“Evil is not something we should lose too much sleep over,” according to Terry Eagleton. How much sleeplessness is just enough? In February 1993, two ten-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, lured a two-year-old child, Jamie Bulger, away from a shopping center in Liverpool. They proceeded to batter him to death. Arrested and charged with murder, they were (...)
November 30, 1999
Books
The Banality of Eagleton
On EvilTerry EagletonYale University Press, $25, 163 pp.
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I see no mention of diabolical influence in the review and I assume it was not in Eagleton's world view/agenda. . I would point out. in offering up another explanation of some evil, the presence of the 'evil one' in some human actions. that some of the most formadable evil doers who had no early life distinctions and were even abject failures, who in their thirties, were still were able to gather up intelligent people to follow them into the most creepy of evils. Could they have been empowered by a 'devil' pact? . e.g...Hitler, Charles Manson. David Koresh were all thirty something 'losers' who seemed to have gained enormous power over others, power that seems to come from nowhere if you look into their backrounds or personal qualities. ; they showed no early leadership qualities. Did they in some way embrace the evil one and thus were empowered by the evil one to influence others to indulge in enormous and unique evil deeds? There are a number of other 'famous' evil doers that suggest they were also empowered by the evil one. Your review suggests that 'Evil for evil's sake' begs a better answer than Eagleton's book.