Vollmann

This is what violence does. This is what violence is. It is not enough that death reeks and stinks in the world, but now it takes on inimical human forms, prompting the slef-defending survivors to strike and to hate, rightly or wrongly. (William T. Vollmann, "Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom, and Urgen Means," p. 17)

Whether one agrees with his [Eichmann's] line or not [that he is not guilty because he followed commands] (and I don't), it surely makes a difference to our moral or metaphysical understanding of his crimes ("I committed mass murder") – as opposed to our juridical comprehension ("I upheld my obligation to authority," or perhaps the very different "I violated the international laws against war crimes") – whether Eichmann donned the livery of the state in 1939 or simply flew the colors of nonreprentative cabal whose "agent" he was. In one case (the most likely one), the regime made him what he was. In the other, he would have done it regardless, like the opportunistic rapist in the elevator. Either way, let's hang him, but if the first cause is the dominant one, then we've learned there's something very useful we can do with our lives: study Nazism in detail, in order to discover how to prevent it from coming to life again. If the second gets privileged, it's more utilitarian to study the various Eichmanns. (Vollmann, "Rising Up and Rising Down," pp. 40-41)