Journamentalism: Let me hitchhike on Paul Knox’s recent Globe and Mail column about evil and September 11, with two comments. President George W. Bush first described evil as the root of the problem. He was seconded by columnists such as the Globe’s Marcus Gee and John Ibbitson, and Time’s Lance Morrow.

1. Evil was traditionally a concept both broader and more minute than recent usage suggests. It was not restricted to newsworthy events. It arose in homier settings, like the suffering or death of a child, or some personal disaster followed by the disintegration of a family. In religious contexts, it raised questions about the behaviour of an omnipotent god, but it resonated in secular contexts. When Marcus Gee writes that Osama bin Laden “is the nearest embodiment of pure evil that I’ve come across in my lifetime,” I’d say it narrows the reach and therefore relevance of the category.

2. The concept of evil often served as the beginning, not the end, of a discussion. For instance, the biblical book of Job begins with a cursory assignment of Job’s suffering to a plot by Satan. From there on, the bulk of the book, and all its poetry, explores the nature of faith. (God knows this is just one of many interpretations.)

When Hannah Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem, she took for granted the evil of mass murder by the Nazis, as a starting point for exploring its “banality” via bureaucratization and mind-numbing obedience. In contrast, the invocation of evil regarding September 11 functions more to shut off debate on so-called root causes, or what I’d rather term the context in which such actions are fuelled and thrive.

John Ibbitson ended his fairly inconclusive piece on the events as a “clash of civilizations” with: “On the other hand, the workers still searching … the World Trade Center rubble might simply say that good is at war with evil, and they might have the better argument.” In Time, Lance Morrow concluded his essay: “Evil is hard to define, but it’s there all right. It’s like pornography: you know it when you see it.” Each of them ended with evil, the way fundamentalist preachers do, rather than using it as a start point. You could call it journamentalism.

On tribalism and Western values: So, has tribalism been definitively surpassed, as the Globe’s Margaret Wente recently wrote: “We North Americans have learned that we must confront the great tribal evils of the world” after wasted years of “trying to bring back tribalism in the guise of identity politics,” because “we forgot that tribalism is divisive, sometimes murderous” and undemocratic. She says it’s time to “help” those tribal types “to become more like us.” Maybe, maybe not.

You don’t escape things like “gender, race or identity” by saying, Whoops, I forgot the downside. The trick is to put them in their place alongside your other personal components, not eradicate them altogether as if they never were. Otherwise, you might just end up in a bigger, more deluded tribalism.

Tribalism isn’t only the dismissal of others’ values; it can also be the nutty assumption that anything good anywhere must have been your invention and yours alone. Take Margaret Wente’s claim that “Western values mean … the right to live in peace and pursue happiness.” Gosh, no one else would have dreamed up those values. And if you don’t think the United States of America is the biggest tribe of all, I urge you to watch the bowl games Tuesday or CNN’s year-end wrap-ups of “global” events.

When I write on the Mideast, people often remind me, in praise or blame, that I am Jewish. It’s appropriate. I believe you can make rational arguments about something that involves you; but you remain involved, too. It’s precisely the tussles and relations among different parts of you that can be useful to others, especially if you’re frank about the blend. It’s also the kind of thing that makes life interesting.

On culture and community: I saw The Nutcracker this week. Not the one at the Hummingbird Centre or on PBS. The one by the Xing Dance Theatre in the church at the corner of College and Bathurst.

It was the first Nutcracker I’ve seen (and I’ve seen many) that was easy to follow, maybe because we were all so near the stage. Its virtues were neither artistic excellence nor commercial appeal; I’d almost forgotten that culture could exist for anything else. Excellence is nice but overrated. As long as you get the idea of what they’re trying to do, imagination can fill in the rest, like a song you love, played on a crappy radio. And though they sometimes landed with a thud, a few dancers had that ability to seemingly float, even if they were just standing. Maybe it’s a body type.

Mostly it was about fun; about the ability to make images and pass them on, thus building a common vocabulary across space and time; and about being part of a community that provides itself with things beyond the necessities. There was such a bond between the company and the audience, only some of whom were related to the dancers. Nobody seemed to be waiting for the reviews, the judgments, or the big career moves to follow.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.