There are several kinds of evil. One is mere misfortune that may even be the acts of many people colluding in a venture that fails, such as some of the economic \u201cbubbles\u201d that have afflicted Europe and America for several centuries. Another involve \u201cacts of God\u201d that are really Mother Earth\u2014Gaia\u2014who hardly knows humans exist, though she\u2019s developed some \u201cskin blemishes\u201d and dry patches on her skin, occasionally itches and scratches (we call the earthquakes), but it\u2019s all really quite innocent, planet-wise.<\/p>\n
The key is that evil operates as an expression of scope of consciousness. From the egocentric child, anything that is a frustration cannot be differentiated from evil. Mom\u2019s not buying that toy at the market\u2014even when you whine, for goodness (or badness) sakes, to show that you really neeeed it\u2014well, she\u2019s at least mean if not outright evil. (Never mind that you have toys coming out of your ears.) As for nepotism and protection and greed for your family, well, if you don\u2019t who will? \u201cThey\u201d would exploit and rob\u00a0 (or even torture and kill) you if you don\u2019t do it to them. This rationalization applies also for communities and even nations. It doesn\u2019t seem evil to you because your intentions are good\u2014at least for the \u201cwe,\u201d who must be protected from the \u201cthey\u201d who will only do us harm. Ditto with coyotes or wolves who eat \u201cour\u201d sheep.<\/p>\n
What makes acts evil, then, is the emergence of what seems to be a broader view, a more encompassing or longer-term perspective. From those perspectives, many acts that seem good in the short term for the narrow circle seem evil in the larger view. I draw on my understanding of Alfred North Whitehead, here, and don\u2019t claim these ideas as my own\u2014and if I misunderstand the good late philosopher, please correct me.<\/p>\n
The point of this mini-essay is to temper our inclinations to be judgmental. I don\u2019t mind judging in the sense of noting what to us seem to be higher versus lower values. I don\u2019t think people can truly withhold at least unconscious feelings of preference. But they can also combine this with compassion, the awareness that many issues may have several points of view, and in other ways hold off on simplistic moralizing and premature conclusions. All this must be taken in the spirit of the species becoming more conscious, less limited in perspective. I confess, though, that there are many issues about which I have not come to a firm conclusion; these continue to be problems<\/a> for thoughtful people in our own era. It feels that it would be evil of me to think of others who don\u2019t agree with me as evil. Sometimes a holding-off on judgment and remaining open to negotiation and discussion seems better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are several kinds of evil. One is mere misfortune that may even be the acts of many people colluding in a venture that fails, such as some of the economic \u201cbubbles\u201d that have afflicted Europe and America for several centuries. Another involve \u201cacts of God\u201d that are really Mother Earth\u2014Gaia\u2014who hardly knows humans exist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}