all likelihood this article will be uploaded onto the Haaretz Internet site and, as usual, it will be followed by a series of responses from the keyboards of vigilant surfers, known as talkbackers. There are writers who don't bother to read these responses at all, and there are others who pay a lot of attention to them. No matter what attitude people take toward talkbacks (also known as readers' forums), the time has come to bring up for public discussion what is being said in live conversation and among the talkbackers themselves: This novel genre of readers' responses to news items is setting a new level of malice in human expression.

Lest there be any doubt, virtual space is a wonderful field for the democratization of human expression. Gutenberg's print revolution is trivial when compared to the tremendous accessibility the Internet has afforded to innumerable writers on their way to billions of readers. Even if many human beings do not have computers, for economic or political reasons, this is still the greatest breakthrough in human history for the culture of the written word.

And lest there be further doubt, human evil is something eternal. It is as old as Cain and Abel. But from the time writing was invented until the most recent decades, humanity has tended to be prudish about written evil even when practical evil is rampant. Only the elite had access to papyrus, parchment, the printing press and the newspaper's editorial desk. Therefore the written expression of evil was often found in works of art, faith and philosophy: from the Book of Job and The Odyssey, through Augustine and the Passover Haggadah, to Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Hanoch Levine. Written evil was usually softened and mediated, often stylized and sometimes even brilliant.
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The Internet has created an astronomically quantitative and at the same time a qualitative difference between itself and any other product in the history of writing or printing. First of all, it is accessible to masses who never before made a mark in the public arena. Secondly, it enables anonymity, at least ostensibly. A surfer who breaks the law is liable to discover, to his consternation, that the cloak of anonymity is very thin. But non-criminal messages, however loathsome, for the most part leave those who typed them in the comfortable darkness of the net. Thirdly, the Internet allows and encourages immediate gut-reactions, which it distributes and perpetuates.

The response boxes on news sites have therefore become astonishing documents, breaking paths and boundaries, of an aspect of human nature that has until now only been documented cautiously and sparingly. In these boxes, statements are published that every individual may hear in the street and at the dinner table, but they have never been heard with such force on public wavelengths. Readers' comments and chats, forums and blogs are the first unfiltered archive in history, an unedited encyclopedia of the human soul.

The Israeli context is particularly interesting. The talkback policies at the news sites in Israel, including those of newspapers, are more liberal than those of their Western counterparts. The local surfers are faster and blunter than their brethren, who live in societies that are more serene than ours, and the artery that connects their gut feelings to their fingers on the keyboard is shorter. Thus, if evil seethes in all cultures, here it rises more swiftly to the surface and to the chains of responses. In this matter, too, Israel is a kind of precursor of the post-modernist camp, a fascinating touchstone for human issues of all sorts. Violence, and especially nationalist crime, evokes in the Israeli surfer a spectrum of emotions that is certainly no different from the general homo sapiens range, but it is both sharper and more open than is customary in other cultures (and this includes Internet cultures). When Shalhevet Pass, a baby who did not live to understand that she was a Jewish settler in Hebron, was shot and killed, one person who lives among us took the trouble to write to the NFC (News First Class) Web site that the murder victim "stank of the blood of slaughtered Palestinian children."

This phrase, which is sadly engraved on the computer servers, is neither leftist nor rightist. It is pure evil. And when a Jewish fanatic murdered taxi driver Taysir Karaki, who drove him from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, quite a number of respondents hurried to the Ynet and Walla! Web sites, and also to that of Haaretz, to celebrate the blood that was spilled. "Those Arabs can just keep on whining," they typed. "What is an Arab doing in Tel Aviv anyway? He was probably planning a terror attack." And in the best of succinct talkback style: "Poor Arabs hahaha." This is not right, this is not left, this is evil.

A handful of weirdos with keyboards? We have long known that this is not the case. There probably isn't a single Israeli who dwells among his people, in taxis and at tables, who hasn't heard such things said aloud innumerable times. This is about the human soul, unbridled and uninhibited, free of the muzzles of cost and censorship that publication of an opinion in print and in public entails. Many evil bytes pass through the exhausted hands of Web site editors. Israeli news channels usually censor very crude responses, including "Death to the Arabs," as well as messages that involve the right to privacy and the fear of libel. But how do you define a text that the screen does not tolerate?

