‘The line dividing good from evil cuts through the heart of every human being… This line is not static within us; it sways to and fro over the years. Even in a heart imbued with evil, it allows a small bridgehead of good to remain. And it permits a small niche of evil to survive even in the kindest of hearts.’
These words were written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, seeking to explain why The Gulag Archipelago was necessarily ambiguous. But they also fit elements of the Savile scandal, which is being prejudged in increasingly black and white terms.
Charles Moore’s observation that this grim affair is a ‘dreadful warning’ about the perils of fame is compelling: ‘when you are up, no criticism, when you are down (and dead), no mercy.’ Yet there is also a warning here about the perils of creating Frankenstein.
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