Mark's Pages

May 20, 2005:

What may a truly evil person be? There is a difference between the motion of the will in particulars and the general, overall direction of a person's will. Everyone commits some evil in life, but a person whose will is generally turned toward the light is not an evil person. On the other side, there are persons whose whole character is pointed down into darkness, who have given up their wills and personalities and lives to evil. Often these people are outwardly charming, even charismatic, and sometimes they seem to be doing good. But the effects of their characters upon those around them is immensely destructive.

—Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History

I've known three people who've exerted the kind of impact Russell describes. A father, a lover, and a singer. Three different circumstances, one response. What is the origin of that spirit of destruction?

It would be comforting, I think, to suggest that the answer is fear. This is George Lucas' explanation. For me it fails to resonate. The evil these people do, that is the damage they inflict, has always seemed to me to result from that peculiar narcissistic anger that happens when an exceptionally vain person believes that he or she has been wronged in some abiding way. Which is, after all, a terse but accurate summary of the fall of Satan.

How then to respond? Granted the necessity to reject that destructiveness.

Perhaps the answer is simply that it's better to love them from a distance.