She always imagined that evil played out on a large canvas- wars, concentration camps, gas chambers, the partitioning of nations. Now she realized that evil had a domestic side, and its very banality protected it from exposure.
Interpretation
Evil exists not only in grand acts but also in everyday situations, often unnoticed.
This quote highlights the often-overlooked presence of evil in mundane, everyday life, contrasting it with the more overt manifestations such as war and genocide. It suggests that the ordinary nature of this domestic evil can make it more insidious, as it goes unrecognized and unchallenged, thereby perpetuating its existence and impact on society.
In practice
During a discussion on moral philosophy, to emphasize the subtle nature of evil in daily life.
What she had believed was indignation or rage or a deep intolerance for injustice came down to this: she was irreducibly in love with this bewitching planet, this thrilling life, this heartbreaking species she belonged to, with its capacity for stupefying destruction and breathtaking magnanimity.
I don't see myself as a hero because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.
To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.
There can be but one will the master in our salvation, but that shall never be the will of man, but of God; therefore man must be saved by grace.
Ah, it's my longing for whom I might have been that distracts and torments me!
War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.
It might be a very human thing across the board, but we, in America, love a story - we need a story to get involved in. But then everything becomes more about how the story protects a certain perception as we pick sides.
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