Baby Villains - A Call For Peace

Every human being has great capacity for good or evil, yet everyone is born innocent, initially incapable of any moral choices, and completely dependent on the nurture of parents.

As we grow, we are socialized. Our view of good and evil is formed through what we are taught, and what we observe, but also what some call conscience, which is sometimes at odds with our conditioning, and which tends to be right in those cases.

No parent has a child that they hope will grow up to be a mass murderer or to participate in mass murder, rape, torture, etc. And yet the 20th century saw the murders of 100 million people or more, and many more harmed in other ways.

How did it happen?

While we like to blame the leaders of the regimes which perpetrated those atrocities as wholly responsible, the fact of the matter is that without the support of the general populations which they led, tens of millions of people would not have been killed. It took the contributions, however small, of millions of “average” people to kill so many. 

Mao Zedong, Hirohito Shōwa, Pol Pot, Benito Mussolini, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and others did not pull all of the triggers; they did not swing all of the machetes; they did not pull the gas levers. In fact, many of these monsters didn’t personally kill anyone.

They just gave orders.

They just said words.

Words.

It was others, ordinary people like you and me, who turned those words into actions. Others gassed innocent Jews. They killed innocent Cambodians with machetes in order to save bullets. They shipped innocents to camps, to prisons, to medical experimentation centers. They shot rows of men, women, and children and callously watched their bodies tumble back into mass graves. They made the bullets, the uniforms, the food, the trucks, and whatever else was needed to support those doing the actual killing.

Not YOU, you say? You wouldn't do those things? Are you sure? How are you so sure? Have you measured the steps, the compromises you’d have to take, from where you are to where you would have to be to do such things? Most made the choice with no threat of violence against themselves. The steps from where you are now to mass murderer may be fewer than you think.

• When someone did better than you on something - won a game, got a promotion you deserved, or whatever - did you hope they’d then fail? Were you bitter that you didn't get what they got?
• Have you ever been angry and felt justified in feeling that way?
• Have you ever caused bodily harm to someone on purpose?
• Do you view one or more groups of people with different views from yours as your enemies?
• Are there any people you refuse to listen to because you already know what they'll say and you know they are wrong?
• Have you ever been glad to hear someone else’s misfortune?
• Have you ever been glad to hear of someone’s death or wished it would happen?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or similar questions which I’m sure you can think of, then you are closer than you think to being a murderer - of turning in a neighbor to secret police for thinking different from you - of torturing an innocent for a fabricated confession - of committing any number of other atrocities yourself, or of supporting those who do and turning a blind eye.

This collection of art, Baby Villains, is a reminder that all of us are born innocent, without hate, without guile, without any of the attributes necessary to commit any of the countless atrocities perpetrated by those people represented by the art pieces, including those who did them! Even they were born innocent!

This collection is in no way a complete survey of what took place in the 20th century. Other nations perpetrated similar crimes, if on a smaller scale. This collection also does not include those in this 21st century still committing atrocities on a large scale. From the incidents that took place in the 20th century, particularly those of WW2, we said we would “never forget”. Looks like we have forgotten. Such atrocities occur even now in many places around the world, your news outlets just aren't interested in telling you.

This collection is also a reminder that we have a choice. Indeed, we have many choices which lead toward, or away from, villainy. Often, if we do not choose ahead of time - before the moment when a choice is forced upon us - then we humans tend to choose the easy option of going along with the crowd. If your friends and neighbors demonize and vilify some group, you likely will too. If words turn into violent deeds, you will tend to participate. At the very least, you will likely stand by and let it happen rather than stand up against violence and wrong.

• Unless you choose now not to, regardless of the cost.
• Unless you peer into yourself to see the steps it would take to become the villain and you fortify now against those steps.

Please support this project by sharing it, and spread the word of peace that these art pieces represent. Please remember that anyone can become a monster, but that none have to. Please choose to fortify yourself against the slippery slopes of compromise and immoral tolerance that allow such monsters to flourish.

The world today looks similar to the early 20th century. There are divisions being fomented. There are groups blamed and vilified. There is anger on a massive scale. There is a refusal to talk with those who don’t agree. There is demonizing. There is political zealotry. These things led to those atrocities already mentioned. They can lead us there again.

Will the 21st century repeat the horrors of the 20th? Will it surpass the horrors perpetrated then?

If so, who will be the villains of the 21st century?  Will you?

Who will order the commission of mass murder, and who will carry out those orders?

It will not be me!

I hope it won’t be you.

Konchan