MaliceVerso, 2003 M03 17 - 192 pages Despite our tendencies to separate the mind and body, good and evil, Flahault argues that both stem from the same source within us. This knot, inherent to the human condition, is the tension between our desire for absolute self-affirmation and the fact that each of us can only exist through mediation by others. The dependence on others weighs heavy on our shoulders, hampering our very existence. Malice, then, is not merely a result of our biological constitution, but is also a response to our feelings. These can often resemble those of Milton’s and Shelley’s monsters, stories the author calls upon to understand features of the nature of evil that reason alone cannot grasp. From the Preface: ‘By combining several disciplines—philosophy, anthropology and literary criticism, as well as psychoanalysis—Flahault scrutinizes the origin of malevolence and reveals that, contrary to the view presented by moral philosophy, it is within us that the roots of wickedness are to be found ... Taking issue with the widely accepted view that monotheism constitutes moral progress, he argues that by instigating a dualism between good and evil, monotheism has in fact foreclosed the possibility of acknowledging the ambivalence of our fascination with the limitless and infinity.’ Chantal Mouffe |
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Contents
The Price of Monotheism | 16 |
The Spectre of Absolute Evil | 34 |
Victor Frankensteins Excess | 53 |
Pity for the Monster | 74 |
Thought and Reason versus Literature and Passion | 89 |
Good Feeling | 108 |
Emancipatory Ideal | 138 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus affirmation Augustinian bad infinite become Book of Job bound boundless Burke Caleb Williams Chaos character Christian coexistence conception confrontation constitutes desire destruction discourse dream Enlightenment thought Evangelium vitae evil example existence experience fact Falkland fantasy feeling fiction Filka film fount of limitlessness Frankenstein's creature Gallimard give Godwin Gothic novel hatred human Ibid ideal of emancipation ideas infinitude infinity inner springs justice kind little mermaid Mary Shelley means Milton monotheism monster moral narration narrative nature novel omnipotence one's oneself original original sin ourselves Paradise Lost Paris passions person philosophy Pierre Rivière pity pleasure political Primo Levi Prometheus Prometheus Bound question reader reality rejected relation relationship Rousseau Sade Samson Satan scenario scène de ménage sense Shelley's social society someone soul springs of malice story sublime tension terror thereby things thinking tion transgression victim Victor Frankenstein violence wickedness Yahweh young