chandra chandra

A few weeks ago I ran into her for a brief chat. She said she was thinking about these issues, I asked her to send me some writing, that I might place it on the net.
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 17:46:09 -0500
From: Chandra
Have you ever thought about evil.  I mean, you are so essentially a
relativist.  Even when you point out to me a particular trait in myself,
you soon erase it with qualifiers of how everyone has this trait.  You make
everything so ultimate, so unbounded, so indistinguishable.  But, it is
always a tension.  Because as DIna and I say, "We are the same, but,
different."  And that can be applied to any two people, without
qualification.  That is why locating and defing evil seems not only
subjective but utterly false and groundless.  As if we are all evil within
a spectrum.  But I would like to argue for something entirely definitive.
Something where evilness can be located.  And I am guided into such
judgement by my feeling perception which I trust much more than these
words.  I wonder, have you ever had that visceral experience of sensing
evil energy?  Been near someone and been horrfied to the soul?  It is rare.
And I would like people to exchange thoughts on this so as to come to some
universal...well, that is impossible, but, to point to some overlap.

My father and I went to one of those Japanese steak houses and were seated
with a party of 5 Japanese speaking men.  I asked my father who he thought
was evil.  It turned out to be the man I thought was most attractive and
irresistible.  What does this betray?  We were both magnetized by
soemthing.  He radiated something.  I thought he was fucked up from some
past life.  I thought, sure, he has undeniable intensity,
but, it seemed so fraght with pain and ambivalence that I couldnt see it as
evil.  And there is still a distinction to be made between sinister and
evil.  Sinister implies some level of self recognition and also .

More on this later

Love,
Chandra

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