I’ve been thinking about evil. Hard not to sometimes if you’re reading the news. It seems to me there are different kinds of evil.
There’s the guy who knows he’s committing evil and either just doesn’t care or gets a thrill out of it. When caught, he giggles and says something like, “Yup. I’ve been thinking about killing someone for a long time now. So I did it.” You’ve read about these guys on the front page of newspapers. There’s a manhunt and people lock their doors at night. Usually there’s big headlines and it’s what everyone talks about and everyone shakes their heads and says stuff like “Can you believe…”
I think there’s some comfort in everybody shaking their heads at the same things.
You can say all you want about that kind of evil but at least you’re dealing with the same definitions. You’re looking at the same game board, just making different decisions.
There’s another kind of evil though. The kind that doesn’t get in the newspaper much -at least not labeled as such. It’s the kind of evil that doesn’t even acknowledge the terms good or evil.
That’s the kind that scares me. It’s abortion. It’s euthanasia. It’s embryo banks where people come for spare parts. It scares me because there’s not one name linked to it. There’s no manhunt. You can’t lock the doors because it’s already inside.
And I don’t see many people shaking their heads over these things.
And it’s all got me thinking -which is always dangerous – about whether it’s time or not. We’ve all seen the moment in movies. After the nameless Evil has come. It’s gone into the vents. It’s terrified the villagers. It’s killed half the cast. And the good guys are using everything they have on it but nothing’s working. All the lasers, bullets, or cannons have done little to slow the Abomination. In fact, the Abomination isn’t even limping. And now it’s coming at our hero. So what now?
It comes down to that. Do you throw the gun or just run?
I feel sometimes that maybe throwing the gun is all one man can do. Maybe that’s what blogging is. It’s the last resort. It’s throwing the gun. I’ve been throwing the gun so long at the same Abominations that the idea of running sometimes seems appealing. Even logical. I mean, at some point isn’t it smart just to pull up stakes? Give up the fight. Cut bait. Go Amish. Find your hidey-hole and live your life.
At some point just focusing on my family, my friends, and the little piece of the world around me seems appealing. And just stop fretting about the rest of the country all eagerly climbing into the handbasket. Maybe, just forget the public schools. The universities. The culture. The often quoted ethicists without ethics. The scientists. The celebrities. Maybe forget them all and just worry about what I’ve got right here.
I’m not there yet. But the idea comes into my head more often than it used to. And probably more often than it should.
Maybe I’m not talking much sense. It’s late. I didn’t mean to even write about this. But you read these stories about abortions, baby banks, and euthanasia and let’s face it, the bad guys are winning. The Abomination ain’t even limping. And nobody’s shaking their head.
April 27, 2009 at 9:46 pm
That’s a lot of people — in a sense, everyone in America — not meeting your high standards. Has God appointed you Lord Temporal Judge of the World? Have you considered the concept of humility lately? Oh, grow up.
1) That’s not even close to “everyone;” people do exist outside of the talking heads on TV, and they even believe different things than what their ‘betters’ say they ought.
2) Let’s assume it was ‘everyone’– if everyone except for you is killing and raping children, would you be wrong to speak up and say: “This is wrong”?
April 27, 2009 at 10:33 pm
We are so royally screwed.
I vote for the run option. The near future is going to make the present seem like 1950s TV sitcoms; and that’ll just be the beginning.
Organize and get out with as many people as you can, and keep going until there’s nowhere left to go.
Then, ummm…last rites?
Sorry, wish I had more optimism.
April 28, 2009 at 12:30 am
“I mean, at some point isn’t it smart just to pull up stakes? Give up the fight. Cut bait. Go Amish. Find your hidey-hole and live your life…But you read these stories about abortions, baby banks, and euthanasia and let’s face it, the bad guys are winning. The Abomination ain’t even limping. And nobody’s shaking their head.”But you read these stories about wars, concentration camps and loss of freedom and let’s face it, the Nazis are winning.
But you read these stories about desecration of churches, slaughter of pilgrims, and war in the Holy Land and let’s face it, the Moors are winning.
But you read these stories about persecutions, and torture and martyrdom and let’s face it, Nero is winning.
But you read these stories about scourging, crowning with thorns and crucifixion and let’s face it, the Devil has won.
But he didn’t win then and he won’t win now.
April 28, 2009 at 6:58 am
0981750
that’s your sitemeter count. That’s large.
People like us change the definition. It was your blog: which changed me from seeing abortion as wrong: to seeing it as “Murder”.
And even with a smaller blog: I have done allot to change things. There is comfort in all shouting down the evil, and there’s a newspaper which does it with others. You keep a flame alive. Gideon only had a few: often, we are but the night watch: there is another victory: and as JPII says: evil is limited by time: think of communism sweeping Europe, or the “Nazi” monsters, think of “Apartheid” (mind you, what replaced it isn’t that great either).
Keep trying: at least you are cleaning the wounds of others: and are a hilarious hospital: which allows them to heal and re-enter the race. Many of our enemies are “Catholics”: you can change “Catholics”‘ views.
I could never give in, I hope you wont: you are valuable.
Marc
April 28, 2009 at 6:59 am
Matthew,
Remember hope, the forgotten virtue. You talk about the corruption of the schools and the institutions, how they have been degraded by the followers of Gramsci on their ‘long march through the institutions?’ Cop this –
Times of London, Nov. 25 2008
“The Vatican has revealed that Antonio Gramsci, the founder of Italian Communism and an icon of the Left, reverted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed.”
There is always hope. Even for Gramsci, there was hope. When it came down to the prospect of meeting his God and explaining all that he had done, Gramsci knew who held the better hand, and folded.
This renders absolutely null and void everything any of his secular followers have to say about anything. They corrupt the young, and fill their heads with nonsense; they encourage the extermination of the old and the unborn; and they do not realise that the fact of the Resurrection means that they lost before they started. They deserve to be pitied rater than scorned.
To harbour doubts about the value of your efforts is entirely natural. To paraphrase Descartes; you doubt, therefore you think. You’re meant to think about everything that goes on round about you, to question why those you criticise just don’t seem to get it. To doubt is not a sign of failure; instead, doubt is just another one of our humanity’s little badges of our humanity, like baldness or varicose veins. Let’s go Tolkien; ‘you are meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought’. What’s even more encouraging is that in the next and unimaginably, incomprehensibly better life that awaits us after a life of fighting the fight, we will not need it. We will see our doubts for all they ever were; childish and groundless fear of the dark.
Christ Is Risen; Death Will Not Prevail.
May 1, 2009 at 6:56 am
Have you seen The Happening? Remember how the event peaked in awfulness and rate just before it died out? I think you have to keep fighting (in the case of the movie, to run was to fight) because at some point this evil is going to peak. And the heroes need to still be standing.
(to fight the next evil…)