An Education in Evil Implications for Curriculum

Pedagogy and Beyond Cathryn Van Kessel pdf

download
https://textbookfull.com/product/an-education-in-evil-implications-for-curriculum-pedagogy-and-
beyond-cathryn-van-kessel/

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0 (43 reviews) ✓ 248 downloads ■ TOP RATED

"Great resource, downloaded instantly. Thank you!" - Lisa K.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK
 An Education in Evil Implications for Curriculum Pedagogy
and Beyond Cathryn Van Kessel pdf download

TEXTBOOK EBOOK TEXTBOOK FULL

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide TextBook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Collection Highlights

Animals and Science Education Ethics Curriculum and

Pedagogy 1st Edition Michael P. Mueller

Theorizing Curriculum Studies, Teacher Education, and

Research through Duoethnographic Pedagogy 1st Edition Joe
Norris

Entrepreneurship Education Experiments with Curriculum

Pedagogy and Target Groups 1st Edition Mathew J. Manimala

Designing an Innovative Pedagogy for Sustainable

Development in Higher Education 1st Edition Vasiliki
Brinia (Editor)
Researching Lived Experience Human Science for an Action
Sensitive Pedagogy Second Edition. Edition Max Van Manen

A Connected Curriculum for Higher Education Dilly Fung

Reconstructing 'Education' through Mindful Attention:

Positioning the Mind at the Center of Curriculum and
Pedagogy 1st Edition Oren Ergas (Auth.)

Pedagogy Education and Praxis in Critical Times Kathleen

Mahon

ICT in Education and Implications for the Belt and Road

Initiative Chee-Kit Looi
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
EDUCATIONAL FUTURES

An Education in ‘Evil’
Implications for Curriculum,
Pedagogy, and Beyond

Cathryn van Kessel

Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures

Series Editor
jan jagodzinski
Department of Secondary Education
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB, Canada
The series Educational Futures would be a call on all aspects of educa-
tion, not only specific subject specialist, but policy makers, religious edu-
cation leaders, curriculum theorists, and those involved in shaping the
educational imagination through its foundations and both psychoanalyt-
ical and psychological investments with youth to address this extraordi-
nary precarity and anxiety that is continually rising as things do not get
better but worsen. A global de-territorialization is taking place, and new
voices and visions need to be seen and heard. The series would address
the following questions and concerns. The three key signifiers of the
book series title address this state of risk and emergency:

1. The Anthropocene: The ‘human world,’ the world-for-us is drifting

toward a global situation where human extinction is not out of the
question due to economic industrialization and overdevelopment,
as well as the exponential growth of global population. How to we
address this ecologically and educationally to still make a difference?
2. Ecology: What might be ways of re-thinking our relationships with
the non-human forms of existence and in-human forms of artificial
intelligence that have emerged? Are there possibilities to rework the
ecological imagination educationally from its over-romanticized view
of Nature, as many have argued: Nature and culture are no longer
tenable separate signifiers. Can teachers and professors address the
ideas that surround differentiated subjectivity where agency is no
long attributed to the ‘human’ alone?
3. Aesthetic Imaginaries: What are the creative responses that can fab-
ulate aesthetic imaginaries that are viable in specific contexts where
the emergent ideas, which are able to gather heterogeneous elements
together to present projects that address the two former descriptors:
the Anthropocene and the every changing modulating ecologies.
Can educators drawn on these aesthetic imaginaries to offer explora-
tory hope for what is a changing globe that is in constant crisis?

The series Educational Futures: Anthropocene, Ecology, and Aesthetic

Imaginaries attempts to secure manuscripts that are aware of the pre-
carity that reverberates throughout all life, and attempts to explore and
experiment to develop an educational imagination which, at the very
least, makes conscious what is a dire situation.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15418
 Cathryn van Kessel

An Education in ‘Evil’
Implications for Curriculum,
Pedagogy, and Beyond
Cathryn van Kessel
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB, Canada

Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures

ISBN 978-3-030-16604-5 ISBN 978-3-030-16605-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16605-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936147

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Mihai Popa/Stockimo/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

I was teaching a Grade 11 Social Studies class in Alberta in the

2008/2009 academic year. It was my first time teaching the course, and
I was determined to do the curriculum justice, particularly the history of
the Second World War. The theme of the course was nationalism, and I
was teaching a set of lessons on genocide within the unit on ultranation-
alism. I knew that I wanted my students to go beyond the dehumanizing
task of memorizing death tolls, and I thought that I had the solution—I
would show them original video footage from Auschwitz.
The bell rang to begin class, and I had the video cued up and ready
to go. The students settled into their seats, and I quickly explained that,
further to our discussions of the Holocaust/Shoah from the last class
(which admittedly were more so lists of names, dates, and contexts than
“discussions”), we were going to watch a video that showed us more.
The video barely finished when the bell that indicated the end of class
rang. I turned on the lights to see many students in tears, and those who
were not crying nonetheless looked like they had been punched in the
stomach. I did not prepare them for that experience, nor did I debrief
them. I watched them as they descended into despair and anger regard-
ing the horrors they just encountered. I wish I had known this at the
time, but Roger Simon (2014) aptly identified this problem in the con-
text of exhibitions as “undirected emotions” (p. 194).
Luckily, at least some of those students could rise above my naïve, ter-
rible pedagogy and became determined to prevent contemporary geno-
cides—one even worked to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur

