What Evil Lurks ...?

The popular old radio show, The Shadow, opened with the line, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” Perhaps it would be good for each of us to ask ourselves what evil lurks in our hearts and to consult our “shadow” to help get an answer. The character in the radio show did his crime-fighting, justice-dispensing work by employing the ability to “cloud men’s minds.” We might also ask, how clouded have our minds become under the influence of our shadow? (I offer my apologies to all Jungian psychologists who might furrow their brow at my shallow “shadow” references.)

This post is prompted by Mel Gibson getting arrested for a DUI early Friday. The story isn’t about another celeb getting tagged for an alcohol or drug offense. That’s just gossip fodder. The obvious story lies in the anti-Semitic rant that Gibson went into during the arrest. He’s admitted making the remarks, including a declaration that “the Jews are responsible for all wars in the world,” and asking one of the deputies, “Are you a Jew?” The relevance of those statements, which came from a clearly clouded mind, remains a mystery to everyone other than Mr. Gibson’s rather dark shadow.

Charges of anti-Semitism aren’t new to Gibson. When he released his religious blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ, he was hounded by accusations that he was laying the blame for the crucifixion of Christ at the feet of the Jews. Then there’s his seriously off-center father, Hutton Gibson, who denies the scope if not the reality of the Holocaust and believes that the Second Vatican Council was an anti-Catholic plot unfolded by conspiring Masons and Jews. The senior Mr. Gibson also maintains that the 9/11 attacks were done by “remote control” rather than by Islamist terrorists on the planes. (Pause for effect.)

Biblical insinuation notwithstanding, sons shouldn’t be held accountable for the sins of the fathers. The issue for Gibson on this score is that he’s never put any distance, healthy or otherwise, between his father’s beliefs and his own, leaving people to speculate that father and son share similar beliefs on the Holocaust in particular and Jews in general. When ABC yesterday cancelled Gibson’s pending mini-series on the Holocaust, Yale law professor Jack Balkin delivered the quip of the day when, referring to the mini-series, he said, “Apparently it has a surprise ending.”

Now, under the influence of a .12% blood alcohol level, the real Mel Gibson may have leaked out. It’s clear that there’s something lurking in that heart of his and, to his credit, he seems to sense that, too. His mea culpa statement says that he’s “in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from.” He should ask The Shadow, who knows the answer – it’s in the heart.

There may be apologists who say he can’t be held accountable for drunken babble “blurted out in a moment of insanity,” as Mr. Gibson put it. But, I’m not trying to hold Mel Gibson accountable; others can do that. I’m interested in something more important – namely, exploring the extent to which the rest of us have evil lurking in our hearts that will come out when some substance or event simply unhooks the restraints. How much bigotry resides in our hearts; how much bigotry resides in my heart? Mel Gibson isn’t the only person with evil-lurking issues. There are shadows everywhere.

Mr. Gibson has declared, “I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.” Well, Mel, every fiber of my external self wants to declare to all within the sound of my voice, “I am not a bigot; I am not a racist; I do not harbor ethnic, religious or gender prejudice!” I suspect every member of my family and every close friend I have wants to declare the same thing. I wouldn’t associate with anyone who I believed to be a bigot, a racist or seriously prejudiced. (I confess that I’m just a tad prejudiced about self-righteous uber-conservatives, but how can that be anything other than helping the fight for truth, justice and the American way!)

Back to the point – is the evil of bigotry in me? Is it in you? Are we as free of this and other evil as we believe we are? What happens when, for whatever reason, through whatever means, the doors to our inner chambers suddenly swing open and the lurking presence is freed? What does my shadow want to declare? What is capable of coming from my unprotected heart when my protecting mind is clouded? I’m not sure. Who can be sure without going into those chambers and finding out for themselves, rather than waiting for some revelation to occur at 2:15AM on the side of some highway.

I certainly hope that Mr. Gibson can make something good come from his misfortune as he attempts, in his words, “to discern the appropriate path for healing.” But I’m more introspective about what I and others can make of it. I believe the path of healing for all of us is the path upon which we all lay down our collective ego – our race-based; ethnic-based; religion-based; partisan-based; economic-based; social-based; or culture-based ego that compels us to divide the world into grossly simplistic categories and declare with such self assurance, “We’re right and they’re wrong; we’re good and they’re bad; we’re righteous and they’re evil; we’re saved and they’re damned; we’re educated and they’re ignorant; we’re wise and they’re foolish; we deserve what we have and they deserve what they don’t have.”

Mr. Gibson, following the lead of noted LA philosopher, Rodney King, says the issue is about “existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.” Maybe he’s right. But what madness in the world exists outside the ego-driven dualistic model represented by the string of statements above? Not much.

What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows, indeed.