Does anyone ever think of themselves as being evil? A psychotic person might, but then such a person is generally recognized as being ill. I’m wondering about people generally thought of as being “normal”, or at least healthy; i.e. most of the rest of us. I wonder because, with evil so prevalent in our culture and our world, there must be a lot of evil people out there. Yet I don’t know of anyone who thinks of themselves as being evil.
Clearly, a lot of us are deluded, but how does one decide which side of the fence one is really on?
Why would a conservative Republican / religious fundamentalist / T-party supporter look at me and think “evil”? Right off let me say I know some such people. In fact I dearly love some people who fit this description. They don’t think of me as evil. But it doesn't take more than a few moments of reading the T-party blogs or listening to what their leaders say in the media, to suspect that I, being liberal, atheist, and pro-gun control, am the very Devil himself incarnate. What do I do, or think, or say, that makes them conclude the world is worse off for me being in it? How do I know they are not right? How do I know I'm not the evil one?
I support any woman’s right to end a pregnancy. It isn’t that I am pro-abortion it’s just that I’m pro-women. I know woman who have made the decision to end a pregnancy. It is inevitably one of the most heart wrenching decisions any of them ever faced. It is never easy. The idea that someone who doesn’t know the people involved, the circumstances they face, and the consequences of their choice, should still have the right to dictate what is done is simply indefensible to me. But a potential life will never be; and for some that is all that that is required to label pro-choice as “evil.”
The older I get, the more liberal I get, the more I see all life, not just each human life, as a unique and beautiful mystery in the cosmos. Ending abortions would be a wonderful thing to me … but it can’t be done by fiat and the consequences can’t be avoided either. It would seem the first step to ending abortions would be to ensure that every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy. That means real sex education and universal access to birth control. And that includes poor people, which means spending more tax money on the schools they attend as young people and providing health care when they can’t afford it. That same health care also helps women and their unborn to stay healthy, further reducing the times when abortion becomes a necessary option.
It also means drastically reducing the incidents of rape and incest. Doing so means spending money on mental health care, sex education (again) and actually reducing poverty. (Here is where we find a delightful confluence of efforts. The best way to reduce poverty is to give women control over how many children they have. Providing free birth control and real sex education to every woman is the best thing we could do to reduce poverty. Win – win!)
And it means, in the case of rape or incest leading to a pregnancy that is carried to term, that the women is not penalized in any way. Society picks up the tab for her prenatal health care and delivery if the man responsible can't do so from his jail cell. That means the mother is not required to care for, or even see, the child if the trama is just too much; which means that society picks up the tab for educating, raising, and caring for the baby as well. It means that the woman, even one who can't bring herself to care for the child of her abuser, is treated as a hero for taking the risk of letting this life be.
Any T-party candidate whose dedication to ending abortion is so deep that they will empower women, provide health care for all, insist on real sex education for the young, and provide birth control to anyone who desires it, can count on my vote. If he insists that any woman who carries a baby concieved in violence to term is treated as a hero and provide for in any way she, and the baby needs? I'll campaign for the fucker.
Will they still think of me as evil?
I am deeply anti-war. It is always the last, worst option where there is never a “winner”, only those who lost a little less than the “loser”. Since WWII we Americans have been particularly bad at fighting wars. They drag out for decades, hundreds of thousands of people (mostly non-combatants) become casualties. We leave a legacy of horrors behind (land mines, chemical and biological agents contaminating the land, depleted uranium) that burden a people even unto years later when they become allies. (Vietnam and agent orange anyone?) Trillions of tax payer dollars are thrown into these holes, utterly and totally wasted. (Iraq and Afghanistan anyone?) Thousands of America’s best are sacrificed to the mayhem, their families and loved ones left to carry on with broken hearts and lost dreams.
A war economy is a crippled, twisted, immoral economy that rewards the worst among us while punishing the best. Every 50 caliber bullet fired could provide a meal to a hungry person, every missile a 4 year collage degree for a dozen or more. With the resources wasted on war the world over human kind could make a near paradise of earth and move out to the stars.
I am deeply anti-war. (One of the reasons I am deeply anti-religion.)
Does this make me evil?
