Mark Bertrand writes about a new favorite author and the novel, Scandal, in which a Catholic novelist and public intellectual discovers he has an identical, evil double of himself. This other man is encouraging the community to believe the moral novelist is a flaming hypocrite. “The hunt for his doppelgänger,” Bertrand explains, “draws him into an underworld — actually, that’s not quite right: the quest has more to do with realizing that this world is the underworld.”
This appears to be the kind of thing The Shadow claimed to know: the evil that lurks in every man’s heart.
Failure to recognize the evil in the human heart is the essential fallacy both of libertarianism and of statism. Both trust human nature, and would allow it to run unchecked — but in different spheres.
Good point, Lar. Phil, have you read this book yourself? What did you think?
I have not read it, but it looks good, especially with Bertrand’s recommendation.