'The repetoire of evil has never been richer. Yet never have our responses been so weak. We have no language for connecting our inner lives with the horrors that pass before our eyes in the outer world. Philanthropy and protest seem empty gestures, arbitary in their choice of beneficiary or occasion. It is now commonly remarked (especially since the Cruise missile excitements of the Gulf War) that technology has carried us to the point where death by fire is indistinguisable from the puffs and crackle of a video game; and when some shocking new cruelty does sieze our attention, it is likely to be met with some consternation or annoyance. We shudder or wince; then we switch the channel.'
Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan: How Americans have lost the sense of evil, p.3.
