Abstract. The article presents the results of the socio-cultural phenomenological analysis of the image of Judge Holden, presented in the anti-western novel Blood Meridian by K. McCarthy as a cultural code of absolute evil in the context of the development of scientific ideas about war tricksters and their place in the modern world. The research methods include socio-cultural, conceptual and phenomenological analysis. It is argued that the image of Holden represents a specific type of cultural archetype of the trickster. Holden is a war trickster who uses chaos as a tool to assert his own philosophy, while endowed with supernatural features to express the hyperbole of universal evil. The features of the psychological type of the Judge are revealed, the reasons for deviation from the Jungian archetype of the trickster are argued, and Holden's faces are considered as the embodiment of an amoral researcher who rejects any restrictions. The analysis of the attractiveness of the Judge's dance as an expression of outwardly attractive absolute power over others is carried out. The nature of Judge Holden's philosophy of peace and war is clarified, it is shown that the antihero changes the very perception of war, which for him is a sacred act that determines the essence of human existence. Projections of the image of Judge Holden on the modern world are proposed, considerations are presented regarding the fight against tricksters of war, their modern apologists and other followers - «armchair warriors», mercenaries and operators of unmanned vehicles who have not emerged from the stage of game addiction, as well as the all-consuming power of war hawks catalyzing modern hybrid military-political conflicts, taking into account their occurrence to a large extent in virtual space.

Keywords: trickster, philosophy of violence, absolute evil, Judge Holden, cultural code of absolute evil, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.