No Country For Old Men: No Compromise with Evil Like Hamas
The Moral Clarity of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
The moral valence of real-world situations is often complicated, with more gray than black and white. But other times, the moral clarity of a conflict is evident. So it is with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine after Hamas terrorists carried out their brutal assault on Israeli civilians just over three months ago.
I couldn’t help but think of this war as I reread Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men with one of my classes. We read the book for what it can tell us about cultural breakdown in the wake of the 1960s, rampant materialism and the loss of religion, and the furious violence of which men are capable when they are not properly culturally regulated.
This time through the book, however, I was called especially to the narrative it offers of how one must deal with unmitigated evil.
In the novel, Llewelyn Moss is being pursued by Anton Chigurh, the sinister and quasi-mythological archetype of criminal insanity who wants the money Moss appropriated from the gory scene of a shootout at a drug deal gone wrong. When Chigurh arrives at his hotel, kills the clerk, and obtains the key to Moss’s room, he finds it seemingly deserted. But when he looks in the bathroom, Moss gets the drop on him.
“Don’t turn around,” he orders Chigurh. “You turn around and I’ll blow you to hell.”
After taking Chigurh’s gun and walking him down the hallway, however, Moss inexplicably flees without eliminating the threat — but he doesn’t get far. Eventually, he is found by others pursuing the drug money and shot dead.
Chigurh, meanwhile, tracks down Moss’s young wife, Carla Jean, as her death is part of the dark ethic by which he operates. The scene in which Chigurh murders Carla Jean is one of the most unbearable in the book. She is a good woman who has done nothing except love and support the man to whom she is married. He clearly loved her just as fiercely but let her down — in taking the money in the first place and setting the whole thing into action, and then in egotistically believing he could win against overpowering malign forces. Most profoundly, he failed her in having refused the opportunity to eliminate a force of evil when he had it.
This same theme — the protagonist who has the opportunity to dispatch abject evil and does not do so, out of misplaced mercy, and later pays the ultimate price for his mistake — can be found elsewhere in McCarthy’s novels. In Blood Meridian, the kid has several chances to destroy the judge, the very incarnation of war and bloodlust, but does not take them. By the novel’s conclusion, he becomes yet another of the judge’s victims.
What is it in evil that distinguishes it from good? Chigurh tells Carla Jean, and us, just before he coldly murders her. “You don’t have to… You don’t,” she pleads. She presents no immediate danger to him. But perhaps she could describe him to the police and in this way somehow aid in his eventual capture. “You’re asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do,” he responds.
What is vulnerability? It is the act of accepting one’s weakness and trusting the other, even though such trust is always an act of blind faith, impossible to base on anything other than love and acceptance. The other can always turn on you, betray you, harm you. To make yourself vulnerable before him is the most primordial act of humbling oneself.
Evil can never do this. Evil is that which is never vulnerable, which crushes the act of truth and faith by its inability to humble itself, and which pursues only domination.
To fail to act appropriately toward evil is to participate in its survival. Good, even in the quite less than pure form of Llewelyn Moss, is called to stand against evil. This cannot mean sacrificing itself, as this will entail, logically extended, the elimination of good and the proliferation of evil.
What then must the good do? It must destroy evil. Moss should have shot Chigurh before he turned around. By the logic of the novel, he would not therefore have saved his own life, since it was the Mexican drug cartel members who eventually caught up with him. But he would have saved the life of his loving and beloved wife. And he would have saved the untold number of victims that lay in the brutal and evil killer’s future.
The central figure in the novel, Sheriff Bell, speaks emotionally of the deep religious belief of his wife, his anchor in the world. In her deep faith, she might well remind us that judgment is always and finally God’s. This much is true. Sometimes, though, God requires us to act to show our own commitment to the good, and precisely to hasten the moment at which His judgment of evil may take place.
This brings me back to Israel and Hamas. As my class was finishing the novel, I thought of how so much of the Western media, political, and intellectual elite has been saying the same monolithic thing about the defensive response of a people simply trying to live amid surrounding enemies who every day tell the world of their desire to exterminate the Jews — every man, woman, and child. “There must be a ceasefire,” goes the mantra. “We must recognize moral ambiguity.”
