Thoughts on What is Evil?
The best that I can put it is that good and evil can be described both subjectively and objectively. How can we understand the meaning of good and evil, rights and freedoms in a real-life, non-abstract, natural sense?
Evil is what is happened to you when you are suffering. Evil is when YOU are unjustly punished, or stolen from, when you are hurt by someone, when you are killed or tortured or bombed or tazed or imprisoned for no just reason. That’s what EVIL is. When YOU are deceived by someone or some organization. When YOU are targeted with propaganda. When YOU are poisoned with something in your food or water, or in your medicine. If you or your family members have been victimized or enslaved, if your organs have been stolen, if YOU have been victimized, if YOU have suffered from a medical procedure you were told would help you, then that’s EVIL to you. And so it is, it really is. If you have lost your job for no good reason–because of free trade agreements–and can’t find a better one, if you are over-worked and under-paid, that’s evil to you. And if you can’t afford the taxes and lose your home, that’s evil to you. And so it is. And probably you don’t “deserve” it. If someone set things up so that you suffered a loss economically–set up trade agreements that wrecked your economy in order to break down the power and the will and the identity of the majority population, then possibly that’s an evil action. If someone lied you into accepting a war on false pretences and people younger than you were sent off with persuasive arguments to go have their minds and bodies and spiritual centers wrecked in foreign countries, to be poisoned with depleted uranium and whatever else, to have tests conducted on them, then that’s evil if you could realize it had even been happening. But maybe you can’t.
But it’s only when it happens to YOU, because you’ve been told that it doesn’t happen to people. You haven’t “seen” it yet, you haven’t “experienced” it yet supposedly because of your immersion in propaganda.
OR, you’ve been told that other people deserve what they get. You are invested in the MYTH of those you run your mind–you have an excuse for what happens to others–there is always a justification. They must be “bad.” They deserve to suffer, they deserve evil to be inflicted upon them because of mere opinions, because of mere location, because of associations they can’t control. Because of arbitrary laws based on no principles that have been applied arbitrarily and selectively and unjustly. Because you’ve accepted lies, you accept EVIL being done to OTHERS. As long as it doesn’t affect YOU or conflict with your propagandized belief system.
You haven’t been trained in the importance of empathy, in the importance of the golden rule, to do unto others as they would do unto you. You’ve been trained in unquestioning obedience to corporations and government, your mind has been overwhelmed by a stream of meaningless and entertaining and manipulative data. You weren’t told fully how to think for yourself. You weren’t told the importance of empathy, of concern for others. You were taught that human life isn’t sacred, that human beings are contemptible, that we don’t deserve to be treated respectfully–except YOU.
The more atomized you are, the less intact your family is, the less you care. Why has that happened?
Evil is an enemy defeating YOU. Evil is an enemy destroying your society, undermining relationships and connections that give you support of one kind or another. Evil is an enemy programming you to accept LESS–less life, less resources for your use, less wealth for your use, less family and friends, less relationships, less love. But MORE degradation, more disease, more lies, more pain, more “austerity”, more “assisted suicide” and more death in general.
How do YOU understand evil more objectively? How do we define it objectively. Well, start thinking about US. A human being is BOTH an individual AND is also CONNECTED to OTHERS through a shared nature, similarities, biology and needs. Those are not contradictions that we have to switch between and divide up ideologically. Those are the realities–the individual and OTHERS. In this sense, YOU is WE. YOU is US. YOU is ME. YOU is EVERYONE else in your society. We are in it TOGETHER–but it would be better if we exercised our individual awareness rather than being part of a “mass mind.” We’re all in the same boat–being told by those in power to throw certain people over the edge into the water to be drowned–the weaker ones, the sicker ones, the less capable ones. Empathy, relating to others as ourselves is the golden rule. This is empathy. If the suffering or the evil is happening to someone else undeservedly, it could also happen to YOU.
On the flip side, we should understand when someone stands up for themselves, that it’s the same as YOU standing up for your self. When YOU value your own life and freedoms, it’s the same with others valuing their own lives and independence. What’s true for you in these areas is likely to be TRUE FOR OTHERS. So I believe we can understand good and evil in this sense. If we have lost the sacredness of life, it is likely because of the evil propaganda we have been immersed in, the life boat ethics that many have been taught in schools–throwing the weaker and the less able over the side of the boat–the moral relativity that leads to human life and human flesh–fetal cells just being an example–being trafficked as commodities. There is such evil. It’s always been with us. The slavers are still with us–they weren’t locked up. The ruthless–those who promulgate “survival of the fittest” (recognize that?) are still with us and they teach us through the obedient paid servants of their system–government or private sector–we’re all part of that to some degree unfortunately. There is prey and predator. There is conquered and conqueror. If our minds don’t understand we are part of something so simple in that sense, then it’s because our minds have been poisoned–poisoned with false narratives, poisoned with LIES–masses of contradictions that go against reality and nature.
It’s a lot of effort on someone’s part to do so, because we are perfectly capable–potentially–if we were given a break from the mass confusion for one day or one week or one month–of recognizing it and throwing off these delusions. A lot of garbage–distractions and made-up events–a lot of media of all kinds–and lies–and fear–has to be funneled into our heads to keep us so off balance. It’s a lot of work to keep us down. That’s my reason for being somewhat optimistic. Can we hold on to what we have that’s good–being true to ourselves, being true to reality and nature? If we snap out of it, maybe.