Word: evilness
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...mindset which treats Progress, with a capital "P," as the chief end and highest good to which a society can aspire. If Progress is Good, it follows that those who stand in the way of said Progress must be Bad, Wicked, and a dozen other capitalized synonyms for Absolute Evil. And while most of my fellow Harvardians would doubtless shy away from Alec Baldwin's scheme for the stoning of prominent conservatives, they sympathize with the spirit that animated his remarks, which was summed up admirably when one of my roommates suggested humorously that "Dick Cheney is Satan...
...knows? Evil flourishes at moments like these. The air is filled with vicious dreams. Palestinians have a recurring dream that Israel will vanish; a lot of Israelis reciprocate the fantasy. It is time for everyone to wake up, before this thing hurtles off a cliff...
...children." Perhaps the most interesting line of the debate, in fact, came when Bush decried how the killers at Columbine could "have their hearts turned dark as a result of being on the Internet." One could say that ascribing a mass medium with the power literally to make people evil is a rather silly and disturbing argument to be put forth by a candidate for the leadership of a democracy. But I digress. Now, go forth, my readers, and kill! Kill! Kill! Rise up, my vast army, and do the sacred bidding of your dark master...
...secrecy. In "Riding Round" and "Three," they point, smoke cigars and drive a massive black car; smoke-pipes protrude from industrial buildings in the background, ominously reminiscent of Auschwitz's human ovens. But Guston pokes fun at these self-absorbed, self-indulgent figures too: "fascinated by the idea of evil," as he puts it, he finally exorcises the terror of the KKK by appropriating their hoods, by making them seem ridiculous, childish-and yes, even likeable...
...takes some kind of undaunted courage to write triumphalist history in an age of revisionism and rigid identity politics. America's Industrial Revolution, once celebrated by statesmen and poets alike, differs markedly from a subject like World War II, with its clear consensus about good and evil. Ambrose's latest saga is not a historical blame game played by today's rules. Still, the author has more respect for the past than to pretend that the transcontinental railroad could have been built without financial corruption, treacherous working conditions, the blood and sweat of scoundrels and bigots, and the killing...