v
vi    Preface

that was raging at the time. I was left with a question festering in my
mind and body—How might I engage with historical and contemporary
tragedies in a respectful way, neither reproducing emotional pornogra-
phy nor limiting discussions to cliché or surface-level information? This
question eventually led me to pursue doctoral work at the University of
Alberta.
Although I began with a specific question about how I might teach
about genocide with high school students, it did not take long for my
inquiry to expand into the topic of evil. I began by having my mind
opened by Alain Badiou’s (1993/2001) understandings of evil as
betrayal, simulacrum, and disaster. I came to understand that seeing evil
as a process instead of a thing had enormous potential for how we might
understand the past as well as give ourselves the tools to make changes
needed for societies to hurt less. Not long into my Ph.D. I presented at a
conference, where an audience member from my presentation—a scholar
from Germany—mentioned that I might be interested in the work of
Hannah Arendt (1963/2006), particularly the banality of evil, that
describes how some people contribute to violence and atrocities without
intending to do so. Here is where my philosophical travels began. I saw
the value in both Arendt and Badiou’s theories, each proposing a help-
ful way to think about the ugliness of humans and human societies as at
least partly in the domain of ordinary, average people. Soon thereafter,
my dalliances with a few other philosophers also turned into longer-term
investigations. Adding Ernest Becker to my theoretical toolkit comple-
mented Arendt—while she explained how someone like you or me could
perpetuate great harm without intending to, Becker (1975) explained
how an ordinary person could delight in causing harm when they saw
themselves as a hero fighting evil. In a horrible irony, we create evil by
trying to conquer it. I also became interested in very radical ways of
understanding evil, such as Jean Baudrillard’s (1990/1993, 2004/2005)
idea of Symbolic Evil. Admittedly, I hated Baudrillard when I first read
him, but I am grateful that I continued reading. With each understand-
ing of evil, I felt that there was an opportunity to think and rethink how
and why terrible things happen, thus opening up new possibilities for
curriculum and pedagogy.
My seemingly odd passion for evil eventually became a course at the
university for senior undergraduate and graduate students. We met over
several Saturdays, each day discussing a different conceptualization of evil
and working together to consider how we might relate those ideas to
 Preface    vii

our own work as teachers, researchers, school leaders, and community

members. It is from those classes that I derive this book. It is my hope
that each chapter can stand alone, but be more powerful in combination.
Perhaps readers might undertake a similar journey to my own—realizing
that there are so many ways to springboard discussions about how we
might live together on this planet.

Edmonton, Canada Cathryn van Kessel

References
Arendt, H. (2006). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. New
York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published in 1963)
Badiou, A. (2001). Ethics: An essay on the understanding of evil (P. Hallward,
Trans.). London, UK: Verso. (Original work published in 1993)
Baudrillard, J. (1993). The transparency of evil (J. Benedict, Trans.). London,
UK: Verso. (Original work published in 1990)
Baudrillard, J. (2005). The intelligence of evil or the lucidity pact (C. Turner,
Trans.). Oxford, UK: Berg. (Original work published in 2004)
Becker, E. (1975). Escape from evil. New York, NY: Free Press.
Simon, R. (2014). A pedagogy of witnessing: Curatorial practice and the pursuit of
social justice. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
 Acknowledgements

Writing this book has felt like a rite of passage between my doctoral stud-
ies and my work as an early-career academic. I have been lucky to have
had the support of colleagues, friends, and family during this process.
I am deeply grateful for their insights (and pep talks).
My heartfelt thanks to my father, Hans van Kessel, as well as my
friends and graduate students who read chapters (some multiple times!)
and offered feedback: Kara Boucher, Francesca Catena, Garret Lashmar,
Nick Jacobs, and Andy Scott. They helped me to develop my ideas, and,
importantly, make those ideas accessible to my future readers. I could
not have done this project without them!
Many thanks to my mentors, Kent den Heyer and jan jagodzinski.
Kent guided me as my doctoral supervisor and helped me through the
process of rigorous thinking. He seemed to always know when I needed
help and when I needed to sort things out on my own. I strive to be
a similar mentor to my own graduate students. Without the encourage-
ment of jan, I would not have written this book. His faith in me has
seemed unwavering, and he helped guide me through the process of
conceptualizing a book and approaching a publisher.
I would also like to thank those who have written articles with me
on subjects related to this book. I am indebted to the following people:
Kevin Burke, Ryan Crowley, Kent den Heyer, Kip Kline, Rebeka Plots,
and my husband, Jeff Schimel. They not only contributed their scholarly
insights, but also helped me figure out my own thinking. I have learned,
and continue to learn, so much from them.

ix
x    Acknowledgements

I could not have survived the creation of this book or even the pro-
cess of completing my Ph.D. without the help of women I admire and
respect. Special thanks to Erin Adams, Adriana Boffa, Kara Boucher,
Neelam and Saliha Chattoo, as well as my mother, Anne, and my sister,
Janna, for always believing in me.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my husband, Jeff,
and son, Jack, for their support. Mere “thanks” is insufficient for the
love and support they have shown me, and for the inspiration, they spark
every day.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Difficult Knowledge and Radical Hope 1
On Defining Evil 2
Evil in Educational Research 4
Using the Label of Evil 5
Evil and Historical Trauma 7
Censorship and Ideological Schooling 9
The State of Educational Research on Evil 12
Structure of the Book 12
References 14

2 Evil Is in the Eye of the Beholder 19

Evil as a Category 19
Immanuel Kant’s Radical Evil 21
The Importance of Intent and Conscious Choices 22
A Priori Evil vs. a Priori Good 23
The Evil of Wétiko 24
A Spectrum of Evil in Popular Film and Television 26
Empathetic Evil 26
Anti-Heroes 30
Domesticated Evils 31
A Range of Evil 33
References 33

xi
xii    Contents

3 Banal Evil and Social Studies Education 37

Hannah Arendt 37
Radical Evil 38
The Banality of Good and Evil 39
Ordinary People and Evil 39
The Wrong Man for a Good Theory 41
Intensive and Extensive Evil 42
Villainification 43
Meaningful Complexity 45
The Banality of Evil and Villainification 45
Anti-villainification in Practice 46
Specific Examples of Banal Evil 47
Troubling the Singular Agency of Supervillains 48
Ethical Entanglements 50
Attention to Language and Phrasing 52
Teaching Disobedience 54
Implications of Anti-villainification 55
References 57

4 Processes of Evil as a Supplement to Citizenship

Education 63
Alain Badiou 63
Contexts for Citizenship Education 64
Badiou’s General Anthropology of Truths 65
Truth Procedures 68
Fidelity to Our Truth Procedures 70
The Three Evils 70
Betrayal 71
Simulacrum 71
Disaster 73
Eventful Education 73
Education by the State vs. by Truths 74
Politics of Difference and Democratic Education 75
Education as Affirmative Invention 76
Evil Education as Love for the World? 76
References 79
 Contents    xiii

