On responsibility

The cast receiving the applause after the Dutch premiere of Mieczysław
 Weinberg’s opera The Passenger,  17 April 2026 in Amsterdam

You admire the leader of your country, a charismatic person, and you want to support him as much as you can. You vote for him or his party in elections, but actually you want to do more. Happily, you work for the government. Even more, you hold a high position there, so your contribution counts. Moreover, you know that your leader takes the right decisions, so you are happy that you can help execute them. Then you get a task and you absolutely find you cannot do that. It will backfire on what you do or will backfire on what your leader intends, but okay, it’s your leader’s responsibility, or so you think. But what will you do if it’s against your moral values? If you see that by what you do you’ll hurt other people a lot and bring a lot of misery to them? What would I do?
I had to think of it when I went to the Dutch premiere of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera The Passenger recently. The main theme of the opera was the question of responsibility and guilt when you are part of a system that doesn’t only oppress people, but kills, no destroys them. The opera was about a guard of the concentration camp of Auschwitz and one of her victims. Auschwitz was an extreme and exceptional case. People often think it belongs to the past. However, in view of what is happening in the world today, I am afraid that it was not so exceptional as many people tend to think. Apart from that, aren’t extreme cases often a strengthened reflection of what happens in daily life in a less extreme way? Don’t they point to perfidious characteristics of life that are less extreme and often tolerated in daily life? They make us aware of what often remains unnoticed. Let me clarify, guided by the article by Alette Smeulders in the programme booklet of the opera.
People want to belong and to become part of a group. Sometimes they join a group without really knowing the direction it is taking, though. A charismatic leader, large and enthusiastic crowds, joining an elite corps: It can feel right and often there seems to be no reason to stay aside. You think that this group will bring you where you want to go. And aren’t you part of the future by joining? Some don’t care if such a group uses violent means, or that it sometimes does. Others would not choose them, and certainly not extreme violence, oppression, and genocide but accept it when the leader does, for they want to support him and his movement that gives them hope, and they are prepared to fight for it, even if it is at the expense of others. Being a member of an elite corps means adhering to certain rules, standards and values. In extreme cases it involves strict obedience, conformity and loyalty, if not an oath to the leader. And why not? You have chosen the group voluntarily and you are prepared to dedicate your whole person to it, and not shirk from the ‘dirty work’. Maybe, you can refuse tasks you don’t like and finally leave the group, but the pressure to stay is immense and you don’t want to let the others down. And what if you would leave the group? You are afraid of the void you would feel. Of course, you’ll feel uncomfortable when you do something you don’t like for the first time, but gradually you’ll get used to it; acting against your gut will become routine, and soon it doesn’t feel any longer like that.
This description is based on Auschwitz, but as Smeulders says, such things happen everywhere: “Perpetrators subordinate themselves to a leader, a group or an ideology. They are aiming to create a better world and think that the end justifies the means. They try to repress anything that raises doubts: they do their utmost to assuage their consciences and maintain the notion that they are the good ones and the others embody evil. That lets them create their own reality and cast themselves as the heroes in their own narrative. The moment any empathy arises, it is suppressed and superseded by tunnel vision. They have a mission, a task that must be accomplished.”
However, and that’s important, although what perpetrators of extremist acts do is extremist, indeed, the perpetrators are seldom extremists as such. As such they are people like you and I; they are normal people who have become extremist; or in the words of Smeulders: “Time and time again, it becomes clear that the perpetrators who did terrible things were not born as perpetrators. Other than the occasional sadist or psychopath, it is frightening just how normal they were. They were ordinary people who got swept along and suddenly found themselves in extreme situations that they felt they could no longer escape from. It is possible to break loose, but it comes at a price: you have to disengage from the group, perhaps at the risk of your own life, and face up to where you went wrong.”
This brings me where I want to go in this blog. Extremist situations are extremist, indeed, but in a sense they are a continuation of daily practice. They are daily practice pushed to the extreme by all kinds of factors that I cannot discuss here now. Extreme behaviour is the end point of normal behaviour on a sliding scale. It’s not that there is good behaviour and there is bad behaviour and that’s it. There is a lot in between. This makes it so difficult. In daily life there is pressure from others and there are practical restrictions of what is possible (socially and physically). So we must choose, and choices can be disadvantageous to others. Sometimes we cannot help, but often we can but still see no reason to adapt our choices. It can be (but need not be) a first step to the extreme. We must realize that, but we seldom do and seldom take the time to consider. But as an agent, and so as a perpetrator, you have a choice. Choices are not always easy, but choices they are. And aren’t you responsible for your own choices?

Source
Alette Smeulders, “On perpetrators and perpetration”, in the programme booklet of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera The Passenger.