Tonight I find myself in rebellion at the notion that since persons and nations sometimes must choose between the lesser evil (or choose between evils) that they are no longer accountable or culpable for their actions or the evil done. I rebel at the notion that ethical complexity can be an excuse for cruelty—or that official remoteness from evil deeds done is a free ride to respectability. I rebel at the arrogance that thinks that verbal abstractions and intellectual aloofness can expunge the record of spilled innocent blood. I rebel at sophistication that is no more than sophistry dressed up in chic regalia. I rebel at exceptionalism that pumps up the idiosyncratic self and finds any proffered criticism no matter how humbly presented stupid and dumb. I find self-infatuation a fierce addiction as surely enticing as heroine but a trillion times more delusional and dangerous—and as subject to group indulgence. Given human nature, is self-righteousness an inevitability? Are its stupidities inescapable? Is there no wisdom free from harlotry? Pray to Jesus that it be otherwise; reveal to us how sanity is possible for ourselves and for the nations.
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