Good And Evil

These last couple of days I haven't had the energy or time to do any kind of research for my daily posts, so I fall back on whatever pops up in my mind when I take a seat behind my keyboard. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? I'll let you decide, but today "good" and "bad" are the subjects I'm going to be rambling about...

When thinking about good and bad, or good and evil, a couple of associations are automatically made in my mind. I can't help that, because my world view, the way I think about all kinds of social, political and economical topics, is the result of how my personality has evolved. But there's also the way we as a species have evolved, and I believe strongly that the concepts of "good" and "evil" can be explained largely by the way we've evolved as social creatures. To sum it up in a few words, we describe as "good" behavior that's beneficial to the continuation of the species, and "bad" the behavior that's detrimental to the continuation of humankind. And not just the continuation, but the betterment, the increased happiness and well being of our kind. That's why murder, especially the murder of a child, is seen as evil, and a parent's love and care for their children is seen as good. Feeding the needy is good, robbing them from their meager possessions or what little food they have is bad. Good and bad would have no meaning if I was alone on this planet, they get meaning because living in a society, depending for my survival on that society, simply makes applying "the golden rule" (treat others the way you like to be treated by others) common sense.

In a society of peers that's bigger than a family or a tribe, a society where it's impossible to know or have a personal relationship with all the other members of that society, it's only common sense to codify the morals. In the tribe we know everyone, and we're constantly aware that it makes no sense whatsoever to kill another member of that tribe; the tribe will only be weaker because of it. But in a society of millions, that perspective changes drastically; what's one member more or less when there's so many? Especially when we live in a society where we're taught that every other member is the competition and that eliminating the competition is a good thing? Now, you may retort that capitalism isn't about eliminating people, but I'd ask you to think again. Poverty kills people and reaching the capitalist dream of untold riches can only be achieved by leaving countless poor people in your wake; that's simply how it works. Poor people exist because rich people exist and poor countries exist because rich countries exist. Most people would say that capitalism is amoral, that morality simply is not an issue, but I'm past that: capitalism is immoral because we can differentiate between good and evil and somehow, somewhere (I have strong opinions on those as well) we've collectively decided, or had it decided for us that we go on this path of competition and elimination.

There's also, in my opinion, a good argument to be made against the codification of morality in laws and rules, and here capitalism shows its ugly face again. The existence of laws makes us morally lazy. When the law says it's okay to pay my workers a wage on which they can not live, my hands are clean. If the law says that I can move my polluting industry to a low wage third world country without environmental regulation, I can do so with a clean conscience. I hope it's clear to see how capitalism plays a big part in this loss of morality in the process of codifying morality. It's come to a point where we are the greatest threat to our own survival. Generations that come after me will have their fights cut out for them because my generation failed to see this loss of morality; instead we've globalized it after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

A special mention has to be made here about religion and the Bible. Religious people do not believe that our morals stem from our evolution as social creatures. Instead they believe their morals came from up high, and that without the commandments of their God the world would descend into violent barbarism. Really, I mean that. I've seen and heard God fearing individuals say that about themselves, that they wouldn't trust themselves if they suddenly were presented with irrefutable proof that God doesn't exist. They believe that morals are absolute, unchanging, set in stone tablets. Well, I don't know about you, but I see a clear difference in our shared morality now compared to the days when slavery was considered normal, and when wives were literally owned bu their husband masters. I'll repeat what I said in the beginning: good is what's good for humanity as a whole, because our tribe has become global, and bad is what's bad for humanity. Capitalism is bad, so maybe we should try something else. The problem is, in my mind, that capitalism has indeed become our new religion...

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