The atrocities of World War II and the participation and complicity of the German people with the Nazi regime, in the guise of a soldier or government agent, in the murder of millions of people in the death camps, posed a fundamental question to sociologists: How could an ordinary German citizen be so obedient and obedient to orders that he would commit such crimes not only against the people of neighboring countries, but also against his Jewish or communist compatriots and neighbors? What made the issue even more puzzling was the fact that these citizens belonged to a civilized country with a cultural tradition and had lived in a democratic republic for decades.

The same question confronts us today: How can members of the IRGC and Basij, in their commitment and commitment to the Islamic Republic regime and its religious ideology, go so far as to fire on their fellow citizens and neighbors—even those who may be their relatives or close friends—in the streets?

The answers are varied. Some, following Max Weber, claim that, unlike traditional or legal authority, obedience to a charismatic leader knows no bounds. Others, like Hannah Arendt (especially after observing the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem), claim that no extraordinary reasons are necessary for evil to occur, and that ordinary people may serve a killing machine out of sheer thoughtlessness or simple duty, and that they may not even have thought about the consequences of their actions. In simple terms, evil is something that can easily arise from ordinary people. Zygmund Bauman, in a similar vein, blames the bureaucratic division of labor in modern societies for this evil, where humans are merely cogs in a vast machine, and their will has no role in the overall functioning of this vast structure. In the field of social psychology, Milgram’s famous experiment showed that many people are unable to resist authority and that if people are put in a situation, they may engage in criminal behavior that is completely incompatible with their personality.

All of these answers are wrong in one way, because they assume a false assumption in the question; that emotions are the source of good and evil. We are surprised by the level of obedience and criminality of ordinary (or seemingly ordinary) citizens because we imagine that emotions and the resulting personality traits such as kindness, compassion, generosity, sacrifice, humility, compassion, empathy, and decency are the source of good, and vice versa, evil comes from people who are sullen, angry, spiteful, cruel, and aggressive. Therefore, since we find ordinary citizens in the streets and markets mostly peaceful, non-aggressive, and even kind and noble people, we wonder how they can one day turn into full-fledged criminals in the guise of soldiers or law enforcers of despotic rulers.

Similarly, culture and art are not the source of good and evil. In the case of criminals and military thugs, we may not be able to attribute to them a special artistic taste or a prominent cultural tradition, but people like Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels could be painters, philosophical students and music lovers, but with a certain will and determination they chose the extermination and death of millions of Jews as the “Final Solution”.

We must accept that good comes from rationality and evil comes from irrationality, and that human emotions and personalities are not the source of good and evil. So a seemingly humble, calm, polite, kind, and compassionate person can easily open fire on even innocent children. He may do this if he has simply reached irrational conclusions in his individual or group thinking. I repeat once again: not human emotions but irrationality is the source and cause of evil. Pity and compassion, sympathy and compassion are not obstacles to crime and murder. The cause of evil is only and only irrationality.

How can a member of the IRGC or even a young Basij member shoot his fellow citizen? This crime and evil manifests itself both in the irrationality of his religious beliefs and in the form of the terrorist organization to which he belongs. This irrationality, in which a person thinks that he is carrying out the command of God and God’s representative on earth, provides sufficient reason for unquestioning obedience to the leader and the IRGC under his leadership.

Social structure, race, historical, political and economic backgrounds, or ideologies are not the source of evil in themselves. It is only the irrationality inherent in them that causes evil. The inner core of this irrationality is one or more fallacies in reasoning or false assumptions. In the case of Islamic jihadism, it is simply the false assumption that an individual is a messenger of God. This false assumption is enough for the believer to imagine that he has a mission to carry out the word assigned to this God and the behavior of the messenger. We must accept that this irrationality does not remain a mere mistaken belief in the minds of people but leads to disastrous consequences in human life.

For this reason, we cannot find a satisfactory explanation for the origin of evil. For if the rational and correct judgment is one, the irrational and wrong judgments are countless. The right and correct judgment is one, but the wrong judgment can be anything, therefore, irrationality is unlimited and hence the origin of evil is unlimited.

From this we conclude that trying to find a social, psychological, etc. phenomenon for the origin of evil leads nowhere. Because evil simply springs from any irrationality. This irrationality can manifest itself in the behavior of an individual or the functioning of an institution.

In short, the obedience of individuals to violence and crime should not surprise us, because it does not arise from their emotions; they can simply remain a devoted father, a kind husband, or a kind and polite neighbor while committing the most heinous crimes. There is no contradiction in this behavior, because their evil arises from their irrationality and their institutions, not from their emotions. Irrationalism is by its very nature immeasurably numerous, and hence a single source of evil cannot be found.