Читать книгу Wanted Undead or Alive: - Джонатан Мэйберри - Страница 9

Paul Gustave Doré, Cain Kills Abel

To many, Cain’s killing of his brother Abel was not only the first murder, but also the first crime. Whether the story is true or merely a parable used to make a point about morality, the need for laws, and the sanctity of life, it allows us to take a hard look at the enormous consequences of the act of violence.

Depending on whom you talk to—or which spiritual path you follow—the struggle between good and evil is either the oldest conflict known to man or the second oldest. If we factor evolution into the mix, then the oldest struggle is for basic survival—food, shelter, and safety from natural predators. But once early man had something of a handle on those, back during those first hours of leisure time huddled around cook fires in caves, the struggle against evil began. With the advent of a belief in a larger world—God or gods, demons, monsters, and elemental forces—the struggle became a battle. The rise of religion turned the battle into an outright war, and the development of philosophy transformed that struggle into an art.

Now, here at the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium, we see this conflict played out in countless forms. It shows up in politics, in the friction between ideologies, in sports, in pop culture, in war, in dating, and just about everywhere else. Where there is no obvious evil (a serial killer, a tyrant’s attempt at ethnic genocide, etc.) we personify natural disasters so that tsunamis and hurricanes become evil. We demonize sickness so that the process of treating a disease becomes a fight against death—as if death was a conscious being with a personal stake in it.

Funny thing is, we humans kind of groove on the conflict. The fight between good and evil, whether as an external battle against a monster or an internal struggle against temptation, makes for great storytelling, and we are certainly a storytelling species. Storytelling is in our nature, a fact we’ve known since the earliest humans learned how to mix pigment and paint on cave walls.¹

In Wanted Undead or Alive, we’ll explore a number of variations on this eternal struggle. The central theme will be the fight against supernatural evil, but along the way we’ll investigate personal evil (what Joseph Conrad labeled the “heart of darkness”), temptation, corruption, ideological clashes, and more. There’s certainly no shortage of examples of conflict in the human story. We should probably feel bad about that, but it’s in our nature to accept that evil exists and to believe, or at least hope, that something good (or less evil) will step up to oppose it.

Along the way we’ll talk with all kinds of people, from clerics and politicians to pop culture experts and the guy on the street. Insights on the struggle come in all forms and frequencies.

This book is meant to be browsed, so don’t feel guilty about jumping around. Guilt is a form of shame, which in turn is based on the belief that you’ve done something wrong. “Wrong” is the opposite of “right,” and that’s just another tweak on the whole good and evil thing. We don’t want you to feel bad. Just enjoy the ride.