Dialogue vol 3 no 2

Posted December 2003

Dialogues, Vol. 3, No. 2

Reflection and amplification on RULERS OF EVIL through correspondence between ROEders and the author

JOHN WROTE:

Would you care to remark on the works of Dan Brown, The DaVinci Code? I wish that ROE was being sold and read as much as this book!!!

TUPPER WROTE:

I've found that DaVinci Code is a kind of Scholastic Aptitude Test for Rulers of Evil. (Formula: DVC is the SAT for ROE.)

DVC gives the devil's side of reality, which is brilliant but ends in hell. ROE shows how God uses the devil, which is equally brilliant but ends in a choice of heaven or hell.

While I was writing ROE, many confidants suggested the story might be better told as a novel. Maybe if I'd had Dan Brown's skills (DVC is the only book of his that I've read) I could have done that. But I was equipped to look just beneath the surface of things and make some sense out of what I saw, with the Bible as my final authority on questions of faith, morals, science, and history. So I just told it like it was -- and in matters of clandestine warfare, how it MOST LIKELY was (because clandestine warriors rarely leave the kind of evidence historians require).

I wonder how DVC would have developed if the Bible had been Dan Brown's final authority?

Anyway, DVC has stimulated interest in ROE, but in a word-of-mouth way. A guy says he read DVC, the ROEder says "Congratulations! Now you're ready for ROE!"

Try that, and have a couple of ROEs in the trunk of your car.

STEVE WROTE:

At the end of your book, Rulers of Evil, you write that you [are] not one of those people who always has to be right. In that case, I should point out to you that your work is riddled with historical errors. The first error to catch my attention was your claim that Caesar was the first Pontifex Maximus. Accually, that office was ancient in his day having pre-existed Caesar in Rome for centuries. Such errors serve as a slap in the face to students of history, and tend to discredit your work to any one who is concerned with the truth. Caesar's deadly inovation was that he combined many offices: Tribune, Pontif, Dictator, and ignored the term limits. A stylistic desire to make things seem conspiritorial is no excuse for ignoring historic fact.

I read your book with much pleasure, but it would have been better if you would have found an historian to edit it for factual content.

TUPPER WROTE:

Thanks for taking the time to complain. You're right. I must have wanted to say that Julius was the first Roman emperor to ordain himself pontifex maximus, thereby assuming power of both church and state. That was the evidence I had at hand.

I don't understand how my historical errors could be a slap in the face of history students, but rather an invitation for them to -- as you put it -- help edit the book for factual content. Your correction is a help in editing the book. Everybody profits from such help.

I'm sorry you have concluded that my error indicates "a stylistic desire to make things conspiratorial." Your contribution that Julius combined many offices with his dictatorship and ignored term limits does not reduce, in fact even enhances, the conspiratoriality of papal rulership.

I will publish your correction, and invite you to correct the other historical errors you find in the book. I'm not a professional historian with a reputation to defend. I was impelled to write the book because I could not find that any professional historian had ever looked into the subject. Indeed, it's my prayer that a professional historian will examine the commingling of papal and American politics not neglecting Rome's Babylonian heritage in light of history and biblical prophecy, and will do so with a thoroughness that makes my book completely useless. Until then, I must contend that ROE is the closest thing we have, flaws and all, to the true story.

RALPH WROTE:

I've inadvertently stumbled on a very well known tale which demonstrates how evil rules evil. But I've never quite looked at it in this light before.

Recall the situation where Soloman was asked to determine the fate of a child claimed by two women. His decision was quite evil if you think about it. The evil woman didn't flinch. The good woman fled before it, willing to drop her claim rather than see the judgement carried out.

We all assume that Soloman lied. He never intended to carry out that judgement. But a lie is evil, too. So, no matter how you view it, there was evil present. Yet evil came before Soloman, asking to be ruled. He couldn't rule it with good. He had to resort to evil to rule evil, knowing that good would rule good.

This decision is the classic citation for a display of wisdom. I now realize that it was wise in ways I'd never considered, wise in ways that 99.99999% of those aware of it also fail to consider. Good can't rule evil. Only evil can. At least here and now. Realizing that simple fact is a pretty large step toward wisdom! And this simple tale, when presented to another in this manner, makes for a very quick way to get those who hold that "good can rule evil" to reconsider that position. They might argue that outcome went to good (and I agree) but the whole scene was simply evil ruling evil, good ruling itself by fleeing the evil. Try it. I think you'll be surprised at how quickly they'll get the point. It's almost a "sound-bite" explanation. Shorter, in fact, than what's written here.

TUPPER WROTE:

Beautiful insight. Can it be reduced to a mathematical formula? I'm studiously ignorant of mathmetics, as my attempt J=e/E indicates. How does one formulize Justice = lesser evil ÷ prospect of greater evil? It's a beginning that I know you can complete. Go to it, Doc!!!!

RALPH WROTE:

Lesser and greater evils. Not sure that I know how to quantify them. It's usually a matter of vantage, i.e. are you looking down, looking up or just looking to get gone. But I'm now beginning to wonder if you haven't hit on something by forcing me to attempt a quantification. It almost seems to me that the lesser evil rules the greater evil, while the greater good rules the lesser good. At first thought that seems irrational (mathematically), but it seems to fit.

Studiously ignorant of math, eh? No musician can be such. You just need to count in base seven, not 10, then it would all become as intuitive as the music. You just don't have a metric mind. That's why even a piece of eight always made more sense to you than a disme.

Mathematically, J (justice) must be < (less than) good and > (greaterthan) evil. Some tax protestor once talked me into getting an ICQ # so we might communicate more directly. At the end of a litany of complaints he posed, "Where do I find justice?"

I replied, quite simply, "In heaven, stupid . . . or in hell."

He actually sought something that just isn't available in this realm, and really can't be. Here, justice, even in the best sense of the term, can only slip and slide between good and evil, never quite touching either. The problem is that everyone thinks that justice (here) is supposed to be "good." And that's really a silly idea.

Jesus clearly explained that. If sued for your shirt, offer your coat. Settle it, no matter the cost. "Justice" is a place you just don't want to go.