Today’s news brings us stellar examples of two ways evil can worm its way into the human heart. (To the right, super dog Penina, a true champion pit bull, athletic as well as beautiful. And good, too.)
For Michael Vick it was impunity. From a very young age Vick learned that his athletic ability put him on a different plane from ordinary men. What were wishes to his peers he could have merely by wishing.
This is the heart of the thug lifestyle, which has taken over so much of sport on its highest levels. We admire those who can act with impunity before the law, like the gangsters did in their 1930s newsreels and in their movie re-incarnations, like the stylish drug dealers on Miami Vice in the 1980s, or like George Bush’s Texas Mafia in our own time.
We admire it, we even root for it. The man at the center of it hears this cheering and thinks it’s because of what he’s doing. He forgets it’s because so many of us, secretly, want to do likewise.
Athletes and movie stars and politicians all learn that there is one face you wear for the public, and one you wear for yourself. For Michael Vick, dogfighting was the face he wore for himself. He lived his life as a champion dogfighter, knowing that one catastrophic knee injury could see him "put down" and left to rot. He hoped to train such champions at his kennel. He knew it was wrong, he knew it was evil, but he kept at it for years because he believed his private life was above the law, beyond it. For proof he only had to look at what happened on those few occasions when the private and public met. Arthur Blank had Billy "White Shoes" Johnson "fix" things for him. No doubt, Michael thought, all those Home Depot lawyers were in business to fix things for Arthur Blank.
Of course when the man with impunity falls, the cheering stops suddenly. We turn on him. We turned on Al Capone. We turn on Vick. We’ll turn on Bush.
But impunity is not the only route to evil.
Shame is another. Secrets are another. Larry Craig shows us the other.
Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny has long been on the warpath against people like Larry Craig, but I believe he misses an essential point. I don’t believe Larry Craig is a hypocrite, any more than I believed Mark Foley was a hypocrite, or Bob Allen, or Ted Haggard, or any of hundreds of other still-closeted public officials.
Larry Craig hates himself. Larry Craig believes he himself is evil. God keeps pushing him to have sex with men, and Larry Craig wants to, wants to badly, but he’s convinced that it’s evil so he hides it. He works to keep others closeted and is convinced this is good. Perhaps he has convinced himself that, if he came out, sex wouldn’t be nearly so much fun. There’s a high in that fear. If no one cared, if he didn’t care, then no way would he consent to having sex in a bathroom with a stranger.
It’s the same thing we see in the old English caricature of the Judge who likes to get whipped. The fear of discovery, the knowledge that they are in fact "a nasty, bad, naughty boy" (or girl) is all that makes it seem worth doing in the first place. If the shackles were off, if they could do whoever they wanted, whenever, wherever, these folks might not even be able to get interested. It would get boring, like marriage.
So they do everything they can to force themselves, and everyone like them, deeper into their closets. This increases the number of potential partners, and makes the sex so much more exciting. More important, it’s all proof that they’re right, that they are themselves evil, that not only their actions but their thoughts are evil.
It’s thoughts which lead to evil. The feeling of unlimited power. The feeling of inadequacy. The feeling of "I can do anything I want." The feeling of "I can’t do anything I want." Both lead down the exact same road.
But if we let Larry out of the closet, if we tell him he’s not evil, would he be happy? I doubt it. Because it’s the fear of punishment that gets him excited. The masochist is also a sadist.
Liberals believe that the boundaries for public and private conduct should be identical. More private conduct should be acceptable, but all true evil should be seen to. Blow jobs are not evil. Killing dogs is evil.
No one should be above the law, and no one should be beneath contempt. But would those who wish to feel these ways be able to tolerate such a world?
