Professor Ken Gemes
The Biology of Evil: A Modern Blood Libel, Part 2
Summary
In this lecture, Professor Ken Grimes explores Hitler’s ideological motivations, distinguishing them from the opportunism of figures like Trump and Boris Johnson. The discussion delves into the historical impact of metaphors like “bad blood” and “contaminated ideas” in universal history, highlighting the shift from Enlightenment views on educating away error to a 19th-century biological model portraying evil as an infection requiring isolation or elimination. Part 2 of 2.
Professor Ken Gemes
Ken Gemes received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1990. He came to Birkbeck in 2000 having taught for ten years at Yale University. Ken’s interests range from technical issues concerning logical content and confirmation to Nietzsche’s account of how philosophy is merely the last manifestation of the ascetic ideal.
The Jews are always a site of projection but other people are getting it now too. Think of how Muslims are treated in lots of Europe. Think about how Hispanics are nominated in America. One of the things Hitler said is, “Just give one message. If you can just say one enemy, that’s a very easy message for people to digest.” The story, “Oh, it’s all those people’s fault” is really digestible for a lot of people. It’s a very easy answer.
The Catholic church is a lot in antisemitism. But interestingly, the Catholic church was one of the points of resistance towards eugenics because it carried on with the idea that all life is sacred and needs to be preserved. Some of the people who stood up the strongest against eugenics, also in Germany, were people from a Catholic, serious Catholic background. They were not progressives. Eugenicists saw themselves as progressives.
America can turn the tap on and let immigrants in, and it can turn the tap off. It’s had periods where it turned the tap off, such as the Johnson-Reed Exclusion Act of 1947 acts against the Chinese. America is at its best when it lets people in and does what Nietzsche says, takes these disparate elements and welds them into a whole. Turning off the taps usually is not a good sign.