A World without Conscience

I was originally going to title this entry, "A World without God" but I realized that even in a world with God, humans kick up quite the storm, do enormous damage and outright evil and claim that He is on "our side". He must cringe when He watches us.

I had not heard anything about the movie, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" before I went to it tonight, except that it was getting generous reviews and word of mouth both in New York and Los Angeles. I should have known the direction that the movie was taking when the opening scene had Philip Seymour Hoffman making buck naked and urgent love to Marisa Tomei. I think they were in Rio having a nice respite from their otherwise numb marriage. The film is told not exactly in flashback, but in point of view repetitions of certain events of an episode in the life of a family. We're not talking about disagreements at the Thanksgiving table here. There is armed robbery, the death of a robber, infidelity (that old family favorite), and two brothers who I'll just call Cain, and Cain. There just ain't no Abel here. Goodness? There is no goodness here. There is only narcissistic betrayal and unremitting badness. And outright murder, of how many people, let me think. . . .like four people. It's hard to count. And it was all because of their childhood. Maybe.

That slippery slope is getting downright icy. I realize that, in a larger sense than I'd like to admit, I am part of the problem. I can watch this stuff and it hardly phases me. There is a contradiction here to say I advocate God, or conscience, and then to go to these films. I am not apparently strong enough simply to stop, to walk away from this form of entertainment. Was there a morality tale here? The most interesting part was when Albert Finney talks to a jewel merchant who has been a fence, who happily reveals to him that the child Finney has raised will do anything for money, no matter who it hurts. Evil is in the world he lets Finney know. No kidding. And I wonder, if I have been too big a part of it simply by being there tonight watching it. I have to think about this. Going to the movies has been a big part of my life.There aren't many uplifting films, though I could have gone to see "Bella" down the hall, which I have read is a morality play compared to what I did see. Oh, well. It is done. Grist for the mill.

I suspect that there isn't a conscience of anyone that hasn't been damaged in the last 20 years. I know what I should do. Developing and maintaining a conscience is a choice. And needs a prayerful mind. So hard. So necessary.