Good and Evil

[pameladlloyd]

Via truepenny:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

--Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago

Via abydosangel, in the comments to truepenny's post:

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
--James A. Baldwin

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Haven't yet looked at the video (though it's bound to be good if it's Dilbert), but I agree wholeheartedly with the quotation. People who are sure of their absolute moral rectitude are quite scary.

Whoa, yikes, clearly I conflated two entries on my friends list, as there *is* no Dilbert video here! Sorry about that pdlloyd!! But I still agree with the quotation :-)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

That absolute certainty of moral rectitude was one of the things about Bush that made him scary for me, although obviously many people saw him differently.

Thanks for that edit, btw, I was wondering about the Dilbert video--although Catbert sprang immediately to mind as having a perfectly reasonable connection to all this. :)

[core-opsis.livejournal.com]

I've read this quote three times now (each time I've gone through my "friends page" listing, and I stop and think about it each time, so it's probably time I said something...I really really love this quote (the first one), this part: "the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being"....ack, I still don't know what I want to say about it; it just makes me think of kids, the ones that other kids label bullies, and the ones that other kids think of as so good, and it's there--both things, in all of their hearts.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Three times?!! I'm impressed. These days, I'm having trouble finding the time to get all the way through my flist once.

Regarding your actual comment: Yeah. It's beautiful and sad, terrible and wonderful.

---

It's also good for every writer to remember. Unless you're writing melodrama (and there is a place for that), there are no true villains, no pure victims, and everybody has a story.

I recently came across a little exercise to help someone get unstuck when their story has come to a dead halt. Rewrite a scene from the POV of the villain (or, would "antagonist" be the better word?). This doesn't mean that the scene has to go in the finished story, but it may help you figure out where you need to go next.

[core-opsis.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really good little exercise.

Do you remember reading The Bully of Barkham Street as a child? (by Mary Stolz???) It told the same story as one of her other kid's books, only this time from the bully's point of view. I don't remember the other book at all, but I think of that book periodically. It was a real eye-opener when I was nine, because I'd never considered that a bully might have their own perspective, and not be just pure evil.

There was a bully in my son's third-fourth grade class. He older than everyone (he repeated first grade and was thus the age of an old fifth-grader) and bigger (already getting major muscles), and was always stomping on kids' feet and shoving them. My son (the shortest of the third-graders) was pretty much the only child who wasn't scared of him. He told me that he thought that was the only way this kid could relate to other kids, and that he wasn't trying to be mean, he just didn't know what else to do. I think my son was right, and I was really impressed with his insight.

(And my flist must be a whole lot shorter than yours--or else I'm spending far too much time at the computer, not doing other, more useful things).

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I don't remember The Bully of Barkham Street, although it sounds very good. Your son must be a really amazing kid. Not only for having the insight, but also to be able to give up his fear. From my perspective, understanding someone's hurtful behavior isn't enough; if they are likely likely to cause me injury, I'll still be afraid of them.

As for my flist, it is way too long. But, everyone is so interesting!!!