“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied, full of charm; imaginary good is tiresome and flat. Real evil, however, is dreary, monotonous, barren. Real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” -- Simone Weil, Notebooks
Consider how Melanie fades next to Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. In real life, Melanie would have been a spring of cool water, but Scarlett would have been intolerable after five minutes.
In the great war now so many ages underway, one of the permanent advantages of evil is its imaginary glamour, but one of the permanent advantages of good is that it is better in reality. Isn’t being better in reality what it means to be good? Strange that it is so easy to forget.