On good and evil:
We need the language of good and evil to talk about the meaning we find in certain events -- for example, when the events of September 11th happened, the horrendous violence done to people who had not perpetrated violence. It was an awful act and we realized it was an evil act. We need that kind of language to interpret events. However, the way President Bush is using this language now is attempting to polarize the world between forces of good against forces of evil. He's using it in a political way.
It's not a new thing, of course, for a president to use religious language. But he's turned the volume way up on this kind of language, and doing so portrays us as people caught in a battle of good against evil. You'd think we were in "Lord of the Rings." What that sets up is a conviction that we are engaged in conflict that can only end in the annihilation of one side and the victory of the other. There can be no negotiation, there can be no discussion, there really can be no political process as Americans normally understand it. The language, as he uses it, is religious language intended in a way to bypass the brain and thereby [bypass] political discourse. It goes straight to the gut, straight to the emotional center and connects with that. It demands an immediate and uncritical emotional response.
When this language is used politically to characterize whole groups of nations as good or evil, then it can be tremendously over-simplistic and distorting. It falsifies the reality and the complexity of the world that we live in. It basically places people on the side of advocates or enemies, which seems to be Mr. Bush's central technique.
I prefer to reserve the language of evil for acts. There are plenty of acts which I would unequivocally agree are evil acts, particularly violent destruction of those who don't perpetrate destruction. But to use it for people can be very simplistic, because we all know that human beings are actually complicated and may actually change. They might decide to transform their lives, and many have.
On presidential use of biblical language versus political discourse:
I was thinking of Lyndon Johnson using the words of Isaiah, "Come let us reason together, says the Lord." He was using it as an invitation to negotiation, and other presidents certainly have used biblical language. But in recent memory, I cannot think of anyone who has used the language in the way that [President Bush] has. We recall, of course, President Reagan speaking of the evil empire, but it seems like a very deliberate choice since [President Bush] first used that axis of evil phrase, and he has amplified it enormously since that time.
If we are going to talk about conflict among nations, our government traditionally establishes political discourse and discussion of those options. Now, even if that discussion were to result in the conclusion that Mr. Bush fervently desires, which is a resolution of war, it would be a political negotiation. The way he's setting it up attempts to just bypass that negotiation, it seems to me. What that does is distort the reality of the situation and make anyone who even engages him in discourse seem like somebody who is on the side of evil.
