Word: us
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...this distinction that pulls us right into the heart of the question. And that is our long, modern conversation over the nature of evil. The debate goes back to Socrates, who argued that anyone who was acquainted with good could not intentionally choose evil instead. Enlightenment thinkers went further, pushing concepts of good and evil into the realm of superstition. But Hitler changed that. It was he, perhaps more than any other figure, who demanded a whole rethinking about good, evil...
...Before Hitler, we thought we had sounded the depths of human nature," argues Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler. "He showed how much lower we could go, and that's what was so horrifying. It gets us wondering not just at the depths he showed us but whether there is worse to come." The power of Hitler was to confound the modernist notion that judgments about good and evil were little more than matters of taste, reflections of social class and power and status. Although some modern scholars drive past the notion of evil and instead explain Hitler's conduct...
...good, that the soul is perfected only in battle, that pain and ecstasy are somehow twins, that only a soul--or a century--that has truly suffered can truly realize joy. Again we sense this instinctively--the pleasure we feel when a tooth stops hurting reminds us that we live our life in contexts and contrasts, and so perhaps you can argue that only by witnessing, and confronting, great evil were the forces of light able to burn most bright...
...says theologian Marty, "but I don't like to make a theology out of that; it's an accidental product." Rosenbaum agrees that to focus on the benefits is to risk trivializing the tragedy itself. "There are a lot of people who want to say God was teaching us a lesson--evil is there so that we can learn by struggling against it. I find it kind of barbaric to envision a God who needs to slaughter a million babies in order to perhaps improve our character. I'm irritated by people who try to find some happy-ever-after...
...powerful force, a seductive idea, but is it more powerful than genius, creativity, courage or generosity? The century has offered characters who stretched our understanding and faith in those qualities as well. The heroes not only defeated Hitler; they provided our lasting inspiration as well. "Just as Hitler made us believe we hadn't yet sounded the depths," notes Rosenbaum, "maybe Martin Luther King Jr. and the great artists of the century, like Nabokov, help us believe there are still heights we haven't found...