I am anti-greed. To put some meat on that statement I think it immoral for anyone to profit at the expense of, or off the efforts of, another. One of humanity’s most amazing traits is our drive to be good at a skill, to make things, to create something new. Another amazing thing is that we usually indulge in these efforts to make life better for other people. The truly remarkable cook serves up heavenly dishes for the sheer joy of the pleasure it brings to others. I know heavy machine operators. Their pay doesn’t change so long as they get the job done. But to a person they pride themselves on the skill they bring to the job and the fact that, when the job is done, something will be standing that people will use to make their lives better; a road, bridge, dam or building. Teachers, professors, EMTs, do you know any who set out to be half-assed at what they do? To be honest, I don’t.
Yet most of the resources in our country are controlled by those who inherited wealth from their family; and then loaned it out at interest. (The mechanisms for “loaning it out” vary … stocks, bonds, derivatives, complicated money swaps and playing with exchange rates … a nearly endless list of things that don’t actually exist outside of spread sheets and electronic accounting.) No pride in a skill, just an overwhelming lust to accumulate more money. Greed. Any economy based on greed is sure to be twisted, unfair, immoral, and ultimately untenable.
Our current system of capitalism is based on greed. As long as it is I am not a capitalist. (And I’ll be honest; I have no problem with taxing the shit out of the people who are accumulating the money, then using it to build schools and pay teachers and fire fighters. The pure fact is most of the truly rich did little or nothing to earn their fortune.)
Does that make me evil?
The love that gay people have for each other doesn’t appear to be any different than that of straight people. Gay people are born that way and being gay doesn’t look to hurt anything but the feelings of religious fundamentalists. There is no compelling reason to deny gay people the civil rights straight people enjoy.
Does that make me evil?
I happen to think the truth matters. And though facts are not truth, it is unlikely anyone will stumble on a truth that stands in stark contrast to the facts. The fact is the earth is round. The facts are the earth revolves around the sun and the sun formed first. The fact is most of the stars visable in the night sky are billions of years older than the earth. The fact is that evolution is how biology works. There are those who claim that the truth is “God exists.” We can argue that claim somewhere else, but a god who claims the earth is flat, or was created before the sun and the stars, or that evolution is not how biology works, is a lying god. I guess one can worship a lying god if one so chooses. I can’t. (As far as I have discovered all of the gods invented by man end up being lying gods; one of the reasons I am not a believer.)
Does that make me evil?
On the other hand … Outlawing abortion by fiat, without providing health care, sex education, or birth control will result in women dying. It will result in children being born with birth defects. It will result in more poverty, more children living unnecessarily short and painful lives, more misery and pain in the world.
Is that evil?
America’s war machine will continue to churn out death for no other reason than to provide profits for the few.
Is that evil?
Trillions of dollars were taken out of America’s economy by the unregulated greed of Wall Street. Trillions of tax dollars were used to bail them out of the holes they had dug for themselves. Fraud on a scale unique in human history. Virtually all of those responsible remain behind their desks or retired with vast wealth. Some went to the West Wing of the White House. No one went to jail.
Is that evil?
Political campaigns are nothing but overt lies; both parties really are just making shit up, flinging it, and hoping something will stick to the other side. Barack Obama may be a disappointment or a complete disaster, depending on your political point of view. There may even be some who think he has been an outstanding President – though I don’t know anyone who does. But he isn’t a Muslim, isn’t a terrorist, wouldn’t know a socialist if locked in a closet with one, and is an American citizen.
Yet a multi-billion dollar media empire continues to suggest that he is – is – would – and isn’t.
Is that evil?
I think it might be.
Evil isn't what we think. It is what we do when given the chance, who we hurt, and the lies we try to pass off as truth, or even just fact.
That is how you tell.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Way off the reservation
A conversation with a friend sparked a thought that lead way, way off the reservation...
I think human kinds main problem is dealing with and ultimately outgrowing the evil that came along with our evolution. That we are a species branched from a tribal, hunting carnivore with a ferocious drive to breed while competing for limited resources, pretty much covers where most of what (some of us anyway) now call evil. Toss in a small (but not infinitesimal) percentage of the population exhibiting various symptoms of serious mental illness and there is no need to evoke a sinister, nearly all powerful and malevolent spirit, to explain where evil comes from. It is tangled up in both our evolution and our DNA.
