Heaven and Hell: A Thoroughly Modern Marriage

Posted by admin on Oct 17, 2007 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Ben Linkewich

Recently, I was at a party at a friend’s house and upon a table a magazine lay open. A friend, noticing an ad for CGAs (Certified General Accountants) featuring a man bearing an eerie resemblance to Brad Pitt, remarked upon the fact. Hearing this, I made a none-too-clever remark about Brad having a boring evil twin, whereupon I was immediately and severely corrected by several people. No, they were not singing rhapsodies about the thrill of accounting. The clearest remark went like this: “Evil isn’t boring! Boring and good, yes. Boring and evil, impossible.”

I was alarmed: here are intelligent, good people utterly convinced that evil is inherently interesting. Why do we deify the ‘supermen’ who use evil means to achieve their own ends? Even if real people destroyed by evil fail to impress, we’ve got the motion pictures doing what they do best: glossing over reality. In the first place, the movie industry only represents the most active and dynamic of evil people. From the mists of time and cellulose reels, gangster movies have made thugs into gods. Their dynamic entrances, they can say what they want to say and act on what they feel (bounded by the honour among thieves). It’s the shrug and “fuggetaboutit” if forgiveness is in their hearts or the cement boots and “sleep wit da fishies” if not.

Modern gangster movies may be much more realistic about the terror and hopelessness of such a life, but even where the characters come to pointless, sad, or grotesque ends (ie Snatch, Gangster #1, Layer Cake), the evil is still lent that delicious air of power—the taste that my will be done through the power of the unholy trinity: Me, Smith, and Wesson.

What are the natures of these thrilling people? We don’t see pure evil in people: the true tyrants under-impress in the flesh, for they must remain human. But we do see people who have been consumed by evil.

The first and only concern of such people is usually themselves or occasionally a parody of “good” lodged in the future. The former will sacrifice anyone and anything for themselves, only to find this soul-destroying. As Benjamin Franklin said, “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.” The latter will sacrifice anyone and anything, including themselves, for their vision. The recent fortieth anniversary of Che Guevara’s death reminds us that, though much less common, the unprincipled visionaries are much more dangerous. To such people, in the words of Charles Colson, “people were expendable precisely because they were not created in the image of a personal God. Instead, they were objects being manipulated by impersonal historical forces.”

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis throws this notion on its head. God is the hedonist, takes joy in our distinctions, frees us to choose and become more truly ourselves, and the serious business of His heaven is joy. In contrast, evil takes itself very seriously, has no concern for any pleasure, and its only end is a vile consumption of others.

It is still true that boringness is one of the Deadly Virtues, but the overall sense that only evil brings fun and only the illicit thrills seems to come down to a morbid curiosity at best. Such a thing can only be product of the loss of an intelligible moral order rather than a response against the most tedious of pseudo-virtues. I challenge you all: lighten up and look for the interesting side of goodness.