Saturday
T
Why do we find evil so much more fascinating than goodness?
When did evil start to look so alluring? One answer might be: when goodness began to look boring. We can blame this on the puritanical middle classes. It is they who redefined virtue as thrift, prudence, meekness, abstinence, chastity and industriousness. It’s not hard to see why some people should prefer zombies and vampires. Goodness came to seem negative and restrictive. As the poet Auden wryly remarked, the Ten Commandments consist in observing human behaviour and then inserting a “not”.
Yet goodness hadn’t always been as dreary as this. For some ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, it was really a matter of knowing how to enjoy yourself. It meant learning how to flourish as a human being, developing your humanity to its fullest, finest extent. Being human on this view is something you have to get good at, like playing the tuba or tolerating bores at sherry parties. For Aristotle, it had an intimate link with happiness. Being virtuous for him was the quickest route to well-being. The good man or woman is one who excels at the precarious business of being human. Those who become really brilliant at being human – the saints – are the virtuosi of life, the Pavarottis and Wayne Rooneys of virtue. Goodness is a kind of joie de vivre, a source of energy and high spirits. As for the New Testament, it is about enjoying an abundance of life, not about paying your taxes and rolling in for work on time.
On this view, vicious people are those who have never got the hang of human existence, as someone might never get the hang of playing poker. They are lacking, deficient, incapable of being truly alive. The evil are not really there. They are unfinished sketches for real human beings. Like ghosts, they hover between life and death, trapped in some limbo that cuts them off from the human world. They may look human enough but, like aliens in a horror movie, this is just a phoney appearance.
When did evil start to look so alluring? One answer might be: when goodness began to look boring. We can blame this on the puritanical middle classes. It is they who redefined virtue as thrift, prudence, meekness, abstinence, chastity and industriousness. It’s not hard to see why some people should prefer zombies and vampires. Goodness came to seem negative and restrictive. As the poet Auden wryly remarked, the Ten Commandments consist in observing human behaviour and then inserting a “not”.
Yet goodness hadn’t always been as dreary as this. For some ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, it was really a matter of knowing how to enjoy yourself. It meant learning how to flourish as a human being, developing your humanity to its fullest, finest extent. Being human on this view is something you have to get good at, like playing the tuba or tolerating bores at sherry parties. For Aristotle, it had an intimate link with happiness. Being virtuous for him was the quickest route to well-being. The good man or woman is one who excels at the precarious business of being human. Those who become really brilliant at being human – the saints – are the virtuosi of life, the Pavarottis and Wayne Rooneys of virtue. Goodness is a kind of joie de vivre, a source of energy and high spirits. As for the New Testament, it is about enjoying an abundance of life, not about paying your taxes and rolling in for work on time.
On this view, vicious people are those who have never got the hang of human existence, as someone might never get the hang of playing poker. They are lacking, deficient, incapable of being truly alive. The evil are not really there. They are unfinished sketches for real human beings. Like ghosts, they hover between life and death, trapped in some limbo that cuts them off from the human world. They may look human enough but, like aliens in a horror movie, this is just a phoney appearance.
T.
// posted by vm @ 5:25 PM 
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