Unmasking Administrative Evil

Guy B. Adams, Danny L. Balfour

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9781506318882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although social scientists generally do not discuss "evil" in an academic setting, there is no denying that it has existed in public administration throughout human history. Hundreds of millions of human beings have died as a direct or indirect consequence of state-sponsored violence. The authors argue that administrative evil, or destructiveness, is part of the identity of all modern public administration (as it is part of psychoanalytic study at the individual level). It goes beyond a superficial critique of public administration and lays the groundwork for a more effective and humane profession.

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The Dynamics of Evil and Administrative Evil

The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.

—Aldous Huxley (1952, p. 192)

Evil is not an accepted entry in the lexicon of the social sciences. Social scientists much prefer to describe behavior, avoiding ethically loaded or judgmental rubrics—to say nothing of what is normally considered religious phraseology. Evil nevertheless reverberates down through the centuries of human history, showing little sign of weakening at the dawn of the 21st century and the apex of modernity (Lang, 1991). In the modern age, we are greatly enamored of the notion of progress, of the belief that civilization is developmental, with the present age at the pinnacle of human achievement. These beliefs constrain us from acknowledging the implications of the fact that the 20th century has been the bloodiest, both in absolute and relative terms, in human history, and that we have developed the capacity for even greater mass destruction.

Well more than a hundred million human beings have been slaughtered or otherwise killed as a direct or indirect consequence of the epidemic of wars and state-sponsored violence in this century (Bauman, 1989; Eliot, 1972). Administrative mass murder and genocide have become a demonstrated capacity within the human social repertoire (Rubenstein, 1975, 1983), and simply because such events have occurred, new instances of genocide and dehumanization become more likely (Arendt, 1963). If we are to have any realistic hope for ameliorating this trajectory in the coming century, administrative evil needs to be unmasked and better understood, especially by those likely to be a necessary component in any future acts of mass destruction—public administrators, as well as all other professionals and fields active in public affairs.

Evil is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the antithesis of good in all its principal senses. A more useful behavioral definition of evil has been provided by Katz:

Behavior that deprives innocent people of their humanity, from small scale assaults on a person’s dignity to outright murder …[this definition] focuses on how people behave toward one another—where the behavior of one person, or an aggregate of persons is destructive to others. (1993, p. 5)

This behavioral definition suggests a continuum, with horrible, mass eruptions of evil, such as the Holocaust and other, lesser instances of mass murder, at one extreme, and the “small” white lie, which is somewhat hurtful, at the other. Certainly, at the white lie end of the continuum, use of the term evil may stretch our credulity, although Sissela Bok (1978) has argued persuasively that even so-called white lies can have serious personal and social consequences, especially as they accrue over time. For the most part, we discuss the end of the continuum where the recognition of evil may be easier and more obvious (at least when it is unmasked). The small-scale end of the continuum, however, remains of importance because the road to great evil often begins with seemingly small, first steps. Evil, in many cases, is enmeshed in cunning and seductive processes that can lead ordinary people in ordinary times down the proverbial slippery slope.

Where does evil come from and why does it persist? Thousands of years of human religious history have provided ample commentary on evil, and philosophers certainly have discussed it at length (Adams & Merrihew, 1990; Kateb, 1983; Katz, 1988; Kekes, 1990; Parkin, 1985; Russell, 1988; Sanford, 1981; Stein, 1997; Stivers, 1982; Twitchell, 1985). Although there was a time when locating evil in the symbolic persona of the devil provided adequate explanation of its origins, the modern scientific era both demands a more comprehensive explanation of the origins of evil and makes it nearly impossible to provide one. One author has argued that the modern age has been engaged in a process of unnaming evil, such that we now have a “crisis of incompetence” in facing evil (Delbanco, 1995, p. 3): ‘A gulf has opened up in our [modern] culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.” Evil may not yet have become unnameable, although in its administrative manifestations it often goes unseen. Evil reveals itself to us depending on our approach and stance toward it, and in the modern age, the great risk is not seeing it at all, for administrative evil wears many masks.

Based on the premise that evil is inherent in the human condition, we make several key arguments in this book (which we introduced in the “Introduction and Overview”):

1. The modern age, with its scientific-analytic mind-set and technical-rational approach to social and political problems, enables a new and frightening form of evil—administrative evil. It is frightening because it wears many masks, making it easy for ordinary people to do evil, even when they do not intend to do so.
2. Because administrative evil wears a mask, no one has to accept an overt invitation to commit an evil act, because such overt invitations are very rarely issued. Rather, the invitation may come in the form of an expert or technical role, couched in the appropriate language, or it may even come packaged as a good and worthy project, representing what we call a moral inversion, in which something evil or destructive has been redefined as good and worthy.
3. We examine closely two of administrative evil’s most favored masks. First, within modern organizations (both public and private), because so much of what occurs is underneath our awareness of it, we find people engaged in patterns and activities that may culminate in evil without their even being aware of it until after the fact (and often, not even then). Second, we look at social and public policies that can culminate in evil. These most often involve either an instrumental or a technical goal (which drives out ethics) or a moral inversion that is unseen by those pursuing such a policy.
4. Because public service ethics and professional ethics more generally are anchored in the scientific-analytic mind-set, in a technical-rational approach to administrative or social problems, and in the professions themselves, both are effectively useless in the face of administrative evil. Because administrative evil wears many masks, it is entirely possible to adhere to the tenets of public service ethics and participate in a great evil, and not be aware of it until it is too late (or perhaps not at all). Thus, finding a basis for public service ethics in the face of administrative evil is problematic at best.

