Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era - Hardcover

by Susan Neiman (Author)

Call It Evil is a bold reckoning with one of the most fraught words in our vocabulary. Far from being a religious or outdated concept, evil is a vital lens, Susan Neiman argues, through which to understand the threats we face today.

Neiman is one of our most important philosophers, and one of the world's leading thinkers on the nature and question of evil. She opens this sharp, revelatory work with the idea that the reelection of Donald Trump is the outcome not simply of political and economic forces but the erosion of values that have been subject to derision for more than a century. She goes on to show how we have been quietly bombarded from all sides with messages that undermine basic moral principles. Misreadings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin have led to a view of human nature we now accept as common sense: ideals are for losers, or for politicians who wish to deceive them. Neiman then explores how that ancient view, first formulated by pre-Socratic philosophers, has been steadily promoted by corporate interests and (pseudo) scientists in the modern era. Drawing on history--from European fascism to the moral failures of recent U.S. leaders--she demonstrates how the normalization of evil corrodes trust, destroys justice, and endangers our future.

This is a book for readers who refuse to accept moral confusion as the price of political life, and who believe that confronting evil is the first step toward renewing it.

Back Jacket

Philosopher Susan Neiman argues that the Trump era demands a word most of us have been trained to avoid: evil. Not the gothic, tabloid kind, but something more dangerous -- the now-common conviction that self-interest is the only real human motive and power is all that matters. Tracing how this cynical worldview got to be called common sense, Neiman shows why naming it is the first step toward defeating it. Sharp, urgent and eminently readable, this book will change our understanding of the present crisis.