Simon posted:
> interview with Zupancic:
> http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/alenkazupancic.php
“When it comes to the stories that play upon a neat distinction between “good” and “evil” and their conflict, we are not only more fascinated by “evil” characters; it is also clear that the force of the story depends on the strength of the “evil” character. Why is this so? The usual answer is that the “good” is always somehow flat, whereas “evil” displays an intriguing complexity. But what exactly is this complexity about? It is certainly not about some deeper motives or reasons for this “evil” being “evil.” The moment we get any kind of psychological or other explanation for why somebody is “evil,” the spell is broken, so to speak. The complexity and depth of “evil” characters are related to the fact that they seem to have no other reason for doing what they are doing but the fun (or spite) of it. In this sense, they are as “flat” as can be. But at the same time, this lack of depth can itself become something palpable, a most oppressive and massive presence. In these stories, as well as in what constitutes the individual or the collective Imaginary, evil is usually precisely this: that which lends its “face” to some disturbing void “beyond representation.”
There is another way of explaining evil. What I regard as “evil” are really intentions of mine that have been transformed by splitting and projective identification into the intentions of others. This is what makes the attitude to “evil” ambivalent. When I can’t imagine how anyone could do some evil it’s because I can only too well imagine it. This is consistent with its appearance in others as something done for sheer fun or spite and with its power to fascinate.
When my personality is structured in this way there will be a “void” which is "beyond representation." That void is my own death. It’s beyond representation because the purpose of the whole structure is to deny it.
Our own death isn’t “impossible” because we can’t imagine it as possible. Death happens.
Ted
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