the question of evil*

Who is more corrupt?
The robber, who plunders a village, killing and raping
Or the mastermind genius, methodically working out the logistics of a mass concentration camp?

Is evil the crime of the visceral kind, or is it actually rather banal?
[Can we even draw a comparison between the two?]

What entails an even great disregard for human life?
The foot soldier, who injures and kills with his own two hands
Or the fighter pilot, who with a flip of a switch bombs entire neighbourhoods?

What entails more corruption of the heart?
To know right from wrong but still do what is wrong
Or to no longer be able to discern the distinction between the two?**


*just some general questions stirred by the comments on the previous post
**i plead your forgiveness for engaging in some cultural anachronism. i know that right/wrong as moral categories have debatably(sp?) lost their trendiness a few decades ago. but perhaps that in it of itself is indicative of the moral fiber of our age. i believe "moral fiber" is also an outdated term.

race to the top

So why do all the black people get all the rap for being criminals?*

Yes, it's true. Some do steal a few hundred dollars to help put dinner on their plate (or in some cases, a birthday present for a daughter).

Yet on the other hand, I'm reading through databases of hundreds of hundreds of cases of mainly rich white males in large corporations engaging in criminal and improper business and market practices to earn a few extra million to pad their already gold-lined yachts and country houses.

*Please read comments to this post.

simulated happiness

"For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."

~ Ecclesiastes

New York yuppie life is an opiate for the masses.

Meager pleasures and pathetic comforts to anaesthetize the soul to overwhelming sorrow and overwhelming joy.

compassion is abnormal

isn't it bizarre...

...that nobody finds it odd when someone is crying after a movie with some sad ending.

However, if you find someone crying in the bathroom in the middle of the day because he or she feels broken and hurt for all the suffering and injustice that goes on in the world, be it here in America or elsewhere, it's very odd. By most standards of sanity, that person would probably be regarded as somewhat strange and abnormal.

But maybe it's just the rest of us that are not normal.