Administrative Evil and Public Administration

This book discusses the relationship between evil and public administration—a relationship that is usually overlooked or dismissed as involving temporary, politically induced departures from ethical standards, which themselves are founded on the presumed inherent neutrality or benevolence of rational administration (Frederickson & Hart, 1985). Although we address public administration directly, we believe the arguments presented here hold for all professions and for practitioners of all kinds whose activities are within public life in its most general sense. In this book, we argue and present evidence that the tendency toward administrative evil, as manifested primarily in acts of dehumanization and genocide, is deeply woven into the identity of public administration (and also into other fields and professions in public life). The influence of evil has been suppressed and masked despite, or perhaps because of, its profound and far-reaching implications for the future of public administration.

Despite what may initially seem to be a negative treatment of the public service, it is not our intention to somehow diminish public administration, engage in bureaucrat bashing, or give credence to misguided arguments that governments and their agents are necessarily or inherently evil. In fact, our aim is quite the opposite: to get beyond the superficial critiques and lay the groundwork for a more ethical and democratic public administration, one that recognizes its potential for evil and thereby creates greater possibilities for avoiding the many pathways toward state- sponsored dehumanization and destruction. This approach (as with any attempt to rethink aspects of the field) is bound to bring us into conflict with some of the conventional wisdom and traditions of public administration. Our critical stance toward public administration is aimed not so much at any particular formulation of the field’s identity but more at what has not been written—the failure to recognize administrative evil as part and parcel of the identity of public administration. Although it has had virtually no place in the field’s literature, administrative evil is as much a part of public administration as other well-worn concepts such as efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, and productivity.

Failing to See Administrative Evil

A lack of attention to what we believe to be a vitally important concept can be explained by the understandable, yet unfortunate, tendency to lament acts of administrative evil while dismissing them as temporary and isolated aberrations or deviations from proper administrative behavior. In considering eruptions of evil throughout history, it is commonplace to think of them as emanating from a unique context. We want to believe that they occur at a particular historical moment and within a specific culture. Although this is clearly true, at least in part, it also holds a cunning deception: The effect of understanding great eruptions of evil as historical aberrations is that we safely wall them off from our own time and space, and from ordinary people in ordinary times.

It is not unusual for the Holocaust (and other, lesser state-sponsored atrocities) to be viewed in such terms, for example, perceiving that, in the midst of extraordinary circumstances, Hitler led Germany out of the fold of Western culture and into a deviant, criminal culture. As Rubenstein (1975) and Bauman (1989) have argued, however, the Holocaust, rather than being a deviation from Western civilization, was one of its inherent (although not inevitable) possibilities, carried out in large part by the most advanced, technical-rational mechanisms and procedures of modern civilization. Furthermore, it was the public service and advanced administrative procedures that made the mass slaughter possible:

The Final Solution did not clash at any stage with the rational pursuit of efficient, optimal goal implementation. On the contrary, it arose out of a genuinely rational concern, and it was generated by bureaucracy true to its form and purpose. The Holocaust …was a legitimate resident in the house of modernity; indeed, one who would not be at home in any other house. (Bauman, 1989, p. 17)

The same can be said of other examples of administrative evil in the history of American government and public service, as we discuss here. We examine in Chapter 4 the administrative evil of importing hundreds of Germans— some of them “committed” Nazis and some who engaged in activities for which other Germans were convicted of war crimes—to the United States after World War II so that they could spearhead our rocket research and development. Although sometimes recognized after the fact as immoral acts and even crimes, few have been able to perceive that such administrative evil is consistent with,and even an outcome of, the technical-rational pursuit of instrumental goals in the tradition of modern civilization and administration (both public and private).

In the 20th century, modern civilization has unfolded as a paradox of unparalleled progress, order, and civility on one hand, and mass murder and barbarity on the other. Rubenstein (1975, p. 91) argues, therefore, that the Holocaust “bears witness to the advance of civilization,” where progress is Janus-like, with two faces, one benevolent, the other destructive. For a profession like public administration (and other professions in public life) to identify itself exclusively with the face that represents order, efficiency, productivity, creativity, and the great achievements of modern civilization is, in effect, to mask the existence of a fundamental and recurring aspect of its own history and identity—the destructive and even evil face.

