“Stand by your word.

Make fair rules.

Do the right thing.”

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 8, Stephen Addis Translation

 

No Country for Old Men explores the significance of high-civilized society, wherein the complexity of its internal movable parts exposes the contingency of gremlins in the engine, unbeknownst in possibility to the otherwise rough’n’tumble reality of the tried-n-true. 

And that is an otherwise other-worldly evil.

“Hear my voice, O God, when I plead;

guard my life from the enemy’s terror.

Hide me from a band of evil men,

from a crowd of evildoers,

who whet their tongues like swords;

they aim their arrows—cruel words—

to shoot from hiding at the blameless man;

they shoot him suddenly and without fear.

They arm themselves with an evil word;

when they speak, it is to conceal traps;

they think, “Who will see them?”

Let the wrongdoings they have concealed,

each one inside him, his secret thoughts,

be wholly exposed.”

-Psalm 64:2-7 Sefaria Translation

The Secret Destroyer has not been so excitingly perceived, with such a will, with nevertheless a grounding principle of order that sustains a life whose goal is, simply, Hell.

“How evil is the case of those who deny Our signs. They only wrong themselves: anyone whom God guides has been rightly guided; while those He lets go astray will surely be the losers.”

-Quran 7.177-178 Maulana Wahiddudin Khan Translation

Mr. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is on a mission. And Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) is not apprehending of such a monstrous individual who hides in plain sight – as becomes potential with such a working of people who depend upon trustworthiness in order for social cooperation. 

“Without fundamental trust there is no trust at all.”

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 17, Stephen Addis Translation

His combat tours in Vietnam have prepared him well, to give him the confidence interval towards absconding with money – which Mr. Chigurh is after probably towards returning to whomever hired him – prepared to face Mexican drug dealers who have first rights to its possession.

But not this.

Not the wicked. 

“Hear, O LORD, what is just;

heed my cry, give ear to my prayer,

uttered without guile.

My vindication will come from You;

Your eyes will behold what is right.

You have visited me at night, probed my mind,

You have tested me and found nothing amiss;

I determined that my mouth should not transgress.

As for man’s dealings,

in accord with the command of Your lips,

I have kept in view the fate of the lawless.”

-Psalms 17:1-4 Sefaria Translation

Greed clashes with the vanity of a mindpower capable of imposing rules upon his life, however destructive they are to his society. It is provocative to realize the final confrontations Mr. Chigurh relishes in delivering his personal retribution; of a “homocidal lunatic”; who remains more rational and consistent than those who find the enigmatic question, to paraphrase, what use was your dogma if to ends here?, as a pseudo-Angel of Death, superfluous.

Because it is. 

“The coin don’t have no say.” Llewelyn’s wife Carla Jean confronts the foreigner with the fatalism of his own quest; of moving in plain sight. Where such mechanisms of renting out hotel rooms, filling lidocaine prescriptions, and purchasing car insurance all serve some wordless purpose not everyone has the answer for.

But the answer cannot certainly be unto permitting evil more possibilities for being. Because it cannot be the infinite goal which humans extend upon. 

By natural, no, intrinsic design of order of the mind itself. Agreement is not destructive per se, because it forms a continuum between prior and posterior. With other minds.

“Indeed, I spoke without understanding

Of things beyond me, which I did not know.”

-Job 42:3 Sefaria Translation

Lleweyn would have wished he had appreciated such a trait of human being. Of the need to cooperate socially, instead of going lone ranger in the dark. There are plenty of creepy crawlers that only the Mind of God sees,

“We exalt whoever we please: but above those who have knowledge there is One all knowing.”

-Quran 12:76 Maulana Wahiddudin Khan Translation

And therefore will sentence.

“We created many of [mankind] for hell. They have hearts they do not understand with; they have eyes they do not se with; and they have ears they do not hear with. Such people are like cattle – no they are even more misguided and heedless.”

-Quran 7.179 Maulana Wahiddudin Khan Translation

 

No, because I am a sinner is probably the soundest answer to retort in finale to such a vigilante executioner. As if it helps continue breathing.

Grade: A+