Critical Intelligence vs the Intelligence of Evil
If people find the explanation of the intelligence of evil from my previous piece confusing or sparse, then hopefully the CPAC picture displaying the caption “We Are All Domestic Terrorists” and the following paragraph from Baudrillard will be of assistance.
A bitter truth: radicalness is on the side of the intelligence of evil. Critical intelligence no longer measures up to the collapse of reality and to the passage into total reality. The truth, or the inhumanity of the situation, can only be revealed from the inside, voluntarily or involuntarily, by the agents of the embezzlement of reality. Only evil can speak evil now—evil is a ventriloquist. Critical intelligence is left to jump over its own shadow: even in its radicalness, it remains pious and denunciatory. The curse of critical discourse is to reconcile itself secretly with those it criticizes by denouncing them (and I am well aware that what I am saying here belongs to this discourse). Denunciation will never have the shocking frankness of an unscrupulous discourse. We must look to the side of evil for the clearest indication, the harshest reality. Only those who show no concern for contradiction or critical consideration in their acts and discourse can, by this very means, shed full light, without remorse or ambiguity, on the absurd and extravagant character of the state of things, through the play of objective irony.[1]
[1] Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power, p. 39-40.