The world of the death camps and the society it engenders reveals the progressively intensifying night side of Judeo-Christian civilization. Civilization means slavery, wars, exploitation, and death camps. It also means medical hygiene, elevated religious ideas, beautiful art, and exquisite music. It is an error to imagine that civilization and savage cruelty are antithesis…. In our times, the cruelties, like most other aspects of our world, have become far more effectively administered than ever before. They have not and will not cease to exist. Both creation and destruction are inseparable aspects of what we call civilization. (Rubenstein, 1975, p. 195)

Robert Bellah (1971) reached similar conclusions about contemporary American culture in reflections prompted by the massacre of hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, by American soldiers in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. He stated that “both the assertion of the fundamental unity of man and the assertion that whole groups of people are defective and justly subject to extreme aggression are genuinely part of our tradition” (p. 178). From this perspective, there are not two American traditions, one good and another evil, but one tradition consisting of a paradox wherein progress in technology and human rights is accompanied by brutality, exploitation, and even mass murder. Just as Thomas Mann observed that the demonic and supremely creative were entwined in the German soul (Bellah, 1971), so freedom and exploitation are entwined in the heart of America. Likewise, public administration cannot, in the light of this realization, be described only in terms of progress in the “art, science and profession” of administration (see, for example, Lynn, 1996) without recognizing that acts of administrative evil are something other than uncontrolled, sporadic deviations from the norms of technical-rational administrative practice. Practitioners and scholars of public administration, as well as of other related fields and professions, need to recognize that the pathways to administrative evil are not built from the outside by seductive leaders but emanate from within, ready to coax and nudge administrators down a surprisingly familiar route first toward moral inversion, then to complicity in crimes against humanity.

Understanding Evil

We know that human beings are killers. We are (at least most of us) meat eaters who must kill for the sustenance of life. We are in the food chain and, if nothing else, we are at minimum killers of plant life. We have learned, during the course of human history, to kill as well for high social purposes, that is, for political, religious, and/or economic beliefs and systems. As uncomfortable to acknowledge as it may be, evil is as close to all of us as ourselves.

Most versions of psychology, from Freud to Jung and beyond, account for the potentially destructive tendencies of human behavior, including aggression, anger, and rage. Melanie Klein (1964), perhaps the preeminent object-relations psychologist, understands aggression, and other emotions as well, as relationships with “objects” (which are in most cases other human beings). As Greenberg and Mitchell (1983, p. 139) point out, “Drives, for Klein, are relationships.” One such manifestation is hating those we love the most (as infants and children). Such a psychic contradiction is emotional dynamite and is defused through “splitting.” Unlike repression, which drives unwanted or intolerable emotions underground—into the unconscious—splitting is a device that allows these contradictory feelings to coexist, albeit separately, in the human consciousness. Normally, the good aspect is held internally and the bad aspect is split off, projected outward to some external person (the “object”). This is known as “projective identification.” Developmentally, these phenomena interact in the following way:

Primal splitting-and-idealization thus involves a delicate balancing act. Too little, and the child cannot protect itself from its own aggression, living in constant fear that its bad objects will overcome its good ones, and itself. Too much separation, on the other hand, will prevent the good and bad object from ever being recognized as one, an insight that is the foundation of the depressive position, in which the child despairs of ever being able to restore to wholeness the good object, which he now recognizes is inseparable from the bad object that he has destroyed in fantasy a thousand times. For Klein, the depressive position is not an illness, but a crucial step in emotional development, by which love and hate are integrated. (Alford, 1990, p. 11)

However true to life one wishes to consider object-relations psychology to the inner workings of the infant mind (and there is controversy over this issue), for our purposes, what is important is the way these insights help us understand the construction of social and organizational evil in adults.

Organizations, social institutions, and even countries can be holding environments (or “containers”) for both good and evil purposes. After all, it was a church organization that conceived and carried out the many inquisitions in centuries past. When an organization, institution, or polity “contains” the unintegrated aggression and rage (the projective identification of the split-off “bad” parts) of its members, one has the phenomenon identified in the title of a book by Vamik Volkan (1988), The Need to Have Enemies and Allies. The belief system, or ideology, that is manifested by the organization or polity gives the anxiety (which results from the unintegrated aggression) a name and mitigates it by making it less confusing whom to love and whom to hate. In essence, the organization or polity communicates some version (that varies according to the nature of the felt anxiety) of the following to its individual members:

You really are being persecuted. Let me help you by naming your persecutors, and telling you who your true friends are, friends who are also being attacked by these persecutors. Together you and your true friends can fight the persecutors, and praise each other’s righteousness, which will help you realize that the source of aggression and evil is out there, in the real world. And you thought it was all in your head. (Alford, 1990, p. 13)

The organization or polity has reduced the members’ anxiety...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Administration
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series
• Foreword
• Acknowledgment
• Introduction
• 1. The Dynamics of Evil and Administrative Evil
• 2. The Framework of Administrative Evil: Modernity and Technical Rationality
• 3. Administrative Evil Unmasked: The Holocaust and Public Administration
• 4. Administrative Evil Masked: From Mittelbau-Dora and Peenemünde to the Marshall Space Flight Center
• 5. Organizational Dynamics and Administrative Evil: The Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, and the Space Shuttle Challenger
• 6. Public Policy and Administrative Evil
• 7. In the Face of Administrative Evil: Finding a Basis for Ethics in the Public Service
• References
• Index
• About the Authors