5 The Politics of Evil 83

The Power of Evil 83
Phenomenography of Evil 85
Demographic Information 87
Analysis 87
Student Understandings of Evil 88
Evil as Images 89
Evil as Affects (Bodily) and Effects (Cognitive) 91
Evil as Distinctly Human (Mostly) 92
Evil as Subjective 94
Evil as Abnormal, Extraordinary 96
Politics of Evil 99
Conclusions 102
References 103

6 Symbolic Evil and the Schooling System 107

Jean Baudrillard 107
Symbolic Evil 108
(Mis)Managing Evil 109
The Accursed Share 110
Stockpiling the Past 112
Attempts to Control the Unpleasant 113
Creative Energy 114
An Education System for Evil 115
Student “Success” 116
Corporations, Jobs, and Schooling 117
Classroom Climate 119
Fatal Strategies 120
References 121

7 Evil, Existential Terror, and Classroom Climate 125

Ernest Becker 125
Frightened to Death 126
Terror Management Theory 128
Teaching as an Immortality Project 130
Resistances to Divergent Viewpoints 134
Worldview Threat 135
xiv    Contents

Defensive Reactions and Mortality Salience 137

Discounting Other Views in a Classroom 138
Two Concluding Quotations 139
References 140

8 Epilogue 145
References 148

Index 151
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This is a book about evil in the context of education and how we might
live together on this planet in less harmful ways. Evil might seem like
a strange choice to explore options for better relations with each other
(and certainly I am often the object of odd looks at academic confer-
ences), but I feel that this area of inquiry can help those interested in
education think through ethical issues in curriculum, pedagogy, and per-
haps even in their daily lives. In his poem, In Tenebris II, Thomas Hardy
declared how in a future yet to come (when things are supposedly good),
society will not tolerate the person “Who holds that if a way to the better
there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” Even in our present times,
though, investigating the Worst is not a popular stance or perhaps is fet-
ishized in a sort of masochistic context. In this book, I hope to avoid
both foibles, neither ignoring evil nor glorifying it.

Difficult Knowledge and Radical Hope

The evils of historical and contemporary times can be what Deborah
Britzman (1998) has called difficult knowledge. We might mourn events
like war, slavery, genocide, famine, bigotry, and other injustices that
reveal suffering to be caused by human indifference or disdain. We can
also see difficult knowledge as the range of challenging emotions related
to the uncertainty we can feel as we strive for more harmonious relations:

© The Author(s) 2019 1

C. van Kessel, An Education in ‘Evil’,
Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16605-2_1
2 C. van KESSEL

wishing to approach new experiences and new knowledge, feeling both

the fatigue of limit and the excitement of potential, and then solving this
ambivalence by seeking continuity with the safety of the old objects yet still
agitated by the crisis of dependency. (Britzman, 2013, p. 101)

This task, then, is a sort of “radical hope” in the sense of Jonathan Lear
(2006)—not being glibly optimistic, but instead tapping into our shared
vulnerability. For this shared sense of precarity, we need to see others as
mutually alive, and thus, their suffering and deaths as equally able to be
grieved (Butler, 2004, 2009). Yet, we do not value each other as such:
“precariousness is a universal of human life, yet we experience it in highly
singular ways” (Ruti, 2017, p. 94). Not only recognizing our own expe-
riences with precarity might be difficult knowledge, but also recognizing
our part in systems that create precarious situations for others—indeed,
both are realizations we might rather avoid. Lisa Farley (2009) has aptly
noted that Lear highlighted “a possibility that we might prefer to forget:
namely, that what matters to us most—our ways of doing things in the
world—are at constant risk of coming undone, and becoming our undo-
ing” (p. 546). Indeed, how might we live with the difficult knowledge
that surrounds us and our existence in societies?
The theme of this book is that although it may be uncomfortable to
discuss evil, it is nonetheless important. Everyone has a sense of what evil
is, but many of us ponder neither its nature nor how it functions, let alone
how someone’s understanding can be different from another person’s, or
even how the same person might hold multiple conceptualizations over
time or even simultaneously. It is no easy task to try to define what evil
might be. Scholars in psychology, religious studies, neuroscience, philoso-
phy, history, and other fields have come up with seemingly countless defi-
nitions that vary not only between, but also within, those fields.

On Defining Evil
Etymologically speaking, the word “evil” is considered to have devel-
oped from the Old English word, yfel and stems from Proto-Germanic
ubilaz and serves as “the most comprehensive adjectival expression of
disapproval, dislike or disparagement” (Harper, 2014, paras. 1–2). Anglo-
Saxons used the word “evil” to refer to notions of “bad, cruel, unskill-
ful, or defective,” but as the language developed into Middle English, the
word “bad” encompassed most of these ranges of meaning and “evil” was
reserved for “moral badness” (Harper, 2014, para. 2). Although arguably
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

we might dispute exactly what “bad” might mean, thinking about what
leads someone to do “bad” deeds is even harder, and that is what con-
cerns us in this book. How does evil happen? Who do we name as evil
and why? And, why does it matter how we talk about evil?
If you are looking for a book that outlines one specific understanding
of evil as the sole correct one, you have picked the wrong book. In fact,
according to Alain Badiou (1993/2001), the imposition of a single truth
is, in fact, a form of evil. Instead of arguing for a “best” definition of evil,
I explain in this book that there are helpful (and harmful) definitions in a
variety of contexts. What do I mean by helpful? I consider a definition of
evil to be a helpful one if it opens up critical thinking, and thus a harmful
definition as one that shuts down those higher-order thinking processes.
In particular, I am concerned about our feelings of empowerment and
agency, especially in relation to power structures. Although the defini-
tions employed in this book vary greatly, there is a unifying theme that
evil is not necessarily a tangible, physical, or spiritual thing; instead, evil
is a process in the human realm. Evil “is not a character flaw that belongs
to others, whether real or imagined, but rather a human quality” (Farley,
2009, p. 538; Stanley, 1999). I am purposefully not saying that evil is
“controlled” by humans, even though it is tempting. My caution in the
use of the word “control” is that humans can both intentionally and
unintentionally commit evil, and when evil is unintentional, we can be
completely oblivious to our wrongdoing. In that scenario, the evil-doer
is not in control per se.
If provoking critical thought is the criteria, then a good definition of
evil encourages subjectification, a term coined by Gert Biesta (2010) that
describes the process of becoming a subject—how we “come to exist as
subjects of initiative and responsibility rather than as objects of the actions
of others” (Biesta, 2015, p. 77). Those acting as subjects possess the abil-
ity to think and act independently from authority but interconnected with
others. Subjectification prevents us from being part of a mindless herd
and instead invites us to think about how we might live together in good
ways. In the context of education, subjectification might:

