Sat 05 May 2007Intimacy in the suburb of good and evilCulture Shock:Now that it is coming to an end, it
is easy to get sentimental about
The Sopranos. But it is still the best TV programme ever
made, writes
Fintan O'Toole.A few days after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, George W
Bush told his stricken nation that "My administration has a job to
do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the
evil-doers." There was, for a while afterwards, a fad for T-shirts
and badges emblazoned with the slogan "Evil-Doers Suck". The
phrase, in all its eloquent idiocy, spoke for an American Manichean
mindset, shaped over the centuries by both religious zeal and
military righteousness. There are good people, most of them
American. And there are evil-doers, from whom, if we are steadfast
enough, the world can be saved.