The Axis of Good, the Axis of Bad, and the Axis of Ugly

Americans enjoy nothing better than simplicity. This isn't a value judgment, per se, but a mere observation. Given the choice of digesting either a multi-tiered flowchart of oddly-weighted and incomparable variables or a cute little binary opposition, your garden-variety, middle-of-the-bell-curve American will opt for the latter, no matter the inherent distortion in most either/or scenarios. This is why your average heartlander lapped up, with almost canine enthusiasm, the clunky, juvenile propositions of both the War on Terror and the Axis of Evil.

The Axis of Evil, which was or is comprised of North Korea, Iran, and (Evil Emeritus) Iraq, calls to mind not only the perfunctory images of "commie chinks" and "sand niggers" (not my epithets, friends), but more intuitively perhaps a monolithic Snidely Whiplash-style nemesis, twirling his handlebar mustache, and securing some buxom damsel to railway tracks. That buxom damsel, if we stretch the metaphor beyond all conceivable recognition, is the freedom-lovin' Western world. (It's sissy to round out your g's at the ends of gerunds and participles, by the way.) And that oncoming train...? Well, that would be Armageddon. And if you are unable to wrap your mind around the obvious moral clarity of the situation, then your perception is either defective or, worse, contaminated by the enemy. Indeed, the situation we've arrived at is rather cold war revisited, with all of the major (and minor) players lined up on either side of the ethical line of demarcation.

Meanwhile, the idea of a War on Terror is so muddled and nonsensical that, if it were at all possible, we might likewise declare war on other nebulous, abstract concepts like Sheepishness, Ennui, and Depression. (Never mind the fact that America and its allies themselves have engaged and continue to engage in various activities that would easily align with most prevalent definitions of terror-inducement. Bombing innocent civilians in order to battle "Terror," for example, is the sort of irony to which most dunderheaded Americans are immune. The Evil People occasionally call their version of Terror "liberation," and we call our version "collateral damage." After all, as the trite bumper stickers reminds us, freedom isn't free, and a few kids might have to have their heads blown off in order to remove this abstract noun from our consciousness altogether.) I wonder if, in the future, we will branch out and declare war on other parts of speech, like maybe adverbs.

This discussion of evil and moral absolutes in general reminds me of the film Halloween, in which the psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (played with grim seriousness by the late Donald Pleasance) often refers to his patient Michael Myers as "evil"--which, aside from being a wee unprofessional, strikes me as closing off any avenue of recovery. Evil is easy to understand, irredeemable, and promises a lifetime of long, expensive, unsuccessful psychotherapy. Of course, Halloween was just a 1970's horror film, not carrying with it the burden of international relations. To label an entire country evil is itself a short-sighted linguistic flourish which reduces complex international situations to the proportions and bright primary colors of a comic book.