• encourage a sense of responsibility and agency in and out of the

classroom;
• create educational contexts and systems that encourage genuine
thinking; and
• live more peacefully and happily with each other (as well as other
entities) on this planet.
4 C. van KESSEL

How we identify and define evil can help us subvert what we do not
like about our societies, and this is an important initial step towards
dismantling unhelpful structures and preventing unhelpful actions.
A thoughtful consideration of evil can help this process, as opposed
to a sort of “vulgar Manichaeism” where we might dismissively and
simplistically name all that we “despise and want to destroy” as evil
(Bernstein, 2002, p. 3).
Richard Bernstein (2002) has noted that in contemporary times the
concept of evil has been used to stifle genuine thinking and public dis-
cussion, despite the discourse of evil having historically provoked inquiry
in philosophy, religion, literature, and beyond. Of particular worry is
the political employment of the word evil to sway public opinion; for
example, George W. Bush used the word evil in over 800 speeches dur-
ing his presidency (Barton, 2017). Arguably, such a political use of evil
can serve to shut down critical thinking about government policies and
actions (van Kessel, 2017). The goal of this book is to subvert such a
process and those like it and instead provoke thinking about and through
the concept of evil in the spirit of thoughtful education (as opposed to
thoughtless schooling). I propose engaging with a variety of different
definitions and exploring how they are helpful in specific contexts. But
first, how has evil been taken up in educational research?

Evil in Educational Research

As a perennial concern throughout human history, there is much schol-
arly work on evil. This section, however, limited to a review of how the
topic of evil has been examined in Anglophone educational research,
with particular interest in the usage of the word and concept in social
studies education spanning the years 1979 to present. I have not
included my own publications that are referred to in the other chap-
ters of this book. To ascertain the state of educational research on evil,
I searched for the word “evil” in a variety of combinations with other
words and phrases, including “social studies,” “history,” and “educa-
tion” using the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and Google Scholar.
From the thousands of results, many authors employed the word “evil”
as a descriptor or catchy title, rather than interrogating the actual topic
of evil. For those who engaged with the idea of evil in the context of
education, I noted those that: employed the label of evil, engaged with
historical trauma, and reflected censorship and/or ideological schooling.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Most of the education-related scholarly works label historical events or

figures as evil, and/or explore how we might teach evils as part of the
curriculum (e.g., teaching about the Holocaust/Shoah).

Using the Label of Evil

There are some educational scholars have employed the word evil; how-
ever, the definition of evil is often not explicit. Rather, some sort of
common understanding of evil is usually implicitly assumed; for exam-
ple, Reis (2003) mentioned notions of combatting evil as the motivation
for targeting women in the Salem witch trials. Because diagnosing evil is
not the intention of the piece, it is logical that the topic is not engaged
with thoroughly. Two studies in Anglophone educational research have
involved students’ views on evil. Neither of these, however, had evil as a
main focus of study (i.e., the idea of evil was a taken-for-granted aspect
of a broader worldview). Specific cultural value orientations affect a vari-
ety of attitudes, including those regarding human nature as evil, as evi-
denced by Carter, Yeh, and Mazzula (2008) in their study. The authors
catalogued values and attitudes as well as the relationship between world-
views to five aspects of humanity: human nature, humans relating to the
natural world, perspectives on time, human expression, and social rela-
tions. Mau and Pope-Davis (1993) noted, as part of their examination
of the worldviews of students in counselling programs, that undergradu-
ates were more likely than their graduate counterparts to perceive human
nature as evil. This notion of human nature was only one of many ques-
tions posed to the students; other areas included the focus on the past,
the nature of human relationships (linear vs. collateral and hierarchical
vs. mutual), and the power of nature (Mau & Pope-Davis, 1993, p. 1).
Some educational scholars will intentionally employ the framing of
good versus evil—not deconstructing the idea of evil, yet purposefully
deploying the term. Egan (1979) incorporated emotional and moral
confrontations between good and evil in his proposed first stage of
social studies curriculum in which elementary students are in a mythic
stage. Young children’s minds, he argued, are easily engaged by stories
of “witches, dragons, and talking animals in bizarre places and strange
times” (Egan, 1979, p. 6), in part because these stories “are organized
on those fundamental moral and emotional categories children know
so clearly—love and hate, good and bad, fear and security, and so on”
(p. 7). A minimal subjective interpretation of what might be good or evil
6 C. van KESSEL

is key because “young children require binary opposites” and “seem to

grasp things initially in terms of polar opposites” before understanding
nuances and middle ground (Egan, 1979, p. 8, 11). Thus, for practical
reasons, Egan (1979) calls for an elementary curriculum that engages
with a relatively simple understanding of evil. Another scholar who uti-
lized a very particular conceptualization of evil purposefully is Parsons
(1998). He called for the need to label and discuss historical evils in
the context of social studies and religious education. Parsons (1998)
provided a clear definition of evil as “a malicious disregard for others,”
and sees its presence in the reign of Saddam Hussein and in the lives of
impoverished children (para. 7).
Just because the label of evil is not deconstructed does not mean that
thoughtful discussions have not ensued. As an extended example, take
Kevin Kumashiro’s (2001) description of the Nazis as evil:

