Dr. Evil

“All children, except one, grow up … and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.” – James M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Nobody thinks of themselves as evil. Except of course for Dr. Evil – the fiendishly brilliant and touchingly insecure nemesis of that man of international mystery, Austin Powers. But you could even argue that Dr. Evil doesn’t want to be “Evil” (he said, making quote marks in the air with his hands), but rather to be loved. And the only way he knows how to be loved is to have a brand name, an identity, a tag.

And who’s to say that his is a bad strategy? When you think back now on the Austin Powers films, who does your heart go out to? Surely not the eponymous hero. His desire to be loved is too diguised, too baroque. But Dr. Evil is pure naked emotional need. He will have our approval and our respect, even if he needs to destroy the entire planet to get it! Who amongst us does not recognize this need? To put it more plainly: Who amongst us has never been two and a half years old?

The strange (and, I admit, secretly entertaining) thing about the current presidential race is how both sides – not the candidates, who are never permitted to say this outright, but their supporters – categorize their opponents as evil. Or, should I say, Evil.

It is so incomprehensible to those on the right that anyone could embrace the philosophy espoused by the left – and vice versa – that each side looks at the other with gaping astonishment, wondering why on earth these people are spending all that effort and money to betray their country.

If you are a McCain supporter, you scratch your head and wonder whether people really want to lose the war in Iraq, just when victory is in our grasp, why people are so eager to turn their backs on the Alaska oil reserves, or whether liberal mothers actually want to murder their unborn children.

If you are an Obama supporter, you look at what the Republicans are saying, and you find yourself struck speechless. Secretly you wonder if they can actually mean such things, or whether it’s all some sort of elaborate act.

Obviously neither side is evil, and neither side hates America. We’re talking here about millions of people, Republicans and Democrats alike, who love their children, work for a living, care for elderly parents, contribute to community funds, and wish for tomorrow to dawn upon a better world.

And yet, here they are – both sides – glaring at each other, teeth bared, wondering how these others, these Pod People, managed to steal the souls of half the populace, and replace them with an evil thing of uncertain menace.

Seeing this spectacle, I am left wondering whether this is just the nature of human existence. Perhaps the middle is unstable. Perhaps human nature demands that we choose sides, that the reasonable citizen who tries to comprehend both narratives, like the character of Sidney Stratton in The Man in the White Suit, will be torn apart by the angry clawing hands of the adversarial hordes on either side.

And in the end nobody will understand what happened here, whatever the outcome, except for Dr. Evil and Peter Pan.