LUDIC LOG

I am an evil man.

Not really, of course; there's no such thing as evil. But really, yes. Evil is what society agrees it is, and I'm it. In the past, my claim to the condition of evil has been met with varied reactions, depending on the mood and makeup of the audience: denial (you're not really, you're just different); irritation (look at this egomanial, dressing his ordinariness up in devil's rags); confusion (what exactly do you mean by evil?); concern (why must you be so hard on yourself?); rationalization (just because people say you're something doesn't mean you are); confrontation (I thought you didn't believe in evil); and most killing of all, indifference.

It's a contradiction, all right, but my house hath many mansions and the daily rate varies depending on when you made your reservation. Much as I hate other people and yet crave their respect, much as I loathe myself and yet think myself the better of my fellow man, much as I like ketchup on french fries but not on potato chips, I profess myself evil while maintaining that evil is an illusion. But who am I to devalorize the judgements of society? Nobody, that's who. Deep in the depths of my tarred, rotten, black, spit-slick postmodernist heart, I know they're right -- as right as right can be -- and I embrace their judgement. When the Bible condemns, say, homosexuality, some pile faggots on faggots; some race to reinterpret; some choose to hate the sin but love the sinner. A few say "fuck the Bible, then". I am one of them, metaphysically if not carnally.

Since I tend to bury my "true" feelings (whatever those are supposed to be) in a Chicago winter's worth of irony and metaphor, I'll speak plainly to those who still wonder. Here are some things I believe at the moment, quite sincerely and as free of the taint of irony as a presidential address, which give you the grid on which to gauge my evil:

- I don't really care when people die, except in an abstract sense. Only the death of friends has any genuine emotional effect on me at all, and my ideal world resembles that of The Stand or Dawn of the Dead, where some horrific catastrophe has turned the world into a morgue.

- I not only support in a very concrete way the assassination of public figures I have judged malignant, but I have even contemplated, in idle moments, killing the president, for no good reason than I don't like him.

- I have absolutely no ambition, competitive spirit or sense of accomplishment. There's only one thing I really like to do, and I don't even care if I never succeed at it.

- I think that the human species, as a whole, is a meaningless and empty thing, an experiment that succeeded tremendously on some levels and failed abysmally on others. I think the human game was up a long time ago when we put certain power-games in place in all our structures, and I really wouldn't be that upset if our existence was wiped out in an instant.

- I have deliberately chosen (as much as anything in the stumbling blind drama of life can be said to have been chosen) a life that has marginalized me, and almost constantly reject participating in any of society's actions. Having chosen to fail at the game, I would be more than happy to see the whole stadium collapse, destroying the game forever and killing a good share of the participants. This is not only morally reprehensible, it's childish.

- I am quite enamored of violence. I have been in many fights, and in several I have taken a very sweet delight in hurting my opponent. I find it difficult to even temporarily inhabit a pacifist position, and I cannot imagine the dull lifelessness of a world without violence.

- I have broken almost every moral taboo I care to. I have lied, stolen, taken drugs, committed acts of violence, betrayed trusts, cheated employers, engaged in acts of sexual degradation, fought with police, destroyed property, and thorougly and consistently rejected -- on both a practical and a theoretical level -- the very notion of a lawful society.

Now, my apologists (who are many and kindly) will say, but for all your flaws you are at your heart a man of moral courage and kindness. Or they will say, your acts come not from a savage mind with no compass to guide it, but from a strong ethical stance. And they're right, so far as their arguments go, but who cares? Society decided long ago that it's what you do, not why you do it, that matters. We don't act like that's the case sometimes, and what you say about your actions is assuming a certain primacy over what your actual actions are now that we're reaching the late innings, but all in all, what does it matter? I don't believe for a second that all my highfalutin talk justifies my behavior, any more than I believe anyone else's excuses justify their own. It's all just things people say to smooth the carpet leading to what they wanted to do anyway.

And yet, and yet: I'm pretty happy. I don't feel I have to justify anything to anyone; I don't care that some think me a lunatic, some think me a saint, and some think me a poseur. I only care that I'm doing what I want to do to make myself feel good about being alive. Perhaps I'm being overdramatic, or self-aggrandizing, or maybe I'm just engaged in a very subtle form of justification for my wicked ways. I'm certainly in my typically selfish egocentric mode: all forms of self-loathing are at their heart self-praise, as they insure that the spotlight always stays focused on you. But I get along, I surely do.

So am I saying that becoming evil is the key to happiness? Sure I am. It works as well as anything else. This may not be much of a conclusion, but the search for the self rarely ends with any tidy closure. I'll stick with being the villain until a better part comes along.