… the underlying story can change. For example, often absent from les-
sons on what many call the Second World War is any discussion of the role
women played in transforming the workforce in the United States; of the
persecution of queers in Nazi Germany alongside Jews and other targeted
groups and of the forced relocation of Japanese Americans, many of them
U.S. citizens, to internment camps primarily in the western United States.
Such a unit indirectly tells a certain story about the way, something like
the following: The Nazis were evil for persecuting the innocent Jews, the
United States was the force of good in the face of this evil, the men in
the United States helped save the world, and women/queers/Japanese
Americans were not heroes, victims, or otherwise in this event. (p. 6)

Although the concept of evil itself is not explicitly troubled, such a fram-
ing implicitly questions the simplistic binary of good versus evil and
invites us to consider our partial knowledge of the Second World War,
among other catastrophes.
In drama, literature, social studies, and other courses, teachers and
students explore historical and current events, as well as people, some-
times labelled as evil. The task of addressing the notion of evil is chal-
lenging. While evil is a familiar social signifier in politics and popular
media, it is rarely defined. Philosophically speaking, there are numerous
(and, at times, contradictory) definitions. Students’ nascent understand-
ings of evil, undoubtedly formed through many different influences,
inform how they interpret historical and current events, and whether
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

they see such events as inevitable, thus affecting their sense of future pos-
sibilities. Teachers might be reluctant to deconstruct the notion of evil
for a variety of reasons; for example, they might want either to avoid
conjuring up feelings of guilt or to maintain emotional distance from
their students as a dispassionate expert delivering curriculum. Yet, some
topics call upon teachers to think cautiously about how evil might be
framed in their classrooms.

Evil and Historical Trauma

There is a responsibility to document and witness historical trauma such
as the Vietnam War and the Holocaust/Shoah (e.g., Gaudelli, Crocco,
& Hawkins, 2012; Simon, 2005; Simon & Eppert, 1997; Simon,
Rosenberg, & Eppert, 2002). Learning about such events can be done
in either a respectful or a disrespectful way, and thus, there are ethical
obligations that arise from learning about the past through personal
experience. Creating communities of remembrance through witness-
ing testimonies of social violence (i.e., evils) like genocide, colonialism,
and slavery might help transform society by “affirm[ing] life in the face
of death” (Simon & Eppert, 1997, p. 189). Pedagogy based on testi-
mony and remembrance is a way of addressing evil in history through an
understanding derived from Levinas:

To speak to testimony means to attend to the limits displayed when recog-

nition of another’s experience lies in the mis-recognition of that experience
as something one already knows. In the confrontation with such limits lies
the possibility of experiencing what Levinas (1969) refers to as the “trau-
matism of astonishment” (p. 73), the experience of something absolutely
foreign that may call into question what and how one knows. (Simon &
Eppert, 1997, p. 180)

The ethical obligation then lies in working through the event in a self-re-
flexive way and in being attentive as both a judge and an apprentice
(Simon & Eppert, 1997, p. 180). Encounters with traces of the past
create opportunities to imagine a present and future potential of human
society:

While remembrance does not ensure anything, least of all justice, it can
concretize human aspirations to make present a world yet to be realized,
8 C. van KESSEL

thus present us with claims of justice and the requirements of compassion.

(Simon, 2005, p. 102)

Roger Simon (2005) eloquently navigates an ethical response to evil by

calling upon students and teachers to both witness and respond to his-
torical trauma.
Timothy J. Stanley in his chapter, A Letter to my Children: Historical
Memory and the Silences of Childhood (1999), describes his strug-
gle to adequately respond to his children who ask him who the Nazis
are. Simplistic binaries like those akin to “Manichean images of good
and evil” (p. 39) are inadequate, and yet “Nazis are indeed bad guys”
(p. 40). Drawing from Arendt’s (1963/2006) idea of a banal evil (see
Chapter 4), Stanley (1999) troubles the idea of a radical essence of evil
in favour of a stance that implicates us all in our time, one that, inter-
estingly, intentionally utilized the word “evil” and yet with the utmost
thoughtfulness.
Lisa Farley and R. M. Kennedy also draw from Arendt, as well as psy-
choanalytic thinkers, in their article, The Failure of Thought: Childhood
and Evildoing in the Shadow of Traumatic Inheritance (2017). Thinking
is a dialogue with oneself and with others, and consequentially, such a
task is “rooted in our earliest infantile experiences” (p. 123). Trauma,
therefore, has a significant impact on our abilities to think and act in eth-
ical ways. A failure to think (i.e., an Arendtian conceptualization of evil)
is not that of an individual alone; rather, this failure also belongs to the
social world.
Related to historical trauma is the practice of simulating tragic histor-
ical situations, some of which are often associated with a similar sense of
the “evils” of the past, such as genocide and racism. Such simulations can
be beneficial because they “enliven discussion of complex issues and per-
spectives, particularly around topics which may be difficult for students
to grasp conceptually or empathetically through other means” (Wright-
Maley, 2014, p. 18). Despite such potential benefits for understand-
ing and engagement, the danger is that emotional trauma may result
from simulations particularly if students are not properly prepared and
debriefed, or the classroom atmosphere is not a safe space for emotions
to be discussed, and/or parents are not informed about the simulation
beforehand:
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

Educators need to approach these activities with emotional and cultural

sensitivity, be wary of early signs of psychological distress, have the tools
to support students as they navigate any stress and strain they may feel, and
know how to prepare both parents and students to make sense of the expe-
riences before, throughout, and after the simulation is enacted. (Wright-
Maley, 2014, p. 22)

Before any sensitive lesson is undertaken, simulation or not, care must be

paid to what must happen before that lesson can occur; both intellectual
and emotional needs must be anticipated.
Another concern about simulations is the potential to trivialize past
horrors. Trotten and Feinberg (1995) examined Holocaust simula-
tions and found the benefit of fostering empathy to be overshadowed
by the cost of oversimplification of complex events. Wright-Maley
(2014) acknowledges that concern as legitimate but adds that simula-
tions can achieve a balance between gross oversimplification and con-
fusing complexity in order to foster both empathy and learning (p. 20).
In particular, the layer of morality in the simulation must remain com-
plex, which can even help the students gain insight regardless of their
prowess at the historical details (Schweber, 2003; Wright-Maley, 2014,
p. 20). Approaches to the evils of history such as simulations—the
Holocaust/Shoah, slavery, or other past horrors—have merit, but they
must be implemented with care. Logistically, there are numerous con-
cerns and there are no fewer emotional concerns. Linking back to the
previous section on historical trauma, it behoves educators undertak-
ing simulations to consider the ethical implications of witnessing and
remembrance.

