Good and evil

There is a big discrepancy between what people say they believe about good and evil and what they actually believe.

One popular line of thought is that evil is the absence of good. I think this is called the privation theory. I believe that this is not really what people believe, though they think they do.

The duality of good and evil is often depicted as the duality between cold and hot. Heat, being associated with Hell, is also associated with evil. By contrast, though we don't really come out and say it, Heaven is usually depicted as a cold place: high in the sky, clouds, white and blue colors. Beneath the surface of this comparison lies a more profound psychological truth which might be processed subconsciously, but is not something people who believe in absolute good or evil would come out and say. That is: cold, per se, does not actually exist. Cold is really just the absence of heat. Following this line of reasoning, one could say that analogously, good does not exist in its own right, but is really the absence of evil. Thus, evil is a thing in and of itself, while good is the absence of that thing.

One example is the concept of innocence. Most people consider innocence, chastity, virginity, to be good, verging on holy. But what are these things but a lack of knowledge or experience? A lack of sexual contact? A lack of worldly patina that encrusts us as we grow in a world full of dirt and corruption? Good, here, is the absence of something, not a thing in its own right.

What about good deeds? Good deeds are nothing more than the identification and nullification, or reduction of identified causes of suffering. Disease is an evil, so reducing disease is good. Hunger is evil, so reducing hunger is good. Poverty is evil, so reducing poverty is good. Ah, but is not poverty a lack of money? It turns out that money, being a thing in itself, is also an evil! It is, in fact, often regarded as the root of all evil. So, by contrast, poverty must be a good? No?

In any case, it seems reasonable to conclude that good does not really exist in and of itself, but only as an absence of something, be it "evil" or suffering of some degree or another.

So, if good is the absence of things, then the ultimate good is the absence of everything, isn't it? It seems far fetched, but when you think about it...

Demons feature quite often in video games, movies, and other form so popular culture. Everyone can draw up pictures of vile horned creatures that embody evil and sin. Similarly, depictions of Hell, even going back the morality plays of the middle ages and to Dante's Inferno are ripe with imagery and visceral sensory impressions. In the old days, this evil was often juxtaposed by a strong belief in God and in the positive power of good. Not so much anymore. Although video games, for instance, draw heavily from the infernal iconography, no mention exists of God or any other real divine power. It is as if the makers are afraid to mention the source of good, unless it is some airy-fairy flakey foofoo new age thing, like a holy stone or a generic mother goddess figure. They want the juicy bits of the religion that includes the monsters, but they reject the meaningful bits of religion that teach us what good is supposed to be. Is it that they have forgotten what good is, or is it that they recognize that good, being the absence of evil, being sterile and boring, is ultimately lifeless, and that the only way that we, as mortals, can ever truly experience the purity of ultimate good is after we die. Meanwhile, evil continues to manifest, fairly frequently, in this world of ours.

So it makes sense, from this point of view, to consider Manicheism as a valid world-view: the world is evil, and the non-existent nothingness of infinity is good. Still, very little refreshment can be derived from such a religion. Similarly, Buddhism reflects a pessimistic point of view by offering the world of life and living as a wheel of Samsara, of pain, misery, and suffering caused by the sin of attachment. If we could only learn to divest ourselves of the motivating force of life, we could rest in eternal emptiness.

Should one take comfort in nihilism? The very idea makes as much sense as squeezing blood from a stone. However, it seems that nihilism has taken root in our culture and erupts in various forms, such as cultural relativism, diversity, and the most pernicious of all: moral relativism. All of these ideas are various disguises for nihilism: the idea that nothing has any real meaning and that the only meaning that exists is what we imbue with our minds at the time of perception. These ideas turn good and evil around until the terms are totally meaningless, and one is lost in a sea of grey areas and uncertainty. To the modern mind, such concepts of good and evil become quaint metaphors for old-fashioned people, who quibble about how many angels dance on pinheads, yet, when true horrifying evil is brought to light, people shower upon it invective, as though they still have some abysmal kernel of soul left within them that can point them toward good and evil, like a compass points to north.

In the end, we are left in a world full of evil, in which we imagine good to exist somewhere else. We do our best not to be evil, which, for most people, passes for good.

Yet, this is not enough. There is something more.