Joseph Brodsky's understanding of evil and how to respond to it
Mark Twain said almost a century ago, “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody,” reminding us of the complexity of human nature. We all possess the capacity for light or darkness, goodness and evil.
“A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged,” explained Dostoyevsky as to why there are no inherently bad people. This is not to excuse evil, which undeniably exists. There are many examples of evil too incomprehensible to understand. While some equate evil behavior to mental failure, others explain it by a wicked soul and heart.
Joseph Brodsky, who was prosecuted by the Soviet communist regime for his love of poetry, explained his understanding of evil and how to respond to it.
“Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the Holy Book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose…
No matter how daring or cautious you may choose to be, in the course of your life you are bound to come into direct physical contact with what’s known as evil. I mean here not a property of the gothic novel but, to say the least, a palpable social reality that you in no way can control. No amount of good nature or cunning calculations will prevent this encounter. In fact, the more calculating, the more cautious you are, the greater is the likelihood of this rendezvous, the harder its impact. Such is the structure of life that what we regard as evil is capable of a fairly ubiquitous presence if only because it tends to appear in the guise of good. You never see it crossing your threshold announcing itself: “Hi, I’m evil!” That, of course, indicates its secondary nature, but the comfort one may derive from this observation gets dulled by its frequency…
The surest defense against evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned impostor couldn’t be happy with. Something, in other words, that can’t be shared, like your own skin — not even by a minority…
Still, keep in mind that there is always somebody next to you, a neighbor. Nobody asks you to love him, but try not to hurt or discomfort him much; try to tread on his toes carefully; and should you come to covet his wife, remember at least that this testifies to the failure of your imagination, to your disbelief in — or ignorance of — reality’s unlimited potential. Worse comes to worst, try to remember how far away — from the stars, from the depths of the universe, perhaps from its opposite end — came this request not to do it, as well as this idea of loving your neighbor no less than yourself. Maybe the stars know more about gravity, as well as about loneliness, than you do; coveting eyes that they are.
-Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940–January 28, 1996)