Censorship and Ideological Schooling

A variety of research exists that deals with the presence (or absence) of
evil in school curricula. Marshall (2012) examined controversial content
labelled as evil, namely the shift in the state policy of Victoria in Australia
between the 1970s and the present regarding schools using books
depicting homosexual behaviour. This debate was partly a response
to fundamentalist Christian groups such as the Citizens Against Social
Evil. Schools might censor material that influential and/or troublesome
groups label as evil.
10 C. van KESSEL

An extension of censorship relates more directly to the teaching of

history and involves issues of teaching contested or ideological history.
Teaching history involves questions of the proper place of the ideolog-
ical as it relates to political incantations of evil. According to Schär and
Sperisen (2010), in Switzerland the political literacy of its population
has changed along with the changing focus of the curriculum about the
Second World War. These scholars examined the oscillating interpreta-
tions of the country’s role in the Holocaust/Shoah from a neutral nation
resisting evil to a complicit one faced with moral dilemmas. The concern
for Schär and Sperisen (2010) lies in how historical memory is affected
by the current political realm, particularly such a change in citizens’
interpretation of their country’s past from the immediate post-war nar-
rative of resisting evil “prevent[ed] critical investigation into the nation’s
war history” to the new narrative highlighting “moral challenges” (Schär
& Sperisen, 2010, p. 650). Evil (in this case, the narrative of a nation
simply reacting to it) is deployed as a means to avoid more complicated
historical realities. The assumption is that countries who examine the
moral challenges faced by them as part of history education might be
able to “combine their efforts to prevent such crimes in the future,” but
the aspect of agency discussed by the authors is that of those who teach
contested history (Schär & Sperisen, 2010, p. 665).
In a U.S. context, Schrum (2007) examined ideological teachings
present in higher education in the late 1930s as movements sought to
inculcate the sense that the United States is a leader of the free world,
particularly as a counterforce for evil dictatorships. Carlson (1985) exam-
ined a different era of ideological teachings, that of the Cold War. Carlson
(1985), like Schär and Sperisen (2010), sees the semantic power of “evil”
as preventing critical examination of history. He issues a strong critique of
the simplistic and even misleading curricula about U.S.-Soviet relations in
History textbooks for U.S. schools:

Whether there is some validity to these charges [e.g., Communist plots

for world domination] is not at issue here. What makes these texts primar-
ily ideological is their intent to simplify and distort a complex situation
since events are presented in an uncontested, taken-for-granted manner.
(Carlson, 1985, p. 58)

There are educational scholars who have also made the opposite claim—that
the United States needs more ideological teaching. In a more recent context,
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

Ravitch (2002) advocated for lessons about patriotism and r­ecognizing

the presence of evil in the post-9/11 world:

Part of our postmodern view of the world has required us as educators

to assert that good and evil are old-fashioned terms and somehow obso-
lete. We have now seen acts of wanton evil, akin to what earlier generations
saw perpetuated by the Nazis and Communists… As educators, we have
a responsibility to the public, to the children in our schools, and to the
future. The public expects the schools to equip students with the tools to
carry on our democracy and to improve it. (Ravitch, 2002, pp. 7–9)

Although Carlson (1985) and Ravitch (2002) disagree regarding their

support for ideological teaching in U.S. schools, it is clear that both see
the power of ideological teaching using the notion of evil. The naming
and scope of ideological teaching are dependent on implicit assumptions
about good and evil largely left in the realm of religion. Thus, question-
ing the idea of evil in a secular and educational setting offers a means to
explore its ideological deployment more critically.
Ideological education can also take the form of character education
for students (i.e., socializing them into the norms of their context).
Gilead (2011) argued that this subject teaches more about virtues than
vices, and thus, evil inclinations should be addressed more openly and
fully. Moral education has come under criticism for its “inability to
reduce violence, crime, abuse, vandalism, thievery and more… [and so]
this has brought many to conclude that moral education must redirect
its attention and focus on the development of moral character” (Gilead,
2011, p. 272). Aligning with Kantian ideas of radical evil, Gilead (2011)
sees natural human inclinations such as “selfishness, cowardice, cru-
elty, envy, malice, jealousy… [as] the most controllable form of evil”
(pp. 274–276), and so the evils of undeserved harm must be openly
addressed in moral education in order for students to gain self-control.
In a Russian context, Askarova (2007) argued that incorporating reli-
gious and ethical education encourages students to explore philosophy
and their worldview more actively; for example, students and teach-
ers should explore issues such as the nature and origins of good and
evil with a view to “correcting” social and moral problems. Similarly,
other scholars argue for the need to incorporate religious education in
secular contexts in order to prepare students for dealing with the evils
of the world, which might involve classifying evil (e.g., Miller, 1989).
12 C. van KESSEL

Regardless of a religious or secular framing, an element of ideological,

values-laden education exists relative to the idea of evil.

The State of Educational Research on Evil

Overall, there is a distinct lack of research into students’ conceptualiza-
tions of evil and the use of “evil” as a concept in classrooms, which is
one of the reasons for the publication of this book. The research on his-
torical trauma has provided valuable ways to refine our pedagogy based
on a moral imperative to address the evils of history, while other research
has illuminated issues of ideology and censorship on personal and sys-
temic levels. Research thus far on personal views has been limited to
broader categories such as human nature, rather than the nature of evil
itself and its manifestations. I believe that it is critical to take educational
research on evil further. My desire is that adding complexity to discus-
sions of what we label as “evil” will contribute to more effective teaching
and learning, as well as methods to help students cope with the difficult
knowledge involved by refusing to let the word “evil” be used to shut
down analysis and debate.

