Morality

The Double, by Jose Saramago. Harcourt. 336 pages. $25. Most English classes teach us that parables and morality tales are antiquated forms of literature, replaced, in the way of natural evolution, by that creation of hardy Anglo-Saxon realism, the novel. But in truth, what new agers call "wisdom literature" has never left us, and the Portugese writer, Jose Sara-mago, has imbued it with enough highbrow knowingness to win him the 1998 Nobel Prize. In his new novel, The Double, Saramago turns to one of the archetypal themes of world literature, as old as folktale and yet deftly pitched to an age of "identity politics."

ARLINGTON, Va. -- In the media accounts of Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley's resignation from the House over allegations of sexually explicit e-mails from him to House pages, one frequently encounters the word "disgraced" modifying Mr. Foley's name and "scandal" to describe his behavior. These are moral words, created for the purpose of labeling aberrant (and abhorrent) behavior. To show how far we have drifted from any sociological, not to mention theological, moorings, consider these definitions from dictionary.

Paris. - Three things remain to be said about the Thomas hearings, now that they are over, having irremediably harmed the lives of two individuals, and soiled the Senate and the presidency of the United States.The first should be obvious. A person nominated to the Supreme Court should be a jurist or legal scholar of distinction, or a figure of weight and experience in American public life. The Constitution endows the court with potentially the highest powers in the government, since its decisions can only be overcome by amendment of the Constitution itself, and they effectively shape the development of legislation and the execution of executive authority.

I RECENTLY PICKED up a copy of Boston Magazine while sitting in the green room at the Fox News studios in Watertown, Mass. Leafing through the publication, I came across an article titled "Confessions of an Ivy League Callgirl," written by Jeannette Angell, a university lecturer with a master's degree from Yale. The fact that she was a Yalie caught my eye - as a Harvard Law student, I've already adopted our communal animosities - and so I read the piece. Apparently, Ms. Angell began trading sex for cash after receiving her doctorate in social anthropology.

BOSTON -- By the eighth week of the longest running un-morality play in modern memory, all sorts of bit players had walked onto the stage in reversible roles.One week we heard the Rev. Billy Graham forgive the president for his alleged infidelity, because "I know the frailty of human nature."The next week we heard writer David Brock ask the president to forgive him for starting a "witch hunt" because "what the hell was I doing investigating your private life in the first place?"The absolution and the mea culpa were just part of the plot of this so-called scandal -- an unpredictable drama that's stumped even those who make their living speculating.

On July 4, while some folks were exploding firecrackers, I was reading Glenn C. Loury's inspirational book, "One By One From The Inside Out: Essays and Reviews On Race and Responsibility in America."Not too long ago, it seemed like Mr. Loury had everything going for him. As one of the few black members of the conservative hierarchy, he received invitations to the White House, and the mighty consulted him about the problems of the black underclass. But Mr. Loury's privatelife was a mess -- he used drugs and beat women.

As humans, we like to think that our sense of morality and our systems of justice are part of what makes us different from the animals in the jungle, where success goes to the big and the mean.But scientists like Frans de Waal have begun to shake up that presumption. Chimpanzees, says Dr. de Waal, have their own social rules for sharing food, resolving conflicts and exacting justice.The Dutch-born zoologist, speaking yesterday in Baltimore at the 1996 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said that with chimps, the fight for survival has evolved into a complex and successful system that expects cooperation and mutual assistance.

BOSTON - It was probably a good omen that the Iowa caucuses were held on the Rev. Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King may be one of the last public reminders that the word religious is not always followed by right. And that every faith-based political position is not conservative. This has been a strange season for those who follow politics religiously. The campaign has left Iowa for New Hampshire on a wing and a prayer. But there's been more overt questioning about the "prayer" than the wing.

WASHINGTON -- When the Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, a noted Christian ethicist, inherited the pulpit of Foundry United Methodist Church here six years ago, his predecessor bequeathed him a bombshell powerful enough to shatter the church.The Rev. Edward W. Bauman, Foundry's beloved former minister, had sent a letter to each church member confessing that during his nearly 28 years as their pastor, he had "relationships of a sexual nature" with several women in the congregation.The next Sunday, Wogaman stepped to the pulpit to deliver what he regards as his "most important sermon" ever.

Paul Schrader's new film Auto Focus tells the story of Bob Crane, the 1960s TV actor whose star dimmed rapidly as he descended into a netherworld of indiscriminate sex and homemade pornography. Crane's is a fascinating tale, that of a seemingly average middle American who traded his family sedan and suburban comforts, his starring role on Hogan's Heroes, for a life that ended with his murder in a motel room in 1978. For Schrader, though, Crane is a means to an end; his life story enables the director to make a series of points about male sexuality and, more broadly, American morality.