These reflections are based on 2 books and 3 plays recently read or seen: Sveva Caetani’s “Recapitulation”, Ira Levin’s “Son of Rosemary”, the musicals “Westside story?” and “Dracula”, and Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”.
“Westside Story” and “Macbeth” represent the (unfortunately) very common evil of war and violence, both in the “rumble” of two rival gangs in New york City and the war against a tyrant (who slipped into evil on the slippery slope of ambition and the drive for power) in ancient Scotland. These patterns are evident nowadays in Somalia and Rwanda, in Sudan, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, and about 30 other places in our world. We have learned nothing. Lovers who try to bridge the two sides (like Romeo and Juliet, or Tony and Maria) still end up in tragedy; Lady McDuff and her “babes” still get murdered in theaters of war and genocide. Even escalation and the security dilemma is illustrated by a line from Westside Story: “We agreed that the rumble will be only fist fights, but we’d better bring our knives, in case they try to jump us.”
The above is “natural” evil, all human-made. “Dracula” and “Son of Rosemary” are supernatural evil, engineered by Satan himself in his “Mega-Chess game” with God. This Devil captures beautiful women as his brides; this face of evil bears a super-sexual character. Joe/Satan will rape Rosemary for eternity among the flames of hell; Dracula transforms virtuous women into the Undead (vampires) like himself, to help him transmit evil to further victims. Dracula’s bite is like the transmission of rabies, a fatal disease of the brain. Perhaps the virus destroys the brain’s endorphins which make us love life, thus breaking the “addiction” to life and make us desire death and spread it, by infecting others.
The idea of a virus (rabies or otherwise) brings us to Caetani’s concept of evil as a tiny incubus that dwells in the dark shadow of human souls. This is not a “strong” devil, like raptors and predators, but still an active one. An Augustinian Devil, not a Manichean one like Dracula or Joe. Entropy rather than a force (a Principality and Power). Either way, destruction occurs, meaning the undoing of structure; and violence, meaning the undoing of values. Structure and value come from algorithmic or logical depth – the need for very long programs for their creation, and programs which a computer would have to run for a very long time – and perhaps never halt. This is why we value structure – it is rare and precious like gold, only far more so. It is the basis of life. Even “the golden touch” actually destroyed life.
But is the mega-chess game of Good and Evil actually more symmetrical than we think? Why do we identify Life with Good? It may be seen as an addiction; once we take a breath, take food, we cannot stop without horrific withdrawal symptoms. This has continued, since only the lovers of life survived. Life is a profound disequilibrium, tending to perpetuate itself, spin quite out of control. Yet it creates manifold patterns of beauty, like the fractal runaway patterns of the Mandelbrot set.
The Devil wants destruction, including of himself. So he cannot last – but that is what he wants. Equilibrium is the only possible final goal; life cannot experience “they lived happily ever after”, since it must be forever on the move to avoid falling into equilibrium. Equilibrium is eternity; not “eternal life” exactly, because it is unconscious, featureless, but still the final goal and resting place.
God said “I lay before you Life and Death; therefore choose Life, so that you and your children may live.” But why choose life? Only the endorphins of our addiction make us take that choice. Surrender to Death may be momentary ecstasy.
I am suddenly appalled at what I am writing. If God can give me messages, as he has, so can the Devil. I am being seduced by the likes of Dracula, his seductive whispering. I will not become his bride. I do choose life, and always will. Get thee behind me, Satan.
The Good-Bad distinction is universal, transculturally valid, as Charles Osgood has shown in his idea of the semantic differential, experimentally confirmed. The Good-Bad distinction is even more valid than the other two distinctions, Strong-Weak and Active-Passive (or as I prefer, Fast and Slow). This is because Good-Bad is the distinction between Life and Death. It is God and Satan. We cannot be neutral or treacherous in the Universal Mega-Chess. Even though God betrayed Job on a bet with Satan. The Universe will not cater to us forever. But for now, we must nourish and defend Life. Get thee behind me, Satan
The strong Good-Bad divide dictates reverence for life. It must not be betrayed, not now since we have come so far. Otherwise life is fragile. Mina must resist Dracula, for Love and only Love is stronger than Death.