Good Guy, Bad Guy, I'm The One With The Brain Dept.

Stumbling and Mumbling: Hammett's world

Why do we cleave to the presumption of Manichaeism rather than the Hammettian conception?* I suspect the answer lies more in psychology than in facts. We want to preserve what Richard Sennettcalleda purified identity and hunger for what Christopher Laschcalled"psychic security". In an age of narcissism people want to believe - often without troubling to read a word of moral philosophy - that they are right and others wrong and the wish is the father to t...