On the attraction of fanatics

[sesquipedality]

In art, fanaticism is sexy. Give me a passionate villain over a bland good guy every time. I live in such a constant state of doubt that there's something so appealing about someone who really believes in something with an overwhelming drive, and is willing to take extreme measures for their belief. For example, the sexiest thing about Javert in "Les Miserables" is that he comes to see the error of his ways, and this convinces him only that he doesn't want to live in a world where he isn't right. Now that's devotion to a cause.

Terrorists are not sexy. This principle clearly fails to extend to real life. I'm wondering if this means that there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The problem with this, as a perception, is that it all too easily expands into making caring about anything passionately somewhat suspect, particularly anything political, and you end up in a kind of moral marshmallow pudding where the middle ground between visible extremes of evil and good gets wider and wider and making any practical decisions becomes impossible.