Reading in Exile

I'm never quite sure if the problem of evil is really a problem at all. The problem, of course, is that there is evil (or, for a more precisely posed problem, meaningless or unredeemed or pointless evil), but if there were a God as He has been classically understood (as all good, all powerful, all knowing, perfectly loving) then He would want to and be able to prevent evil, and so there should be no evil. Since there is evil, then by that fact we can know that there is no God. Evil is variously understood by different proponents of the problem--most often as suffering (or, better, meaningless suffering) or as any privation (any lack of something that ought to exist). There are certainly more sophisticated versions of the problem, such as the one posed by Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov . (Yes, that link leads to the Pevear and Volokhosky translation, and I defy anyone who asserts falsely that the Garnett translation is better.) On these more sophisticat...

I've been slowly (the way I seem to read everything) reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest since December, and the other night I reached the chapter, about half-way through, where Joelle Van Dyne/Madame Psychosis explains to Don Gately why she always wears a veil. In the world of the novel, veils are worn by the members of the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed. Earlier in the novel, Madame Psychosis spent an entire episode of her radio programme listing out ways in which one could be hideously or improbably deformed. But she's not deformed; rather, she is so beautiful that anyone who sees her becomes obsessed with her, longing to be with her, seeing her as what will fulfill all of their desires. She is so beautiful that, in her words, her beauty is a deformation. When philosophers, especially Catholic philosopher, talk about beauty, it's often in glowing terms. Beauty is what is ordered, proportionate, splendid; what pleases when seen ; it is the r...