Kill them all, and you are a god

Kill one man, and you are a murderer.
Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror.
Kill them all, and you are a god.

Jean Rostand, Thoughts of a Biologist (1939)

Is this statement as accurate today as when it was first expressed?

Huw Duffy

This is a striking, powerful statement with grave implications for our society if
it is true. However, Rostand expressed it during a tumultuous time – the old order
seemed to be collapsing, jingoism had engulfed Europe and the bloodiest ideologies
were gaining the upper hand in the public’s hearts and minds. Much has changed since
then, and our outlook on life has been permanently altered by events such as World
War II, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Does the disconnection between
individual acts of murder and violence on a grand scale still exist? I believe that it
does, that the two are expressions of fundamentally different human drives. This is
not, however, to say that Rostand’s statement is still accurate. In order to come to a
final decision on this, it would be best to examine each the three sentences in turn, as
the latter two are certainly more than mere macrocosms of the first.
Before continuing, it is appropriate to clarify what meaning I am taking of the
words “you are”. While it is possible (though unlikely) that Rostand is stating his own
view as an anthropologist and philosopher, this would not leave very much scope for
discussion (as the written view could hardly have changed over time). Therefore, I
will take it that one is a murderer, conqueror or god in the eyes of the society of the
time.
The opening sentence is seemingly the most straightforward. If I kill someone,
I become a murderer. The word ‘murderer’ is the most striking of the sentence –
indeed, it fairly leaps off the page at us. Unlike the word ‘killer’, ‘murderer’ makes a
vile, deplorable figure out of the person in question. It implies that the crime was not
justified – that the murderer chose to indulge whatever dark compulsion drove him to
kill. In this regard, ‘murderer’ suggests a failed human being, comparable to Lucifer’s
angels – through his own choice, the murderer has transformed himself into another
species, one less than human.
So, in the eyes of society, is a man who kills another man a murderer? An
interesting development in the years since Thoughts of a Biologist was written is the
tendency to view deviance and criminality not as signs of weakness or evil but as
pathologies with a cause and in some cases a cure. In the recently concluded trial of
Zacarias Moussaoui, for example, it was accepted as a mitigating factor that
Moussaoui had suffered during his childhood and been beaten by his father. In the
eyes of nine members of the jury, Moussauoi was not a normal human being who had
committed a depraved act and thus become a murderer, but rather a damaged,
incomplete human who could not be held entirely responsible for his actions. Today,
society takes a much more empathetic (or condescending) view of the criminal than it
did in 1939. Many of those who commit crimes, frequently those crimes we find most
disgusting, are regarded not as beings with free will but as products of a set of
biological and social factors, an ongoing chemical reaction whose inevitable end-
product is violent crime. In light of this, we can say that the statement “Kill one man,
and you are a murderer” is less accurate today than when it was made.
The second sentence takes our consideration of the act of killing onto a much
larger scale. Does the systematic killing of millions with a definite purpose transmute
the act from that of a craven ‘murderer’ to that of a noble, proud ‘conqueror’? More to
the point, does it do so more now than in 1939? When Rostand was writing, fascism
in Italy and Germany was in full bloom, encouraging the conquering of foreign lands
and the subjugation of their people through violence for the nation’s glory. While
there had been widespread disgust at the needless waste of life that was the Great
War, militant nationalism in Europe was far from dead – those ready to cause the
deaths of thousands, even millions for mere territorial gains were regarded as
conquerors – an example being Benito Mussolini’s veneration in Italy after the
unnecessary, bloody invasion of Abyssinia. The League of Nations was at the brink of
collapse, and those who could increase their country’s standing at whatever cost were
in the ascendant. The contrast with the international relations of today, and the
standing in which such death mongers are held, could not be greater. The United
Nations, its mission to ensure that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation”,
works to prevent wars and isolate those leaders intent on causing death. The
International Criminal Court brings to justice those accused of war crimes and
genocide, acts which were previously regarded by some as part and parcel of
‘conquering’. At this very moment Saddam Hussein, a man who ordered the killing of
thousands of civilians during the Iran-Iraq war, is a pathetic figure on trial in Iraq for
crimes against humanity. People are no longer willing to tolerate the use of violence
on a large scale, whether for the expansion of a nation or for ideological reactions –
the vilification in many quarters of George W. Bush following the invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq being a prime example of this.
The final section of Rostand’s statement, that if you “kill them all”, “you are a
god” is certainly the most intriguing. Taken at face value, it makes sense – if one kills
every other intelligent being, there is no one left to make a judgement on one, so one
may as well be a god. Obviously at this level the notion is entirely irrelevant, as it
would be impossible to act this out. This rather shallow interpretation of the sentence
does, however, point us to its deeper meaning, specifically in the idea of there being
no one to make judgments on a person, to criticise and bring him down from whatever
pedestal he sets himself up on. If one were to kill every dissenter and critic, or at least
kill enough to silence the rest, one could be a god in the eyes of the people, if one so
desired. One historical figure to whom Rostand could be referring immediately
suggests himself– Stalin, who was at the height of his power in 1939. He had
ruthlessly suppressed all opposition and criticism, first by banning freedom of the
press and later through the infamous Purges. By 1939 Stalin had eliminated those in a
prominent position who had spoken out against him, as well as their relatives and
colleagues. At the same time, he was treated like a god. Huge posters featuring his
image and slogans lined the streets. Songs and poems were written in his praise, such
as these lines by one A. O. Avidenko which were published in Pravda in 1938:
O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who brought man to birth,
Thou who fructifies the earth,
History had even been rewritten through doctored photographs and invented
eyewitness accounts to show Stalin as one of the key figures in the Russian
Revolutions, rather than the provincial politician he had really been. Nowadays, it
would be impossible to create such a total cult of personality. It is so easy to gain
access to alternative thinking, via satellite television and especially the Internet, and
so hard for the authorities to bar access to it, that people can easily counterbalance
state propaganda by reading more balanced opinions. In China, for example, where a
reported 40,000 government officials are employed to censor the Internet, bloggers
can still post anti-state views on the web for those within and outside of their country
to read. Thanks to the newly democratised media, which has evolved from a minority
of professionals who can be silenced into a vast, anonymous hydra-like network of
opinionated citizens, no leader of today can make themselves a god. Friedrich
Nietzsche may have written “All gods are dead” near the end of the nineteenth
century, but it took until the beginning of the twenty-first for his words to become
reality.
It appears, then, that Rostand’s statement is not as true in our time as it was in
his. Society has changed and has learned lessons from events since the publication of
his words. Our approach to criminal justice has more scientific and empathetic
elements today than it did in 1939 – while many criminals, particularly ‘murderers’,
are still vilified, many others are treated with a greater degree of understanding and
compassion than they would have been in the past. Our world has been brought up on
the memories of the Somme and Auschwitz, Vietnam and Rwanda; most people
regard mass violence, for whatever reason, with disgust. We no longer consider those
who perpetrate this violence as worthy of honour or glory. Finally, our world is more
educated, more opinionated and freer to express those opinions than that of 1939. It is
no longer possible for a leader to silence dissent and thus venerate himself by simply
killing anyone who publicly disagrees with him. Rostand’s statement comes from a
bygone era and does not accurately reflect ours – and for that we should all be
grateful.