THE BLUE STATES CATCH UP TO THE REST OF AMERICA:

Good, evil: They're ba-a-a-ack (Julia Keller, 3/20/05, Chicago Tribune)

Good and evil are back on the table again as serious issues requiring serious contemplation by all of us -- not just theologians, philosophers, essayists, politicians and talk-show hosts. Not just "experts" such as President Bush or Bono or Elie Wiesel or Dr. Phil, to whom we outsourced some of our thorniest moral dilemmas. These people were only too happy to do a lot of the heavy moral lifting for us. (And God bless 'em for it.) But it's time to shoulder the load ourselves.

This latest surge of terrible events reminds us that, in the end, we're all on the hot seat to decide: What is evil? What is good? What constitutes justice? Is motive as significant as outcome? Are there degrees of evil? Does the fact that Bart Ross -- alleged killer of Judge Joan Lefkow's family -- suffered years of physical and psychological pain somehow mitigate against the heinousness of his crime? Does seeing Hitler as a pathetic old coot in "Downfall" soften by a hair our condemnation of his world-class evil?

Just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush spoke easily and often about good and evil. He has continued the habit, making some thoughtful people squirm. Evil and good, after all, are dense, heavily freighted words, words with big histories and chilling implications. Provocative words. Words that invite charges of hypocrisy: Who're you calling evil, Mr. President -- ever hear of a place called Abu Ghraib?

But maybe Bush did the world a favor. His unhesitating use of words such as good and evil has inspired many people, authors and filmmakers among them, to go back to those massive, elemental themes and ransack them for modern meaning: What is the definition of a good person in 2005? The question is especially acute for Americans, because we consume a downright piggish share of the world's resources without a second thought.

Questions about good and evil have motivated the best literature in a variety of cultures, from Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" to George Eliot's "Middlemarch." It was "Middlemarch," in fact, that inspired Prose to write "A Changed Man," she recalled in an interview last week.

"Eliot had such an appreciation for the gray areas of behavior that constitute adult life," Prose said. "I hope that the incredible mixed bag that everyone in the novel turns out to be helps people see the complications of humanity -- and not be so quick to make judgments based on surface appearance."

Confronting good and evil, by the way, doesn't have to result in ponderous, dreary art. The current popularity of spy shows -- "Alias," "24," "MI-5" -- and spy novels and movies such as "The Bourne Identity" can be traced to the great moral questions at their core: Does the end ever justify the means? Should an immoral act be undertaken if it's to secure a moral end? Even lighter-hearted fare turns on such issues; a film such as the 2001 remake of "Ocean's 11" makes a muddle of the typical hero-villain dichotomy.

At bottom, it's not the cool gadgets and high-flying stunts that make these stories buzz. It's the epic quandaries their characters routinely confront: Is an eye for an eye really a forward-looking strategy? If the bad do good things, are they good or bad?

Good and evil are especially important to us because of how much we consume? Boy, she doesn't get her subject at all.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2005 6:01 AM