Religion was an attempt by an infant intelligent species just starting to struggle with understanding the conflict born of instincts that worked for survival in the past now threatening massive destruction. Given that we have just recently discovered that we are evolved from a tribal, hunting carnivore, various religious stories where actually pretty good attempts. But they still turned out to be a wrong and thus offer little help in overcoming the evil in our world. The best they seem to do is promise that those who make it to one of the heaven's will find evil has magically disappeared. Not a bad deal if it could be true, but if we want to survive as a species, it looks like we will have to overcome evil right here in this world.
Some bits of religion are a good start if it is true that most of them have some teachings similar to "love your neighbor" and "treat everyone as you would want to be treated". As an ex-Christian I can say that there are some such teachings in Christianity. They were the last ones I clung to as my faith faded away and still form the basis of my take on true morality. Unfortunately such teachings were a minor part of Christianity even back then, and have since been completely abandoned by the American Christian Church, most of Christendom, and apparently by much of every major religion in the world.
If the various religions of the world worshiped the "love your neighbor", "do unto others...," "greed is bad", "compassion is good" versions of their gods and not the "those that are different from you are not the chosen and are going to hell" versions, life on this little planet might be much improved. The god(s) still would not exist but shit, at that point, who would care? There are followers of religion who claim that only a belief in god - and a fear of hell - are keeping them from being complete homicidal maniacs. It doesn't matter at all that the god they worship doesn't exist. In fact all that really matters is they keep believing that it does! (On the other hand the rest of us would be much better off if those whose belief in a god gives free reign to their homicidal delusions would abandon their faith.)
Believing in a god that actually required one to practice love would be something similar to believing to a god who is going to send you to hell if you rape your pretty neighbor. Imagine what would happen if believers thought they were going to hell if they didn't love their neighbor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and treat others as they want to be treated. (I think there is actually a place in the Christian bible that says just exactly that. Curiously, I never hear Christians talking of taking that part literally.) I'm not sure that fear is actually a very good motivator over the long haul, but I guess it is better than nothing. Regardless of what motivates them I have no problem with believers who seek social justice, work to reign in the warmongers, via against the abuses of prison systems, are critical of an economic system based on greed, or support anything else that falls under the "love your neighbor" and "do unto others..." banner. If I could find any I would consider them allies. Unfortunately every morning's news headlines tells a different tale of what religion brings to our world.
So we are still faced with the task of overcoming evil in the world but so far, as a species, have not taken many steps in that direction. How does one overcome evil without resorting to the tools of evil? How does one counter force without force, coercion without incarceration, abuse without abuse? Non-violence is an ethos I would love to hold, but it can't survive those who resort to violence. To be honest, in our world today, the bad guys usually win and the rest of us know it.
Here is the thing ... in a cosmos as vast and as old as we suspect this one to be, knowing that evolution and constant creativity are woven into the very fabric of space and time, and thinking of a multi-verse filled with a barely imaginable diversity of life and intelligence ... it must be that some species somewhere has figured out how to outgrow the impulses bred by its evolutionary past. Or maybe there is an evolutionary branch to intelligence that doesn't grow through homicidal tribal apes? If the universe is as it appears to be, it is almost certain that there are forms of intelligence, species, collective minds, something, out there, that is "good" to its very core.
The very structure of the universe may well be bent to making that happen. After all we seem to be the local poster children for what happens to a world where intelligence can't find its way to good. The indications are that such a species doesn't actually survive very long.
I am an atheist, yet it seems to me that there is a moral imperative built into the very structure of being. Once there is intelligence, and as soon as that intelligence starts building tools, morality, goodness, love, compassion, all become requirements for survival. As the tools of mass destruction become ever more accessible and powerful, greed, hate, arrogance, violence, even neglected mental illness, all are open invitations to the death of all. To me the recent pandemic of gun violence is a preview of what happens to a society that can't even define "good", let alone work toward it.
Politics, religion, economics, corporations, all social structures for that matter, must eventually be infused with the imperative of being non-violent, compassionate, tolerant, and loving, or the human species will excise itself from a universe that demands goodness.
