Defining evil: Not as easy as

Responding to the recent Las Vegas concert shooting that killed more than 50 people and injured hundreds more, President Trump described the act as one “of pure evil.”

One definition of “evil” sounds so inadequate in today’s culture: “morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds, an evil life.”

As the Supreme Court wrestled with a 1964 obscenity case, Justice Potter Stewart struggled to define obscenity, and finally settled on his oft-quoted statement, “I know it when I see it.” That seems to be the preferred attitude about evil today. Many of us can’t fully define it, but we certainly know it when we see it.

On a visit to Las Vegas, I was handed a flyer on the street advertising prostitutes. All I had to do, the flyer said, was call a number. A vehicle would even transport me to the rendezvous point, presumably for an extra charge. Is this objectively evil? Who gets to decide? CAL THOMAS GUEST COLUMNIST

On the nightly news and in nearly every Hollywood film, there are graphic scenes showing spattered blood and bodies strewn about. Big-city news broadcasts often lead with the latest shootings and body count. Do such things desensitize us to the value of human life? Where does that value come from? We’ve come a long way from Hollywood’s “Golden Age” and from TV’s “Leave it to Beaver” and “Uncle Miltie.”