Of course, war is almost always more complicated than a showdown between two men like Chigurh and Moss. No one celebrates the dying of Palestinian children under Israeli bombs. But why are those bombs falling?
Because the Palestinian people in Gaza selected as their leaders a terrorist gang that has been explicit about their evil designs for decades, a terrorist gang that a majority of Palestinians still support today. Because Hamas did what evil entities can be counted on to do — that is, it deliberately and enthusiastically committed atrocities. And because it promises more atrocities if it is not stopped.
If Hamas genuinely wanted no Palestinian children to die in the war it began, it needed only to surrender and dissolve its organization. Even short of that, it could greatly reduce the amount of suffering to innocents in Gaza by giving up the practice, vastly documented by many sources, of using its own citizenry as human shields against the attack that was called forth by its own savagery. But it does not do these things, and we can safely predict it will not do them.
Why? Because it is a force of evil.
The complexities here are obfuscations of a basic reality. The story of Israel and Hamas is the same as the one of Moss and Chigurh. Moss is incompletely and waveringly good, certainly, but at his core, he is on the right side of the moral binary. The same is true of Israel. Chigurh and Hamas, however, are not morally gray entities. They are evil through and through.
You cannot coexist with unconditional evil, and Hamas is just that. There are only two ways: You will destroy it, or it will destroy you. Israel has chosen, and all those who properly understand the nature of the war of good and evil are compelled to recognize the correctness of its choice.
In situations where evil is present, what is the responsibility of the good and why is failure to act appropriately detrimental?
Llewelyn Moss and Anton Chigurh. It involves nations, ideologies, historical grievances, and complex power dynamics. But sometimes, the moral clarity of a conflict cannot be denied. The ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is one such example.
Just over three months ago, Hamas terrorists carried out a brutal assault on Israeli civilians, killing innocent men, women, and children. This act of violence shook the world and highlighted the urgent need for action against this evil. It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, “No Country for Old Men,” which delves into the narrative of dealing with unmitigated evil.
In the novel, Llewelyn Moss has the opportunity to eliminate Anton Chigurh, the embodiment of criminal insanity. However, Moss chooses to spare him and pays the ultimate price for his misplaced mercy. Similarly, in McCarthy’s other novel, ”Blood Meridian,” the protagonist has multiple chances to destroy the judge, a symbol of war and bloodlust, but fails to do so and becomes another victim.
What distinguishes evil from good? Chigurh, in a chilling moment before murdering Carla Jean, explains that vulnerability is what differentiates the two. To make oneself vulnerable is to humbly accept weakness and trust the other. Evil, on the other hand, refuses to be vulnerable, crushes truth and faith, and seeks only domination.
When confronted with evil, it is the duty of the good to stand against it. Failure to act appropriately merely contributes to its survival. In the case of Moss, he should have shot Chigurh before he had the chance to harm anyone else. By doing so, he would have saved not only his own life but also the lives of others.
Turning our attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict, we see a similar dynamic at play. The Western media, political leaders, and intellectuals often emphasize moral ambiguity and call for a ceasefire. While it is true that war is complex, we cannot overlook the fact that Israel is a nation trying to defend itself from enemies who openly express their desire to exterminate the Jewish people.
In situations like these, there is a need to recognize the moral clarity of the conflict. The defensive response of the Israeli people should not be downplayed or undermined. They are simply trying to live in peace while surrounded by enemies who wish to see their destruction.
It is important to remember that judgment ultimately lies with God. However, there are times when we must act to demonstrate our commitment to the good and hasten the moment when evil is held accountable. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, it is crucial to support Israel’s right to defend itself and take decisive action against those who seek to harm innocent lives.
In conclusion, while moral clarity is often hard to come by in the complexities of real-world conflicts, there are times when it becomes evident. The ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is one such situation. It is crucial that we recognize the need for action against evil and stand with those who are fighting to protect innocent lives.
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