Confronting Evil

Fred Emil Katz is a former Professor of Sociology who taught at various universities in the United States and Israel, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil: A Report on the Beguilings of Evil, also published by SUNY Press, and Immediacy: How Our World Confronts Us and How We Confront Our World.

• Preface Acknowledgments Introduction I. A Visit: Beginning the First Journey 1. All in One Day II. Beyond Surviving: More of the First Journey 2. The Bitburg Affair 3. Surviving the Holocaust: The Pain and Reward of Confronting the Future in a Personal Way III. Dissecting Evil: The Second Journey 4. Unpleasant Surprises 5. The Local Moral Universe 6. A Look at Implementation of the Holocaust 7. The Routinization of Evil 8. A Career in Doing Evil: The Case of a Sensitive Physician 9. A Sponsorship of Evil: The Nazi Package as a Moral Mantle 10. Enjoyment of Evil: Cultures of Cruelty 11. Mind-Set of the Terrorist Conclusion: Endings and Beginnings Notes About the Author Index

In an attempt to respond constructively to some of the major horrors of the past one hundred years, Katz emphasizes the moral context under which we live, which he calls the "Local Moral Universe." This Local Moral Universe can provide the umbrella for the most magnificently humane activities, yet it can also underwrite horrendously evil deeds. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how this Local Moral Universe comes about, how it exists as a distinct and identifiable entity, and the impact it has on human behavior. Only then can societies hope to prevent such horrors from happening in the future.