Evil Is So Damned Boring

Evil Is So Damned Boring:

"...Which is to say, sure, we all love the drama of evil and we love the spectacle of evil and the media (and this very column) can beat the drum of evil's bloody lusciousness until we're red with yawning outrage, but after a while one thing becomes painfully true: We are not moved. We are not really all that scared. We might as well be shaking a fistful of sand: After a minute or two, there's just ain't nuthin' there.

But still we think there is. We are temporarily convinced. Because on one level, these people appear enormously important and significant, their every blink and utterance worthy of report (I should know -- I report it all the time), and hence we glorify and hype them all, these killers and these madmen and these hollow politicos as if they were hot roaring gods among men, as if they were something more than mere bloody blips on the cosmic radar, as if their daily comings and goings were the most breathtaking incidents since UFO anal probes.

But the fact is, they are nothing. Wisps. Yawns. Cosmic flatulence. It is the great existential duality of modern humanity. On one level, we have to care. It is, after all, our world, our life, the here and now, and we should pay attention to its clowns and dictators and devils, and take note and participate. But on that other, more significant level, you cannot help but scream, Oh my God please stop, I am just so sick of these cretins and who really cares about these hatemongers and thieves and can't I just have my wine and sex and books and won't they please just leave me alone?

...Look. You want evil? Groupthink is evil. Mediocrity is evil. Hopelessness is evil. Decision by committee is evil. Glittery kitten sweaters are evil. Loveless marriage is evil. McDonald's marketing is evil. Spiritual homogeny is evil. Family sitcoms. Microsoft Windows. Disney cruises. Food poisoning. Yeast infections. Cruelty.

As for the rest, these warmongers and power sluts, well, theirs is merely an evil bred of ignorance and gurgling ego and impotent weeping in the night. Theirs is an evil so lukewarm and spongy it makes you recoil and shudder as if you accidentally touched a raw calf's tongue at the Japanese market. Hell, I can find better, more gut-wrenching evil in the Wal-Mart music aisle under "Simpson, Ashlee." The others, they're just the same ol' boring noisemakers howling into the Void. "