Books
fromThe New Yorker
1 week agoHow Do You Write About the Inexplicable?
Rational skepticism coexists with a persistent tendency to personify evil and read coincidences as omens.
It is easy to be good in a good world. What is difficult is to be good in an evil world, where the egoism of others and the egoism built into the institutions of society attack us and threaten to annihilate us. Under such conditions, the only possible reaction would seem to be to oppose evil with evil, egoism with egoism, hate with hate; in short, to annihilate the aggressor with his own weapons.
The phenomenon of evil has always been part of human existence but is particularly pervasive in our present times. By definition, we think of evil as being purely negative, pernicious, vile, vicious, and destructive. A noxious force and tragic existential fact of life that brings only misery, sorrow, and suffering to those accidentally or intentionally exposed to or victimized by it. Which, to some extent, includes each of us. But can the painful and devastating experience of evil and the profound suffering it brings possibly be productive, growth-enhancing, or psychologically and spiritually transformative? Can good come from evil? Can suffering be redeemed?