In 1961, the philosopher Hannah Arendt traveled to Jerusalem to witness the trial of Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann, the man behind the logistics of the Holocaust.
Think she encountered some menacing, brutish, hulking Nazi?
Anything but.
"Medium-sized, slender, middle-aged, with receding hair, ill-fitting teeth and nearsighted eyes," she wrote.
There on the witness stand behind bulletproof glass, Eichmann, who coordinated the murder of millions of Jews, seemed small. He looked ordinary. In another context, perhaps even respectable. During his trial, he sniffled and sneezed with a cold.
It taught Arendt that evil is not some butcher-leviathan rising from the nightmare sea; instead, it lurks in plain sight, beating in the hearts of plain and respectable-looking men with receding hairlines and head colds.
David Cook"The banality of evil," Arendt wrote.
Evil hides in the everyday and flourishes when good people do nothing to stop it.
Earlier this spring, federal agents found it hiding on a quiet, dead-end road in Sequatchie County on Signal Mountain.
His name is Bob Doggart. Over the last year, he has stockpiled weapons, studied maps, done reconnaissance work, all in a plot to burn down a Muslim community in New York.
"We will be cruel to them," he said in a conversation wiretapped by authorities. "And we will burn down their buildings."
Last month, Doggart, 63, pleaded guilty to federal charges of threatening to attack Islamberg, an all-Muslim community that is headquarters of the Muslims of America. It was a plan involving Molotov cocktails, M4 assault rifles and outside militia help.
"We're gonna be carrying an M4 with 500 rounds of ammunition, light armor piercing. A pistol with three extra magazines and a machete," said Doggart, according to court documents. "And if it gets down to the machete, we will cut them to shreds."
He thought they were terrorists. He wanted to send a message.
"We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace," Doggart wrote on Facebook.
In 2014, Doggart ran for Congress in the 4th District primary election. Part of his platform: impeach the president, defend the Constitution.
More than 9,000 people voted for him.
Today, Doggart should be charged with federal terrorism, and we should shudder at his tendencies, which are no morally better than ISIS' or Eichmann's or Timothy McVeigh's.
Yet America and our media seem to have paid him little attention. Imagine the difference if a Muslim was found in Chattanooga with a gun-hoarding plan to destroy an all-Christian neighborhood.
"America snores when Christian terrorist threatens to massacre Muslims," Dean Obeidallah wrote on The Daily Beast. "An ordained minister pleaded guilty to threatening to burn down a New York town full of Muslims. Where's the FBI press conference and Fox News panic?"
Doggart, who once worked as an engineering specialist at TVA, is an ordained minister with the Christian National Church. He has a doctorate from LaSalle University, and is a former U.S. Navy Sea Cadet. In 1999, he chaired the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Health Council; he's been honored by the board of Smile Train, a global nonprofit, for his work. He once ran for school board.
It seems a schizophrenic resume. How can a man supportive of Smile Train and local education also plot the terroristic death of Muslims he never met?
What went wrong?
What infected Doggart?
It is the banality of evil, of terrorism.
In the face of Doggart's threatened violence, the rest of us must resolutely respond by proclaiming our support and love for our Muslim brothers and sisters, especially here in Chattanooga and North Georgia, while continuing to examine our own hearts for whatever fear resides there.
A recent Huffington Post poll showed more than half of Americans don't see Islam in a favorable light, yet, ironically, most also admitted to not knowing much about the religion, or having any friends who are Muslim.
I was once that man; no knowledge of Islam, no Muslim friends.
Thankfully, in the last decade, I have come to know and love Muslim families from here to Dalton, each of whom have been the epitome of hospitality, warmth and good Samaritan-kindness. My own faith has been strengthened by an understanding of theirs, my own life, richer. (As-salamu-alaykum.)
Every one terroristic threat must be met by a thousand acts of interfaith solidarity; the banality of evil must be stopped by the everydayness of mercy and fearless love.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.