Seeking Meaning and Making Sense by John Haldane

Author:John Haldane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Meaning, philosophy, society, humanity, ethics, life, war, community, morality, evil, religion, God, science, nature, enchantment
ISBN: 9781845408046
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2017
Published: 2017-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

11. Making Sense of Evil

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting in the Department of Philosophy in Georgetown University in Washington DC., having taken the short route up the hill from the Potomac river. That route begins with a long flight of steep stone steps, rising up the narrow canyon between two high walls. Even if you have never been within a thousand miles of them there is a good chance that you have seen those steps, for they feature in The Exorcist. Often described as ‘the scariest movie of all time’, it is also widely regarded as one of the best films ever made.

That morning I soon learned of the attack on the Twin Towers and on the Pentagon; and with news of another plane presumed to be heading for DC the university was evacuated. I headed back down the steps, this time thinking of their associations with violent death: in the film, those of the movie director character Burke Dennings and of the exorcist, Fr Karras, both crushed by falling from on high. At the time that thought was a brief and passing one, but in the following weeks I was drawn back to it by the talk of a new confrontation with ‘diabolical’ evil.

In the aftermath of ‘9/11’ it became common to speak of inhuman cruelty and wickedness. Something more than sheer violence seemed to have been unleashed upon the earth. A dark force had burst through the skin of the world. At the time, I was writing a book on the nature of religion, and in a chapter on the meaning of history drew parallels between the story of spiritual conflict related in the Exorcist, and the sense of a battle between good and evil expressed by both the US and its terrorist attackers.

Some while later, a copy of that book ( An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Religion ) was acquired by William Peter Blatty, the author of the Oscar-winning screenplay and of the novel upon which it was based; and I later learned through a mutual acquaintance that he was intrigued by the use I had made of his theme. On the strength of this, and anticipating a return to Washington later in the year, I enquired whether Blatty might be willing to discuss his own ideas about good and evil. Initially it looked unpromising ; at 77 he was hard at work on various projects and he no longer gives interviews; but in the event he was welcoming and spoke at length about his life and work. The experience was memorable.

‘Bill’ Blatty was born in New York to Lebanese parents who emigrated to the US on a cattle boat. His great uncle, Germanios Mouakad, was a Bishop of the Melkite Catholic church, and a leading middle-eastern philosopher. After Jesuit schooling in Brooklyn, Blatty continued to Georgetown and from there went to George Washington University to study English. He excelled throughout his studies, and in 1951 entered the Air Force, becoming chief of the policy branch of the Psychological Warfare Division.

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