Arthur Noll
Timothy brought up the question of good and evil, means and ends. People often go around endlessly on these things, what they are and why. I suspect that often our ideas of what is good and what is evil is confused in our minds, and this cannot help but create confusion when we try to talk with other confused people about it. So I tried to look at the matter closer, and came up with the following train of thought.
A basic principle of the universe, as I see it, is the principle of repulsion and attraction. Consider two atoms. What else can they do, except either be attracted to each other, or repulsed? Having neither is simply the zero point on the scale between high attraction and high repulsion. There are no other forces for the relationship between two entities, than attraction and repulsion.
While some are repulsed by the idea of being compared to an atom, I don’t see that people really behave any differently. We are either attracted or repulsed by other people, or things, or ideas. What I call “good”, is something I am attracted to. I want it in my life. What I call “evil”, is something I find repulsive, I want it away from me, I don’t want it part of my life. Everything we want is formed out of the various combinations of attraction and repulsion.
While this idea of attraction and rejection, good and evil, is simple enough, we can quickly come to a point of confusion here. It is a fundamental thing that people don’t want death or pain for themselves. We want to live, take it for granted that this is a good thing. And yet, if we look at the big picture, death is part of life. Without death of others, life for ourselves would not be possible. We kill to eat, plants, animals. We kill to have shelter the same way. If we kill too much, though, we don’t have anything to live on. Additionally, creatures of all species die with age, or are killed in various ways, leaving their offspring in their place. All around us, we find death and life in a continuing cycle. We want to live, don’t want to die, but death is part of life. How can this apparent contradiction be resolved? Some respond and say that there is no good or evil. But that is like saying that there is no attraction and repulsion in the universe, and clearly there is. Many, I think most, disregard such complications of whether death is good or not, and for them, life for them is good, death for them is bad, end of the matter. That was a viewpoint that worked very well in the past, where many factors killed us and we had no idea how to stop it. We could view death as bad, struggle against it as much as we wanted, and yet it came and was really good for us. The life around us, that sustained us, was abundant, we couldn’t take too much no matter how hard we tried, and we lived relatively well for much of the time.
So the resolution of the matter is rather simple, actually, and is found in a single word. Balance. Death is not always bad. Too much death is bad. The right amount of death is good. Too much of one kind of life is bad for others, because they get too much death. Everything living is bound together in a balance of life and death. Too much death of one thing, is ultimately bad for the life form that prospers at its expense, because the two are bound together
Around the globe, it has been tacitly accepted that balance is to be ignored. The growth of human population at the expense of other living things was considered wholly good. Technology and scientific understanding gave us an edge over the ancient “enemy”, of death. Societies didn’t look at the big picture. It seems likely that the average capacity of understanding, of sensitivity, was not, and is not there, to see this picture. When the limits imposed by balance were reached, the solution was to find alternatives. You could move on to other land. If there was not enough wood, use coal, then oil and gas. Used up the soil fertility? Use oil and gas to mine and manufacture fertilizers and transport food. If these various alternatives involve land where other groups of people live, those people must be dealt with. The resources must be taken, or the continued growth, “good”, will stop. The other side sees it differently, their continued life, never mind growth, is in jeopardy, bad.
Americans are presently violently repulsed at the idea that the only good American is a dead American. How violently did they protest at the idea two centuries ago that the only good Indian is a dead Indian? A small minority was against this idea, for many it was completely acceptable and was acted on. This was the cultural fundamental, growth at the expense of others. Slavery was also accepted on this premise. It was ended, only to be replaced with wage slavery. Anyone against all this was evil. Growth of material wealth and population was good, period. While sometimes lip service is given to the idea of balance, actions speak louder than words. Balance has been disregarded and is still disregarded. It is not considered good, it would put restrictions on the growth considered good. At the present time, fossil fuels have become indispensable to hold the line against death, and continue to increase population. But they become depleted here, and the US puts it’s tentacles abroad. And runs into other people once again.
There will be no end to war until the majority of people have the sensitivity to see balance as the prime good, the thing we have the greatest attraction too. Rather than being willing to die for the sake of the continued growth of what we consider ours, we must be willing to die for the sake of balance. Only then will there be peace in the world.
In the history of life, having a greater sensitivity to a problem has always given an edge to the life form possessing that sensitivity. Whether it has been the sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste, if you needed it and didn’t have it, you ran into problems unaware, and died. The fact that people have run heedless of balance to this point, in spite of warnings, tells me they cannot see the logic of it, and are likely to continue until they have smashed themselves to dust. It is the rule of evolution, that survival is of the fittest.
There is a war between these two ways of thought, that has been fought over many centuries now. Often it is fought inside of people’s minds as much as between separate individuals. I recently saw an editorial in a newspaper, that we must have rational objectives for our wars, the American people will not stand to get involved in another quagmire. I found this rather amusing, the American people are already standing deep in a quagmire, they don’t have any choices about stepping in, they are already in. They have been marked for death, and the point emphasized in blood. The struggle between balance and unlimited growth is really what it is all about. We may not want the battle, it is there whether we like it or not. If we want to resolve the battle, we must define closely what it is that we find good, and why. To leave this unresolved, means we will only thrash deeper and deeper into the mud, and never find a bottom.
As Timothy says, this is our choice, this is the point at which we make fundamental decisions about what we believe in, what is good, and what is evil.