No one has set precise guidelines for this practice. There are sites and channels that block a large part of the talkback sent to them, while others allow their surfers to upload nearly any content and express almost any urge. As these lines are being written, talkback calling for "Death to the Arabs" is appearing on the official site of the fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team and also (is there a difference?) on the official site of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, which is associated with the national religious stream. The expression "Death to the settlers" has been published on Walla! and on a number of occasions it has worked its way into the NRG site, the home page of the mass-circulation daily Maariv.

Due to limited space, this article cannot cite examples of plain old everyday malice toward the subjects of articles, their authors and fellow-talkbackers, including blows below the belt and diluted or distilled misanthropy. Of course, the best of the human soul also peeks through now and then. There are many moderates - but we are not talking about them. And a good word must be said even for evil: It, too, acquires added value when it is stated in a clever, sharp and well-formulated manner. But only one in a thousand surfers has been blessed with the talents of a Hanoch Levine.

What is a decent person, a reader who cares, to do? Shall he call upon the legislature to impose censorship on the Internet? Shall he fight for sterilizing this wonderful and filthy new public arena? Heavens forefend. This is not China, nor is it Iran; and even these countries will not be able to dam the tremendous flow of virtual public speaking-out for long. Censorship of the Internet is neither practical nor moral. The best justification for this is found in John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" (of which there are three fine translations into Hebrew).

Perhaps at least the leading Israeli news sites, which currently allow quite a lot of pure poison on their response pages, will adopt the puritanical model of the BBC site? Perhaps. But it probably won't work. What can be swept under the British carpet cannot be hidden under Israeli floor tiles. In any case, many other sites, indeed, the entire blogosphere, will continue to rejoice in their freedom - for good, for very good and also for ill.

It is best to look the virtual malice straight in the eye. Quite a lot can be learned from it. It really should bring back to their desks those social scientists who act as though the concept of evil has no meaning, and also the philosophers who are still trying to understand it.

