EVIL.

AMER 317-01

Dr. Shannon

February 11, 2008

Summary: “When Evil is ‘Cool’”

In his 1999 Atlantic Monthly article “When Evil is ‘Cool,’” Roger Shattuck provides a comprehensive analysis of evil: the forms it takes, the different categories of evil, past musings on it, its role in literature and contemporary culture, and the connotations it has.

...Shattuck proceeds to give definition to four specific types of evil.  The first is “natural evil,” which he says can affect anyone, and over which we have limited control (76).  The second is “moral evil,” which Shattuck says is, “actions undertaken knowingly to harm or exploit others in contravention of accepted moral principles or statutes within a society” (76).  The third, “radical evil,” is what he attributes to “immoral behavior so pervasive in a person or society that scruples and constraints have been utterly abandoned” (76).  The last is “metaphysical evil” – it identifies an “attitude of assent and approval toward moral and radical evil, as evidence of superior human will and power” (76).  Though Shattuck says these definitions are useful, he says he learns more about evil in narratives (76).

...Shattuck closes with a discussion of Quentin Tarentino’s crime film Pulp Fiction, which Shattuck says portrays evil as “cool” (78). “By depicting evil in this fashion the film neutralizes it—absorbs it into ordinary life, broken by a few thrills and laughs, and desensitizes us to evil” (78), he writes.  He also notes that evil and sin have been given a positive connotation in being called “transgression”: “As used by postmodern critics, ‘transgression’ refers to conduct that aspires…to an implied form of greatness in evil” (78). Shattuck finishes with a call to action, warning readers not to condone evil, as, “We cannot afford such blindness to history and such naiveté as to embrace the morality of the cool” (78).

Works Cited

Shattuck, Roger. “When Evil is ‘Cool.’” The Atlantic Monthly Jan. 1999: 73-78.