Word: satanizing
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...your-face, born-again manner that takes its resonance from a long Judeo-Christian tradition that sees radical evil embodied in heroically diabolical figures. This personalized evil is the kind that is insinuated by the sauntering Tempter in the first scene of the Book of Job, when God and Satan speculate like racing touts about whether Job can go a mile and a quarter on a muddy track. In Bush's usage, evil has the perverse prestige of Milton's defiant Lucifer. Evil emanates, implicitly, from a devilish intelligence with horns and a tail, an absolutely malevolent personality...
...Bush's critics, hearing the word, go ironic. They put evil in quotes and think of Dana Carvey's Church Lady: "Well, isn't that special, Saddam? Who's your little friend? Could it be Satan!!!???" They mock Bush for what they see as a primitive, frightening and atavistic use of a medieval term that should probably be banished from civilized discourse in a multicultural world...
...truth about evil that needs attention now is its shallow, deadly, fungus quality. Nice people - especially in a tiny, multicultural world in which different civilizations inhabit different centuries - are often moved to evil deeds, like blowing up the Other. Don't bother demonizing people as being inherently evil (as Satan is evil). That's not how it works. Opportunistic evil passes like an electric current through the world and through people, or wanders like an infection that takes up residence in individuals or cultures from time to time...
...plays hardball. Senator Rodolfo Biazon dared to propose a family-planning bill last fall that is still looking for a co-sponsor. For his trouble, the ex-Armed Forces Chief of Staff was branded "antichurch" by the president of the hugely influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, and "Satan" and "anti-Christ" by the faithful. That the impoverished nation's birthrate (2.36%) is negating any economic growth (3.1% of GDP) and that the population is projected to double by 2030 hasn't moved the church to reconsider its stance. In fact, its spokesmen disavow links between population size...
...unfortunate but undeniable that the perception exists amongst vast swathes of the Harvard community that varsity athletes are largely dunces who are only allowed to associate with their hallowed intellectual classmates by the grace of God and the recruiting strategies of Satan. I am surely no varsity athlete, but I understand their frustration when faced with myriad attacks from these ranks of sniveling intellectual snobs, still bitter about being chosen last in middle school gym class and reveling in their chance for revenge. Player-haters take note: athletics should have every bit as important a role to play in undergraduate...