Don't answer a fool with foolishness, suggested the experienced polemicists of our verbal people. And elsewhere it was said: Know what you will answer. Here is a possible conclusion: It is possible and important to grapple with virtual evil, but not by silencing it. It is better to do so intelligently and with humor, in the same public space where it first saw the light of day - on the Internet itself. This is because sunshine, as American-Jewish Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis said, is the best disinfectant.
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  1.   THE BENEFIT OF TALKBACK IS TO RECOGNISE THE PERSISTING EVIL OF 08:53  |  paul harris 10/07/07
  2.   Subtle evils abound too 09:00  |  JHG 10/07/07
  3.   Good main point Unfair singling out of Israel False symmetry 09:03  |  Shalom Freedman 10/07/07
  4.   Where exactly does evil lie in the mirror of the zionist press? 09:20  |  Hannah 10/07/07
  5.   Great Article 09:21  |  Daniel Ortner 10/07/07
  6.   Not to speak of all those sad Talkback contributors who shout 09:24  |  Clickfool 10/07/07
  7.   #1: the truth is obvious if you just open your eyes 09:34  |  ME 10/07/07
  8.   Freedom of expression 09:36  |  Nick Ferriman 10/07/07
  9.   throwing out the baby with the bathwater 09:39  |  Michael 10/07/07
  10.   Unrestrained talkbacks 09:41  |  Zvi 10/07/07
  11.   The wonder of Talkbacks 09:44  |  Clickfool 10/07/07
  12.   I agree with #3 but would like to add this - 09:45  |  sg 10/07/07
  13.   TALKBACK-SHMOKBACK,LIBERATE HEBRON,AVENGE FAS`,STOP BLOODSHED 09:48  |  VOICE of MOSHIACH))) 10/07/07
  14.   Haaretz once again one sided 09:49  |  ScotGuy 10/07/07
  15.   Talkbackers 09:55  |  Paul Usiskin 10/07/07
  16.   Evil needs to stay exposed 09:55  |  Adina 10/07/07
  17.   Thanks Fanny! 10:03  |  Esther 10/07/07
  18.   For ScotGuy # 14 10:23  |  Clickfool 10/07/07
  19.   #12, sg 10:29  |  Hannah 10/07/07
  20.   Paul Harris, the article is about you!! 10:32  |  bainem 10/07/07
  21.   Well of course here in the UK we have online debates, whereas... 10:44  |  Don Camillo 10/07/07
  22.   Clickfool: Your talkbacks always annoy us... 11:01  |  Shlomo T 10/07/07
  23.   Nobody Knows Themself 11:09  |  Dyinglikeflies 10/07/07
  24.   and by the way, Harris, Kath, Teich et al 11:22  |  Don Camillo 10/07/07
  25.   D.Camillo those of us who"disagree with nationalistic Islamist -- 11:24  |  PETER SM 10/07/07
  26.   #21, Don Camillo 11:28  |  Hannah 10/07/07
  27.   WHERE is Indrajaya Doris Jackal--- in the honorable mention list 11:29  |  PETER SM 10/07/07
  28.   Hannah (Marilyn, Khaled...).....which subject? 11:29  |  Maimon 10/07/07
  29.   THE FOURTH IS THIS 11:35  |  indrajaya 10/07/07
  30.   Can`t Stand The Criticism? 11:39  |  Terry 10/07/07
  31.   Clicky...wrong as allways 11:40  |  Maimon 10/07/07
  32.   License versus liberty 11:43  |  Ivar 10/07/07
  33.   Simplistic 11:59  |  bill 10/07/07
  34.   What is Morality, Ethics 14:56  |  Boozaglow 10/07/07
  35.   The line about Shalhevet Pass 15:07  |  Yehuda 10/07/07
  36.   Israel only hope in the ME 15:45  |  For Free Speech 10/07/07
  37.   The author is only annoyed that talkbackers are rightwingers 16:42  |  Rachel 10/07/07
  38.   #37 Rachel, how can you be so ridiculous 18:47  |  Yonatan 10/07/07
  39.   Haaretz, you are a victim of your own device 18:49  |  Jake 10/07/07
  40.   Yonatan - Rachel 20:08  |  Polybios 10/07/07
  41.   To Michael #9, Zvi #10, others 20:44  |  Canderra 10/07/07
  42.   #35 The line about Shalhevet Pass 20:58  |  Canderra 10/07/07
  43.   Canderra, thanks for confirming Erekat`s guilt 21:38  |  Jake 10/07/07
  44.   24 CAMILLO AND DISSENT GO IN SINGLE FILE 23:27  |  paul harris 10/07/07
  45.   Haaretz is the architect of much of this. Here`s how... 23:29  |  Dr. L. Brnd 10/07/07
  46.   #20 BAINEM AND IGNORANCE DO NOT MAKE ACRITIC 23:30  |  paul harris 10/07/07
  47.   #21 DON REMAIN ON ENGLISH TALKBACKS 23:33  |  paul harris 10/07/07
  48.   Hannah, a mirror, please 23:53  |  john 10/07/07
  49.   This talkback sure proves the article! 00:06  |  Peepsqueek 11/07/07
  50.   Disinfecting Evil? 00:13  |  Kate 11/07/07
  51.   #34 Boozaglow`s Morality 00:23  |  Kate 11/07/07
  52.   #19, Hannah, on distinctions 01:17  |  Thomas Jackson 11/07/07
  53.   second article like this on haaretz 04:21  |  Jon 11/07/07
  54.   The democratization of evil must be rejected 05:25  |  Joseph E . 11/07/07
  55.   wow! 06:46  |  Idan 11/07/07
  56.   "Evil" overstates the case 07:23  |  Jay Chamblin 11/07/07
  57.   Not so "serene" outside Israel 08:02  |  Philip 11/07/07
  58.   #52 AN AMAZING POST FROM TOM AND HANNAH 08:20  |  paul harris 11/07/07
  59.   TALKBACK 09:03  |  Jack 11/07/07
  60.   A Modest Proposal (Part 1) 09:33  |  Ian 11/07/07
  61.   A Modest Proposal (Part 2) 09:42  |  Ian 11/07/07
  62.   #24, Don 10:33  |  Hannah 11/07/07
  63.   TALKBACKERS MUST REGULATE THEMSELVES 11:54  |  Nannette 11/07/07
  64.   42 Canderra. Shalhevet Pass was deliberately murdered 12:02  |  Nannette 11/07/07
  65.   45 Dr. L. Brnd You`re spot-on. The media have their agenda... 12:07  |  Nannette 11/07/07
  66.   24 Islamophobic? Who are the bombers, terrorists, rapists?? 12:20  |  Nannette 11/07/07
  67.   54 Joseph E The evilmongers MUST be punished 12:24  |  Nannette 11/07/07
  68.   It took me a while to find this article because... 12:32  |  sean 11/07/07