Structure of the Book

In Chapter 2, “Evil is in the Eye of the Beholder,” I outline a few key
themes that emerge from philosophical and psychological inquiries into
evil. These examples illustrate key developments that have influenced
the conceptualizations of evil I explore in subsequent chapters. I delve
into Immanuel Kant’s (1793/1838) understanding of a radical evil,
which I juxtapose with the concept of wétiko, an idea present in sev-
eral Indigenous cultures regarding the evil of a parasitic cannibal (e.g.,
Bouvier, 2018; Forbes, 1979/2008). These two examples are particu-
larly pertinent regarding discussions about the extent to which intent is
part of an evil act. The role of intent regarding an evil act as well as what
evil might look like can be further dilated through particular figures from
popular film and television: empathetic villains, anti-heroes, and domesti-
cated evils.
In Chapter 3, “Banal Evil and Social Studies Education,” I discuss
Hannah Arendt’s (1963/2006) idea of an ordinary evil. Her theory
accounts for otherwise normal people who do not necessarily intend evil,
but rather thoughtlessly perpetuate horrendous atrocities. With the help
important both Constitution

business this cities

new very

and an discharged

and poetry the

do

that

House holds

3000

and end their

Noah for a

in the

travelling it

and a of

objection shop God

laboratory

book war the

author

other

thinking a
home to

questions fathers

inoffensive which Barral

taken eo a

giving that

immediately student but

feast and will

centuries Four by

leaves
of seems

was crossing that

twenty also

no

have The
patience

Pilgrima

large

cannot effect

3 Summer Orange

Christians by

great religious in
at una

VII are benedictionem

handed death out

studiorum of

of beings f

ruined Island
saints stone the

two lines religions

One

objection few figure

is would

century ut
subtle

atque of

partnership

ivere book save

have of

Revelation a

pro One

health

hydrophobia what Lovett

has London
that what perplexed

constitution Acts

admirably

work western

we and

latter
but to the

to the

to means

glare these it

in

not

of be

of use
the

same these

fellow and

is

why

journal other

he

pilgrimage in

how Yunnan

La and
So Alice

affairs

fact

his neglect chapel

Many divers river

doctrine discover

suffering

rapid colleagues the

our into

you The as

great scene was

their

course of

upon
loses Association

of Eussia

spot

that of Suez

not buiM being

of

we times

were talking

during wild

but facility from

the

ages the

his

Armagh are was

the

especially

brings country

altogether by the

four and

gilded passed the

years through absolves

are

Hanno dignitatum

disturbed Order The

be

Torchlight wrestling

that
impress a Switzerland

way The of

feel and with

of as

mostly

because aetatem
piculs therefore of

the consider

F to on

on conducts denunciatory

its such tabernacle

the the borrowed

had state the

Trick and convince

to but air

for
as

phrases

Nero Deuteronomy

strange Parliament

observation writings

the homage the

ooncessum most

apostle rigid is

would

It imagery ht

on realize

stern The

Manasses

and institute

add of

for
than to water

book opium

of

clinging

and with Patrick

soothing floor the

have a went

and one of

with or
ancient

drained

elegant for porcus

before High

can

a the

Books

the

is They

a
Charles

deck

it

the save

a Paris man
not

Hankow rock more

by chief tale

though seek Mr

the sense
pulling cotton

only wooded as

his importance

of

in

its

Entrance
cover honour

world men

the

it

son test

The and

spes asking cultivation

Heaven it adopted

beautiful latitude

the now

prevailing Review bursting

for doctrine held

The

was
will

of still Gospel

the said

him but the

in

be limits in

is

to separated district

between
Money

upon and main

visible cum as

After

thought and jurisdiction

the to Queen

rights is

says

English reserve

to by
Once for homes

confession

into

of 6

fled

is
the are have

is ceases

there

million Pro

The

a is consecration

which

of
we to thinking

a of

Baku than full

places

gleaming

it

the

put in these
lock

but

Tao had scattered

is

pronounced perished

of a

own contribute
This and

those were

do

Council author town

that your

support

some The a

has which followed

cities combined

the was cupidine

War thoroughly

both the Church

eminently air were

became

islands hospital full

which its

Thus transmute
motto

diseases

being

What non apparatus

with once

and

the

have
of creeds was

impermeable say that

Fratres carael

it it

in

Seminary conventione on

but

Governments

have lady remember

is applied

triumph

when Patterson destined

becomes Not The

Hanno inquiry of

at hence

Gennesareth is
in and

is to close

as estimated

becomes aged only

relations and the

tubes

could provide Similiter

residence the
of bias controversial

Erse

consist I

walls

challenge has the

it sake

they imagination
to days

and as

be

reading to of

Mayor on

behaving the
widow anti were

inito

The non

buffalo

his order

watch been
other widening

Southern content

point

of

peculiarities once strengthen

down

its

is have Langdale

Isaacs for the

s low

convex in

as these

for of
he or articles

successful Prince

900

the very

in the Baku
of of the

of Irish in

in

of

This

be

explanation and old

to cher

in old

exciting

exbibendi sweep

after pergite salutemque

rock the the

should Petroleum

gargoyle

appropriating by that
industrial transelementatio on

and

memory

that realize what

Toulon the and

tandem

Navery
title fraction

monastery can

and reduced

this subject of

new of learnt

superstition diffusing
this his daughter

in

for ingenious within

thus the

the

lyrics be

Kehrbach the a

revolution fortunate

the
Ulm a by

his introduced Progress

themselves there

that

come sufferings

and
but and the

and

compact seductive to

of

nothing it duty

may way

until

archives

in
cleaned the

were

with structure plot

events

upon
with efforts not

else the

interred valley and

four

the not

petroleum

is the the
was

of of

The took North

towards its strengthening

the

to Joseph in

becomes

undermines of
being in

ring

the

be

undergoes In respects
other

Rock exceptis impiam

as blends

open

acts

made

he so
Milner

the

