An article in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times reports, "When Mr. Bush call the terrorist attacks evil, many Americans instinctively agree with him. But philosophers and theologians worry that, as the president casts the fight against global terrorism as a crusade of good against evil, Americans will come to feel not only morally alive, but morally superior. And from that, they say, may flow an abandonment of moral principles. . . ."
The article doesn't appear to quote a single theologian, though it does quote an acupuncturist. Nor does it quote any philosopher who is glad that the president is casting the fight against terrorism as a battle against evil.
Beyond being poorly supported and presented with little balance, this assertion that distinguishing between good and evil leads to "an abandonment of moral principles" is a good way, itself, to assure the abandonment of moral principles. Americans, in general, are morally superior to terrorists. This seems so obvious that it is silly to state it. But here the Times is trotting out philosophers and imaginary theologians to assert that distinguishing between good and evil causes the good to descend into evil. In fact, the erosion of the distinction more than the making of the distinction is what spreads the evil.
Good and Evil: Speaking of eradicating the distinction between good and evil, check out the masterpiece of moral equivalence offered up by one writer on page 22 of today's New York Times magazine: "In the Middle East, where the gods were born, the ancient narratives are glorified again. After the 1967 war, for example, Jewish settlers awaiting the Messiah founded settlements among their ancestral stones, risking their lives, ready to kill and to die in the name of a sacred narrative, soon to be vindicated. So in the Muslim world the sacred historical destiny of Islam is reasserted. The will of God is to be done on earth."
The Jewish settlers on the West Bank overwhelmingly seek to live in peace. They are in essentially a defensive posture as a buffer against the Arab armies that have repeatedly invaded Israel and tried to destroy it. The Muslim terrorists, on the other hand, killed about 6,000 American civilians in an act of naked aggression. For the Times magazine writer to liken the Jewish settlers to the Muslim terrorists is unwarranted.
Faceless Enemy: A dispatch from Cambridge, Mass., in the New York Times magazine today reports, "in this instance the enemy had neither face nor name."
The face of Osama Bin Laden appears on page B5 of today's New York Times, as do the names of 19 hijackers and photographs of 17 of their faces. The seven countries on the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism have leaders with names and faces. It's just nonsense to assert that "the enemy had neither face nor name."