An American Dream Expanded/Publishers Weekly March 22, 1965: Difference between revisions

{{notice|From {{cite news |last= |first=|date=March 15, 1965 |title=Author's League Panel: Book Reviews and Reviewers|url= |work=Publisher's Weekly |location=New York, NY|page=44-45 |access-date=|ref=harv}}Excerpt from a panel discussion at the ''Authors League of America'' held on March 9, 1965, where Mailer airs his views on reviewers and in turn, reviewers cross-examine Mailer.}}

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Asked to define what he meant by “moral nihilism,” Mr. Mailer said that the secret belief of all moral nihilists is that they can save the world. The moral nihilist believes that the moral attitudes with which most people regard existence are not so much false as that they do not fit reality. There are occasions, Mr. Mailer said, when in the view of the moral nihilist, obscenity can be brutal, shattering, cruel. There are also occasions when it can be warm, humorous, life-giving, boisterous. It can never be codified. For the moral nihilist, who wishes never to take anything for granted, the nature of reality is constantly shifting.

“I believe there is a God and a devil.” Mr. Mailer said. “Morality is the battlefield. But the criminal in the act of committing a crime may be becoming a better man. The alternative to a sudden wild outburst of violence might be that he would have been running around poisoning the lives of all around him for 20 or 30 years. For the moral nihilist there is something worse than death.