Good and evil, real and imagined

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"Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous and boring as evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm."--Simone Weil.

Is Weil right, and if so why? Examples would be good.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This seemed really provocative and interesting when I first heard it. Now all I can think of is John Travolta playing an angel in some tejus film.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The other qn is how the reporting of 'real' but distanced good and evil (eg in 'news') fictionalises both, in Weil's sense.

― Tom, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

BLECK

― Mike Hanle y, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A lot of people are still interested in genuine evil - for example, TV programmes still get made about Hitler, about real-life murders, so Weil would have trouble arguing about real-life evil being objectively boring. But perhaps she's arguing that such coverage of 'real-life' evil actually desensitises the viewer to real evil, thereby dulling it.

She could also be arguing that really evil people, without the inner conflicts caused by conscience, lack the inner mental drama that makes us engaged with human kind, interested by our fellows and therefore interesting to them.

With regard to fictional good and evil, I agree totally. Perhaps knowing that it is 'only a story' frees us up to view these characters without the fear that would dull us and repel us to them otherwise. Tolstoy wrote 'happiness writes in white. It doesn't show up on the page', and I agree with this connected observation, too.

― Will, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank you for the Tolstoy quote, Will: that was the sort of thought I was trying to have. But really I was just captivated by her willingness to characterise good in such amazingly evocative terms. It made me think yeah, when I'm close to something or someone really good, it makes my mind briefly tingle with a whole series of possibilities that aren't usually there. And that's what I thought of the quote: that in the way Weil conceives it, (real) good is open and propulsive, alive and heterogeneous, whilst evil is closed and undynamic, dead and singular*. AS opposed to fictional evil, which is knotted and complex, in narrative creates tension and twists and turns and so on. But that's just (Western?) convention, surely? It must be supremely possible (in principle) to write fiction that creates story out of goodness that isn't pious?

THe HItler eg useful too, as the Weil thing pushed Arendt's 'banality of evil' into my mind.

On mediation: I'll think.

*I just ploddingly paraphrased nearly the whole quote there.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd rather read a book about the Manson Family than Mother Theresa.

― fritz, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I've not come across Weil before, but her observation holds much water. Amoral people in general I've found to be incredibly transparent ie. easy to read, their motivations are almost exclusively based on the material which I suppose spiritually, yes, makes them like a desert.

On the other hand, in the "The Resurrection", Tolstoy illustrates just how fascinating and full of life somebody who experiences a spiritual awakening can be. It's a prime example of fictional good opening doors that remain forever locked to baser individuals. In fact, the main character realises how deadly dull his previously materially-rooted existence was in comparison.

― Trevor, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That 'happiness writes white' quote is not Tolstoy. As far as I know it is a translation from Henri de Montherlant. That's what Martin Amis said at the start of London Fields, anyway.

― Nick, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, the more I think about it the more I am impressed by Weil drawing attention to the (often ignored) sensory experiences of 'Good' - this is an emotive example and I think that I'll get shouted down for it, but, even though I am not a practising Christian, I feel almost intoxicated by visiting certain churches or listening to Church music - everything from Palestrina to Bach. I suppose the next question is whether this intoxication is due to the 'ethical' Good that these people were trying to emulate - the love of Christ - or the sheer aesthetic quality of the architecture or the music. Is Weil's 'Good' an ethical or an aesthetic experience? Hmmm...

― Will, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tolstoy definitely wrote it, in his letters. Maybe he nicked it?

― Will, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The character Trevor cites reminds me a lot of Levin in Anna Karenina: a recurring Tolstoy theme?

― Will, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, as Tolstoy's last novel, with the character of Prince Nekhlyudov he wanted to incorporate all the threads he explored in earlier novels. In many ways, I think Nekhlyudov starts from where Levin left off. Levin's struggle is more internalised, whereas Nekhlyudov's struggle is with his growing awareness of the amorality of the world around him, especially apparent in his constant battles with authority figures.

I loved both characters, but on a superficial level preferred N. because he did more.

― Trevor, Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Trevor - find me a date and reference for your Tolstoy 'Happiness writes white' quote. I'm interested now.

― N., Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry - meant Will, not Trevor.

― N., Wednesday, 12 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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