On the Boundaries between Good and Evil: Constructing Multiple Moralities in China

Abstract

This essay discusses three contrasting versions of the relationship between good and evil in contemporary China: A spirit medium who maneuvers between them, a charismatic Christian group that forges an identity by defending the border between them, and an official state and religious discourse of banal goodness and universal love that seeks to annihilate evil. Each defines good and evil differently, but more importantly, each imagines the nature of the boundary itself differently-as permeable and negotiable, clear and defensible, or simply intolerable. These varied conceptions help to shape alternate views of empathy, pluralism, and the problem of how to live with otherness.