Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

by Isabel Wilkerson

Germany bears witness to an uncomfortable truth—that evil is not one person but can be easily activated in more people than we would like to believe when the right conditions congeal. It is easy to say, If we could just root out the despots before they take power or intercept their rise. If we could just wait until the bigots die away…It is much harder to look into the darkness in the hearts of ordinary people with unquiet minds, needing someone to feel better than, whose cheers and votes allow despots anywhere in the world to rise to power in the first place. It is harder to focus on the danger of common will, the weaknesses of the human immune system, the ease with which the toxins can infect succeeding generations. Because it means the enemy, the threat, is not one man, it is us, all of us, lurking in humanity itself.

I wrote this entire chapter, "The Euphoria of Hate," about the worshipful throngs greeting Hitler in 1940, in a single sitting. I wrote it as I watched a chilling four-minute film reel of the Nazi rally. I was sickened and immobilized. Other museum-goers walked past, so I had the viewing room all to myself. I sat watching the reel over and over, translating my horror and revulsion into words on my Blackberry. I sat there until the revelations were complete. Those words became this chapter.