July 25, 2008

Dear Colleague:  

    A poet, having just published a slim volume of his poems, waits anxiously for some sort of response. What vain hope! He may as well drop a rose pedal into the Grand Canyon and wait for an echo. Well, I am that naive poet. Having published Human Goodness, I expected to see reviews or phone calls from reporters. No luck. Just when I was about to give up hope, the phone rang and it was from a reporter in The New York Times. Surely, I thought, she wanted more information about human goodness? So imagine my surprise and disappointment when she said she wanted my opinion about human evil. Evil, as I should have known, makes the headlines, not goodness, and my book isn't going to change things. The reporter is writing a short piece on the blockbuster movie—"The Dark Knight"—that is attracting huge audiences to the cinemas. She wants to know why people seek escape into evil. What is the attraction?

    In the ten minutes or so on the phone, I said something like this. We humans live in fear. Shakespeare's plays give the impression that once you step outside the city walls you enter the wild heath of brigands, witches, ghosts, and demons. And even in the city, you are not safe. When Satan fell, he brought down with him a third of the heavenly hosts. They swarmed all over the earth—a dozen of them to each human individual. There was no possible escape. Well, of course, this is the past. As for today, you have only to read the front page, turn on the radio or TV, to be swamped by news of evil—hurricane disaster, car accident, child abuse, rape, murder, genocide, water-boarding, and so on. Underlying all the human anxieties and fears is the ultimate and totally inescapable one of death. One answer to all these evils, including death, is to be oneself the source of evil. What has the Joker (played by Heath Ledger) to fear? He is the agent of all evils, so how can he be their victim? Someone who kills at will—a sovereign over death—surely cannot himself be subject to death. That's the psychology behind escaping into evil.

    As for escaping into good, well, ordinary goodness is no protection against evil. Just because you are a nice guy doesn't mean that you will not have cancer or be run over by a drunk driver. Hence, we need "good" that is extraordinary and armed with super powers. That's where Batman (played by Christian Bale) comes in. He is not only good, he is powerful. But "The Dark Knight" cannot offer any excitement to movie-goers if Batman is invincible. He has to have weaknesses: he can be killed, and worse, he can be tempted by evil. Suppose the Joker's opponent is not an ordinary nice guy (a brave police officer), or ever a super nice guy (Batman). Suppose he is Buddha! Well, then, there is no movie. For Buddha is invulnerable. What can the Joker possibly do to him? Torture? Pain is Buddha's bedfellow—he lives with it and considers it, in the end, an illusion. Death? Well, Buddha regards it as the door to non-existence, or Nirvana.

    If we fear evil—and who doesn't?—one answer is to be evil. The other answer is to escape into good. But this good has to be something far beyond what a good and powerful government, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and other super-heroes can offer. It has to be Buddha. Or the Lord God himself, as in the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu