Good & Evil

[realityrunt]

Is good and evil real? Don't we just label one action good and another evil based on an emotional response we have about the actions of others.

 

If I feel something bad about someone, doesn't that emotion dictate the terms on which I perceive that individual.

Do we create our moral precepts based on what feels good or evil.

 

Say I feel guilty about something, does that actually infer that I've done or thought something evil.

Is guilt a good emotion or evil emotion, or is it just a emotion?

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Generally, yes, it's all a construct. For example, the feds currently are catering entirely to their rich contributors at the expense of the general public. Most of us see that as evil, given that they were elected to serve us. But all along, they were in it for themselves and see this as a wonderful opportunity to get far more rich than previously. Rich = happy, if we let them live. The French had a nice solution to oligarchy. The oligarchy destroyed them for years, and finally were paid back.

 

Many people are now having meltdowns over being touched sexually. This has been going on since before mankind spoke any language. Incest, child rape, adult rape, and tons of other abuse were rampant. Eventually we formed cultures that had taboos and laws to protect people. Power has nearly always been a haven for indulgence, even in the church. Monks had brothels of imprisoned women whom they could torture as they pleased, "for God" of course. A very happy time for men who saw women as the downfall for mankind.

 

The Asians have the Yin/Yang symbol to remind them that in all "good" there is evil, and versa vice. If I get a job, someone else didn't, and so on. If I'm sick, I see that as bad. But some bacteria or viruses have found a home and are busy replicating until I find a way to kill them, or my body does naturally. Life eats life on almost every level, often without killing first. We regard that as terrible, but that is nature. I often go back to looking at nature for interpreting culture and social issues. I don't see all human life as valuable or important. Some people are like cancer, only ever harmful to the populace and should be treated like a cancer. Others find that unconscionable and try to fit people into their "everyone has good in them" mold.

 

Nature doesn't care about how we value something. It really only has one goal, survive and reproduce. Make more life. Then die and be recycled as food for other lifeforms from wolves down to fungi. Some see life as an offshoot of natural entropy since life wastes energy far better than non-life. The song "Old Man River" is about the complete indifference of nature to human suffering (and joy), not that nature is really conscious per se. Generally in nature, animals that are defective or damaged are treated like shit by the others of the same species. I watch birds do this all the time in a literal pecking order. One crow that had deformed or damaged feet was kept from eating by others that would peck at it for eating "their" food. One duck that looked very different (a Chinese variant that was abandoned by someone) was continually attacked by other ducks, and when they finally drew blood they went into a frenzy pecking at it. I intervened because I liked the odd duck. No idea what happened to it eventually.

 

Mostly our laws reflect many years of refining what people consider to be good or evil. The basics are murder, theft, mating with another person's mate, forcibly mating, lying, breaking contracts, cheating under the pretense of fairness, and similar. We had to have rules in order to get along together and not feed off of each other, but work together for common protection and wellbeing. Otherwise there are no reasons to submit to the rules and the strongest most wiley and conniving tend to get what they want, at least for a while. Or these same rise to power in a society and people look the other way in order to keep the semblance of order and authority.

 

Agree or disagree, there are punishments for breaking rules, though they are not always able to catch you, and many times the enforcers are guilty of using their position for indulgence, and will sometimes be bought off (like the UN soldiers engaging in rape when they are supposed to be protecting the women against it).

 

Generally, I choose to be kind and polite. There are some that don't warrant that. Sadly, laws also protect them. For example, our mailbox has been destroyed 3 times this year by tweakers looking for quick cash and means to identity theft. I'd like to simply shoot them, but that is illegal and I would be locked up for even shooting them in the legs. And so this region has become a haven for them, barely punishing any, and letting them out early for overcrowding. Businesses are closing because they don't feel safe downtown anymore. But the laws continue to protect the cancer and see them as poor unfortunate humans that just need another chance. I'd like the Soylent Green trucks to scoop them up and use them for fertilizer and dog meat. But generally, I choose to be kind and polite. Some of that is out of fear of the law and the consequences I don't want. Some of it is based on morals I formed over the years, most recently the power of choice in what and who I want to be. I'm likely not done becoming whatever it is I'm going to be. Perhaps our culture will become really nasty in the next few years and I won't even survive. In a thousand years, it will all be very different anyway. We are all transient temporary beings, but perhaps there is more to us than we currently know.