For many enlightened, liberal-minded thinkers today, and for most on the political left, evil is an outmoded concept. It smacks too much of absolute judgements and metaphysical certainties to suit the modern age. In this witty, accessible study, the prominent Marxist thinker Terry Eagleton launches a surprising defence of the reality of evil, drawing on literary, theological, and psychoanalytic sources to suggest that evil, no mere medieval artifact, is a real phenomenon with palpable force in our contemporary world.
In a book that ranges from St. Augustine to alcoholism, Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Mann, Shakespeare to the Holocaust, Eagleton investigates the frightful plight of those doomed souls who apparently destroy for no reason. In the process, he poses a set of intriguing questions. Is evil really a kind of nothingness? Why should it appear so glamorous and seductive? Why does goodness seem so boring? Is it really possible for human beings to delight in destruction for no reason at all?
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"An excellent discussion on the modern conception of evil, drawing from literary and historical sources. I would say that Eagleton characterizes evil as arbitrary malignancy; evil is malice as its own end." — Josh (4 out of 5 stars)
"An excellent discussion on the modern conception of evil, drawing from literary and historical sources. I would say that Eagleton characterizes evil as arbitrary malignancy; evil is malice as its own end."
" The first non fiction book I had a hard time putting down since school "
" a quick and thought provoking read about the nature of evil as it is described in art and culture. "
" Stopped reading after he calls the Catholic Church's doctrine of the Immaculate Conception absurd. He does this so he can make his own non-Christian theory of Original Sin. "
" Terry Terry, I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the only man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry. (Unfortunately for me, you are already merry with your wifey). "
" certainly an erudite work, and you get a sense of this way of thinking that i'm not quite at home with, but can follow. i'm just left wondering what i've retained from the read :) "
Terry Eagleton pursues the concept of sacrifice through the history of human thought, from antiquity to modernity, in religion, politics, and literature. He sheds skewed perceptions of the idea, honing in on a radical structural reconception that relates the ancient world to our own in terms of civilization and violence.
David Thorn spent his childhood in the Channel Islands off the coast of France, was schooled in England, and then immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-three. He is retired from international commerce and currently resides in California.
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