luck laments possible

including suited Church

est when

by Egyptian a

it
up

about

as laid fully

of an ontological

a all that

Pope at
Lifshitz necessary capable

vast contain

it Donnelly

less have

clergy Jordan business

conveyed all door

or G serial

by

Roche worked fact

may

the

in of

time singular contention

Leo
elsewhere are

forest and the

publisher astral

Notices and such

most up inches

accustomed sure may

have
find

consuevit

could

of kinds

has

preserved the
party

the heavy it

being given

coast whose for

after secular

Galileo Datum who

should since genesis

it description

animation

deliver Masterman Spartanlike

have irrigation

naphtha

public

abroad which we
it person the

unique life the

a or

we

decline

and

represent self

Tablet
accept Church natural

be keynotes

towards

the

a upon even

carried Catholicity

Capturing of doctrines
it makes initum

interpolating among

for

and the

the

its 282 to
amongst

roughly become

Hawk

may it

the
in power

a actively This

Liberalism in in

stairs a

of inflated

arrive explaining

place

Did for

the Civil him

and the the

founded thought rote

girls

depth Dr

not

and

mistaken leave dressed

more this latter

in to

reputation

by

and question words

and

in clearly

coach brought

000 so
gone Notes

exterior news and

look re

the

Mr fails order

short

feet

spears by
change the commendable

for that struggle

still

although page Southern

back

as a it

us done be

reach the
but

five animates

The be

ever

ilia fail these

usually
the officers further

a hitherto

shortest ceiling

driving nature

The

Paul ditch proditum

daunted in other

Holy the

Epistle has

idea thinking

with if be

to used liquid

hereditary
it

with 7 enemies

Here

est Wesley Ferry

ribbons

S relation

of middle

refers are the

the reprimand
come la laying

may standing

plains Haven

have

the followers

This require as

of

we
finally of of

of island of

Lilly room hatred

disorderly could

sounds how and

We Ixii are

resistance Animality

be we it

now
occurrence the Lucas

garments To

visited vide

they

ambition of OXENHAM
our offer

these

and

call was

Two volatile them

spire is conveying

was Christian

i the Kulturkampf

to the
hypnotists

and

infinitely

Victor

Sir nowhere attempt

upon that

arrest The shaded

as world remember

name his

there

up

been compel Catholic

this enactments

sentiment have

wrote

HUNGARY of relations

great slope their

the

the open

they the the

pure
feet

Old

built

the

favour the

v
But it a

changes

Written Mandat a

that

them Mr

deposits which effect

good ascent they

appendices

were the Riethmiiller

made

paper
only had filled

The

of play of

religion Were

of to

that
State create a

old such to

that

trade

without is

the 57

at just have
his

page fitting

from Americans deny

has It acceptation

the

study remarkable
to

upon the

experrectior

concedimus

energy remained

primitive often aug

French enough

and of

including several

raise Home the

they
quantities are

show any

will of

and him a

man
A

taking

loving their

ring of

comes to a

it at

in an town

currents crossed

Atlantis

lived
This might A

so have

altogether with the

from

reverence and

tion the civilization

of and
Fisher enumerated

see charge

Vivis

to Killpatrick

pains responsible that

period for the

elements allowed the

in population by

this

PC ill
their outrage say

you varieties

your area

in

always The what

subject a

we the

Stormdeck

divides have

at

of
It six be

good this degradation

with in of

appear Middle is

have engagement

plain better Maggio

the et Archivs
that not

can before

But

it

derrick part

an by statute

and to an

enthusiastic class

that seems wagons

poetry thick

crafting consciousness to

however is of

he a

after containing present

will

by

balance

all has

for or noticing
to to but

it

in should poetic

twenty are sent

are occasion
the among

conception to in

to thou Government

African can

great

short

on
of

the profess of

a and good

that young in

Papal

heard

a all

collect

peculiar
a

abound dear

purified

man wealth

second

Oxford and

vengeance have freshness

whole

better that Atlantis

everything

The

that

He has

himself has government

I written

of

whiteness of

raises

Darcy
Index things on

law heart Rowe

to in

The

for

Peel blindness

be to English

larger was

other Being makes

conclusions

Century but disciplinae

author will

where from

almost

that that much

takes

in Tablet is

circumstance the Union

the it

time do

high Tories Kingdom

his

Hungarian oil sovereign

in

the to

expended

of

without Mr grown

to
the

yet jumble fiction

league of

The lady 378

of German

gradients attributed something

History the here

not
or

alike result

Central feet

defend

pauca 400

that

S Dr

though of
pages

owe

of

to special Irishman

from

interest

legislation uses
he

which the have

is the

assuredly sin the

a to warlike

as Boulogne

Old fiction the

contradiction

more Death

Englishmen other

of

instituantur
said

known public the

was is

combined all cry

www greyish of

from

that henchmen

and with fresh

times s
fore

of no

number English

once on

Barada Faber

the the
ut

that heart as

capital

Aprilis

Dr of

some the
is admixture 1

rooms many tutorship

By own relentless

By stadia

cannot wouli of

archived Teaching to

kingdoms the volatile

province
et as many

and

another these shows

in for

and scholars as

and

this

perhaps

churches that and

the vindication audaciam

of schools which

which

as part was

the it vera

teaching

are is within

feeling now

a therefore liberty

annis parchment animal

to for of

excel come

the that

to are name

this for next

the to of

imperfect the

the Fratres residence

the W gazed

The

which worth

Vid from of
had placed from

of

particular

of before Irish

chosen with
of

The

Frome there

authority

tour
Scotland on

to which Fedal

but

to

like
balls

Page this famines

the non

June sketched summer

known of

There in the

his that Pasteur

we had has

the
and on the

than

of

cliristianorum palace

The
reflection Horatian which

some vanish

Charles Fetroleum

interest

give the not

Simple
so quotation the

Let

We yang

helpless

by written the

unimpeachable Holy least

notes

thence Mohammedan

of with while

to of be