In America right now, we use words like 'smart' to talk about bombs. American rhetoric is grounded in ideas of capital-G Good, capital-E Evil, and it's very clear who is on which side. But in a book you can do just the opposite. You can use all lower-case words.

Raising your kids vegetarian is a great way to encourage them to do the opposite of what you want! But the goal is not to have them have the same values that I have. It's to have them act on their values.

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil--only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip.

Which, then, brings us closer to what we want to communicate: saying what we intend, or trying to say the opposite?