Sinister (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

1: singularly evil or productive of evil

2: accompanied by or leading to disaster

3: presaging ill fortune or trouble

Sinister is clearly not a word that occurs naturally or frequently in everyday speech. It’s an exceptional word, a hushed-voice, dim-the-lights kind of word that raises the hairs on our arms, an Edgar Allen Poe inspired word that ushers us into the dark unknown. It conjures up silhouettes of terrifying figures that hold the road and tyrannize our dreams.

As exceptional as this word may be, I’ve seen it twice in the past few days: in Iowa Senator Jake’s Chapman’s claims regarding education and media influence and in Princeton Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s claims concerning classical education. Although both men use the same word, they speak from diametrically opposed perspectives and worldviews. Which begs the all-important question: sinister according to whom?

In her Des Moines Register opinion piece, Reka Bashu states that Chapman made what may be “the most inappropriate allegation you’ll ever hear from a public official” when he accused members of media and education of having “a sinister agenda to normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest.” According to Chapman, “some teachers are disguising sexually obscene material as desired subject matter and profess it has artistic and literary value.” In addition, he stated that members of our media “wish to confuse, misguide, and deceive us, calling what is good evil and evil good.”

Chapman expressed a concern that others have aired in school board meetings, local elections, and through social media. Specifically, those who share Chapman’s perspective raise questions and concerns regarding school library books and school curricula with themes that include gender identity and sexuality. Although Senator Chapman’s remarks have drawn the ire of many educators and media representatives who argue that the only sinister agenda is his and that of likeminded folks, there are also many who share his perspective on what is sinister and evil. If you were to ask these individuals to answer the question, sinister according to whom, they’d undoubtedly respond with a resounding: according to us, those who want to protect and promote what is good.

In Thomas Chatterton Williams’ recent article in The Atlantic, “The Battle Between Ideas and Identity,” he cites Rachel Posner’s article in The New York Times Magazine in which she discusses Princeton Professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s mission “to save classics from whiteness.” Padilla explains that he “cringes” as he thinks back to his youth when he desired to be “transformed by the classical tradition.” He rues the tradition that introduced him to a formative textbook, How People Live in Ancient Greece and Rome, an experience which he now declares to be “a sinister encounter.” In his interview with Posner, he admitted that he isn’t proud of the fact that a classical education brought him out of poverty. “Claiming dignity within this sytem of structural oppression,” he said, “requires full buy-in into its logic valuation” and that he won’t “praise the architects of that trauma as having done right by you at the end.”

Although Professor Padilla Peralta’s criticism of a classical education and Great Books curriculum have angered those who find value in them, there are many who share his perspective that perpetuating this tradition is sinister. If you were to ask these people the question, sinister according to whom, they’d likewise respond with a resounding: according to us, those who seek to protect and promote what is good.

This is a dilemma, indeed. One group’s sinister is the other group’s good. Each group speaks passionately for its members. Each group advocates for the common good and sees clear, unmoveable fault lines between sinister and good. Each group has noble intentions, for the education and well-being of our citizens are at stake.

It goes without saying that social media is ablaze with comments and accusations from those who righteously denounce sinister agendas. The fervor and certainty of these posts are very similar, but the content and perspective are very different. When worldviews vary so greatly, who decides what’s sinister and what’s good? And who decides what the common good is?

To a great degree, I realize that I’m beating a dead horse. These educational questions are the same questions we’ve raised–and continue to raise–politically and culturally. We’ve been tossing them around for decades, each side lobbing rhetorical grenades at the other. We’ve been drawing and redrawing fault lines, defining and redefining what is right and good. Which brings us where, exactly?

I hope that it might at least bring us to the painful, but necessary, admission that we don’t–and most likely, won’t ever–share a wholly common perspective and definition of good and evil. I also hope that we might seriously consider a difficult question: When one group’s evil is another’s good, how do we proceed in making policy, deciding curriculum, and generally navigating our world?

In Farewell Waltz, Czech novelist Milan Kundera writes:

What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will.

Kundera’s claim that those driven to sinister occupations (or perhaps sinister agendas) are motivated by the desire for order is insightful, I think. Historically, one group’s good has always been another group’s sinister. Perhaps all groups have been driven, at least to some degree, by their desire to create order where they see chaos, to create a world in which everything goes well.

At this point, a truly wise writer would conclude with solutions and answers to the questions I’ve raised. Forgive me. I’m not that wise writer. I can, however, leave you with this. When worldviews vary so greatly, we must continue to ask when–and if–we can justifiably compromise. We must truthfully count the costs: of conceding, of compromising, and of refusing to compromise. And always, we must intentionally seek to understand those we believe hold sinister agendas.