Tales of Good and Evil, Help and Harm

Rating:
Summary: AMBIGUOUS
Review: I have very mixed feelings about this book. It often seems that it was written to justify the author's own unemotional response to his (artillery) victims in WW2. I have to question his assesment of Himmler as a 'caring' individual because he very occasionally showed an emotional response to some of his victims. I am a fan of Thoreau's (I have read most of his works) but again, I cannot share his (and PH's) often unemotional assesment of human suffering, implying that power and victimization are not 'evil' because they are animal=human nature. I may have misinterpreted PH's intentions and arguments, but in spite of the examples of humanitarianism and self sacrifice in his book, it left me with a much less optimistic (though probably realistic) view of the future of the human race.

Rating:
Summary: Just On Two Chapters
Review: I'm only writing this review about two chapters, those dealing with Henry David Thoreau. This book will gain (is gaining) much hype and is being assigned, on numerous syllabi, in contrast to Thoreau. Hallie grossly simplifies Thoreau's thought, and I'd caution the student looking at both to read Thoreau's "Plea for Captain John Brown" and "Civil Disobedience" before heeding Hallie's criticism. In his other book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, Hallie writes about a village that became a stop on an "Underground Railroad" for Jews escaping the Holocaust. Yet, in this book, he makes no mention of Thoreau's (and Emerson's, and Alcott's) own contribution to America's own Underground Railroad.

Meanwhile, Hallie seems to have trouble with the English language. Again and again, he criticizes Thoreau for his use of terms like "vulgar sadness," concluding that Thoreau himself thinks that all sadness is vulgar. Hallie doesn't seem to understand that vulgar is an adjective and that, in using it, Thoreau is therefore writing about a particular kind of sadness: that kind of sadness which is vulgar. In Hallie's black and white ethical world, such subtleties aren't allowed.

I could say much more about the Thoreau chapters in this book, but I should, instead, just point out a fact from Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed. In that book Hallie reports that a villager from Le Chambon confronts him with something like the words "Don't talk to me of good. I wasn't trying to do good." In essence, this villager is giving him the same message that Thoreau was trying to express: compassion cannot bear to be sentimentalized. The irony of the similarity between this villager's view and Thoreau's is staring Hallie right in the face, but he doesn't see it. One reason for this might be that Hallie appears to have little sensitivity to irony at all. (To get a clue what this lack of sensitivity to irony means, consider that, in a dictionary of literary terms written in the 1940s, the authors wrote that "An awareness of irony is one of the hallmarks of an intelligent mind.")

Rating:
Summary: Just On Two Chapters
Review: I'm only writing this review about two chapters, those dealing with Henry David Thoreau. This book will gain (is gaining) much hype and is being assigned, on numerous syllabi, in contrast to Thoreau. Hallie grossly simplifies Thoreau's thought, and I'd caution the student looking at both to read Thoreau's "Plea for Captain John Brown" and "Civil Disobedience" before heeding Hallie's criticism. In his other book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, Hallie writes about a village that became a stop on an "Underground Railroad" for Jews escaping the Holocaust. Yet, in this book, he makes no mention of Thoreau's (and Emerson's, and Alcott's) own contribution to America's own Underground Railroad.

Meanwhile, Hallie seems to have trouble with the English language. Again and again, he criticizes Thoreau for his use of terms like "vulgar sadness," concluding that Thoreau himself thinks that all sadness is vulgar. Hallie doesn't seem to understand that vulgar is an adjective and that, in using it, Thoreau is therefore writing about a particular kind of sadness: that kind of sadness which is vulgar. In Hallie's black and white ethical world, such subtleties aren't allowed.

I could say much more about the Thoreau chapters in this book, but I should, instead, just point out a fact from Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed. In that book Hallie reports that a villager from Le Chambon confronts him with something like the words "Don't talk to me of good. I wasn't trying to do good." In essence, this villager is giving him the same message that Thoreau was trying to express: compassion cannot bear to be sentimentalized. The irony of the similarity between this villager's view and Thoreau's is staring Hallie right in the face, but he doesn't see it. One reason for this might be that Hallie appears to have little sensitivity to irony at all. (To get a clue what this lack of sensitivity to irony means, consider that, in a dictionary of literary terms written in the 1940s, the authors wrote that "An awareness of irony is one of the hallmarks of an intelligent mind.")

Rating:
Summary: The book is excellent.
Review: Tales of Good and Evil, Help and Harm by Philip Hallie is moving. I am a historian and never been one to read philosophy, and this book io one to be shared with others. Hallie describes how a German commander in France during WWII turned his back and allowed goodness to happen. (See Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed). This man, who was to be evil by being Nazi, had a large margin for goodness. Hallie uses the analogy of a hurricane to depict ones margin for goodness in a world of evil. People have the ablility to do good even when surrounded by evil and harmful events. How much goodness you have is up to you. After reading the book, I have a better understanding of myself and why I do good and of others and what might motivate them to goodness. Anyone who has the ablility to over come evil by being involved in good and helpful things should read this book.