A study on the banality of evil

November 30, 2023 2:05 AM

Racist, white supremacist, and far-right violence is on the rise. But while far-right actors often try to maintain a public image of normalcy, it is sometimes useful to look into their private spaces in an attempt to understand how their hate festers, evolves, and breeds when no one is looking. HowHateSleeps seeks to peek behind the curtain to look into these private sanctums. All images have been pulled from public court records except where otherwise indicated [CW: evil]
posted by chavenet (18 comments total)

Thanks for this. Intense images
posted by 0bvious at 4:05 AM on November 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is a cool post. I like that the pictures show the depth of their hate and delusion, but also how these people were/are gigantic, irredeemable losers and dorks.
posted by bxvr at 4:18 AM on November 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Like that asshole in Florida (who went to my snooty private highschool in the Bahamas lol) having a portrait of Mcveigh. I mean, come on man. It’s terrifying but also imagine this dipshit picking out a frame at Staples to put his hero’s picture in
posted by bxvr at 4:20 AM on November 30, 2023 [8 favorites]

"There are times in the world's history--and our own time may be one of them---when good must stand aside, so that anything destined to be better first appears in evil form. This shows how extremely dangerous it is even to touch these problems, for evil can so easily slip in on the plea that it is, potentially, the better!" CG Jung
posted by DJZouke at 5:20 AM on November 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Something about the starkness and poor lighting, I kept expecting to see a body lying on the carpet. These are really moving, in a sort of horrifying, sickly way. You want to try to find a commonality between the pictures to try to draw psychological conclusions, but they defeat you, there's not a single through-line other than the obsession with symbols. One guy had a vacuum prominently displayed, another had never washed his bedsheets apparently ever. A mix of money (but not, y'know, money) and poverty. All very guy.
posted by mittens at 6:08 AM on November 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

It’s terrifying but also imagine this dipshit picking out a frame at Staples to put his hero’s picture in

Hobby Lobby, surely.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:29 AM on November 30, 2023 [21 favorites]

Thorzdad I actually meant to say Michael’s and not Staples but you’re right Hobby Lobby works better than either lol
posted by bxvr at 7:48 AM on November 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

I somehow expected more banal. Perhaps it’s there in the austerity of white paint and dirty sheets, or perhaps that seeming unifying aesthetic is telling us something between the weapons and iconography. The banality almost seems lost in the focus on Evidence.

I expected more banal in the sense of recently hearing someone at Thanksgiving, that I’d met ONCE before, express that we needed to “ERASE” Palestinians. Or a family-member-in-law express (yell) on May 26, 2020 that they would run over “unarmed peaceful protestors” if they “felt threatened” (I verified those words multiple times “surely you don’t mean….?”) for that individual to then drive that night, and put themselves in harms way, to GF/BLM protests “to see what was up” (this one goes a lot deeper). The banality becomes the frequency to which “normal” people hold these beliefs, the frequency to which they think the beliefs are normal enough to speak out loud, and the frequency to which family and friends tolerate and even defend it as within the range “normal” to avoid “conflict,” getting people help, or maybe confronting their own beliefs. You learn a lot about people. The banality is shocking in the slowness of its march from old Dixie and Gadsen flags to hagiography and action… these are normal generic low-income rooms from Anytown, USA (not necessarily unique to ‘Murica). 🎼🎶 “the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a fool…”🎵

Thanks for the post!
posted by rubatan at 8:37 AM on November 30, 2023 [7 favorites]

For some reason, the construction vehicle trim above the Iron Cross destroyed me.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:29 AM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

God, I went back for another look...Squirtle? Really?
posted by mittens at 10:42 AM on November 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

No art, only symbols. No art supplies. One neglected Rockband drum kit, but no other musical instruments.
posted by MrVisible at 10:55 AM on November 30, 2023 [6 favorites]

The architecture is banal, the contents ain’t.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:07 AM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

֫. . . and a flag of Germany. The current one
posted by nostrada at 12:33 PM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

Odd that they misspell Breivik in some of their descriptions. Not that I want to honour the fucker, but misspellings of 'non-English names always irk me.

I was struck by how barren lots of these places look (the ones that aren't overflowing with just loose stuff). There's no sense of comfort, joy, or anything to these places - not even posters on the walls (except political iconography). Most of these don't look mundane to me, they look completely cold, deprived, without care or love for the space. And then the squirtle guy with all the kids' stuff. But none of them look 'normal' to me, with my conception of what that looks like.
posted by Dysk at 12:58 PM on November 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

Most of these don't look mundane to me, they look completely cold, deprived, without care or love for the space.

I think that sadly, for the demographic largely being described here (white US dudes in their early 20s) that IS mundane. Men are often not socialized to actually care for/about their homes (even when they are taught to do basic maintenance and chores and such) --implicitly or explicitly they are told that that is the job of the women in their lives.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:21 PM on November 30, 2023 [5 favorites]

Is it ironic or not, when supremacist commentators tell their right wing audience to "clean up their room"?
posted by eustatic at 1:38 PM on November 30, 2023 [3 favorites]

I recently read Timothy Egan’s most recent book about white supremicism in the 20th century USA, and the parallels with our current zeitgeist are chilling.
A Fever in the Heartland
posted by dbmcd at 3:51 PM on November 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Unfortunately, there will never be any shortage of these sorts on the planet. We are dealing with apes, after all...
posted by jim in austin at 7:30 PM on November 30, 2023 [1 favorite]