And that brothers and sisters, is, sadly, about as far off the reservation as one can go.
I think human kinds main problem is dealing with and ultimately outgrowing the evil that came along with our evolution. That we are a species branched from a tribal, hunting carnivore with a ferocious drive to breed while competing for limited resources, pretty much covers where most of what (some of us anyway) now call evil. Toss in a small (but not infinitesimal) percentage of the population exhibiting various symptoms of serious mental illness and there is no need to evoke a sinister, nearly all powerful and malevolent spirit, to explain where evil comes from. It is tangled up in both our evolution and our DNA.
Religion was an attempt by an infant intelligent species just starting to struggle with understanding the conflict born of instincts that worked for survival in the past now threatening massive destruction. Given that we have just recently discovered that we are evolved from a tribal, hunting carnivore, various religious stories where actually pretty good attempts. But they still turned out to be a wrong and thus offer little help in overcoming the evil in our world. The best they seem to do is promise that those who make it to one of the heaven's will find evil has magically disappeared. Not a bad deal if it could be true, but if we want to survive as a species, it looks like we will have to overcome evil right here in this world.
Some bits of religion are a good start if it is true that most of them have some teachings similar to "love your neighbor" and "treat everyone as you would want to be treated". As an ex-Christian I can say that there are some such teachings in Christianity. They were the last ones I clung to as my faith faded away and still form the basis of my take on true morality. Unfortunately such teachings were a minor part of Christianity even back then, and have since been completely abandoned by the American Christian Church, most of Christendom, and apparently by much of every major religion in the world.
If the various religions of the world worshiped the "love your neighbor", "do unto others...," "greed is bad", "compassion is good" versions of their gods and not the "those that are different from you are not the chosen and are going to hell" versions, life on this little planet might be much improved. The god(s) still would not exist but shit, at that point, who would care? There are followers of religion who claim that only a belief in god - and a fear of hell - are keeping them from being complete homicidal maniacs. It doesn't matter at all that the god they worship doesn't exist. In fact all that really matters is they keep believing that it does! (On the other hand the rest of us would be much better off if those whose belief in a god gives free reign to their homicidal delusions would abandon their faith.)
Believing in a god that actually required one to practice love would be something similar to believing to a god who is going to send you to hell if you rape your pretty neighbor. Imagine what would happen if believers thought they were going to hell if they didn't love their neighbor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and treat others as they want to be treated. (I think there is actually a place in the Christian bible that says just exactly that. Curiously, I never hear Christians talking of taking that part literally.) I'm not sure that fear is actually a very good motivator over the long haul, but I guess it is better than nothing. Regardless of what motivates them I have no problem with believers who seek social justice, work to reign in the warmongers, via against the abuses of prison systems, are critical of an economic system based on greed, or support anything else that falls under the "love your neighbor" and "do unto others..." banner. If I could find any I would consider them allies. Unfortunately every morning's news headlines tells a different tale of what religion brings to our world.
So we are still faced with the task of overcoming evil in the world but so far, as a species, have not taken many steps in that direction. How does one overcome evil without resorting to the tools of evil? How does one counter force without force, coercion without incarceration, abuse without abuse? Non-violence is an ethos I would love to hold, but it can't survive those who resort to violence. To be honest, in our world today, the bad guys usually win and the rest of us know it.
Here is the thing ... in a cosmos as vast and as old as we suspect this one to be, knowing that evolution and constant creativity are woven into the very fabric of space and time, and thinking of a multi-verse filled with a barely imaginable diversity of life and intelligence ... it must be that some species somewhere has figured out how to outgrow the impulses bred by its evolutionary past. Or maybe there is an evolutionary branch to intelligence that doesn't grow through homicidal tribal apes? If the universe is as it appears to be, it is almost certain that there are forms of intelligence, species, collective minds, something, out there, that is "good" to its very core.
The very structure of the universe may well be bent to making that happen. After all we seem to be the local poster children for what happens to a world where intelligence can't find its way to good. The indications are that such a species doesn't actually survive very long.
I am an atheist, yet it seems to me that there is a moral imperative built into the very structure of being. Once there is intelligence, and as soon as that intelligence starts building tools, morality, goodness, love, compassion, all become requirements for survival. As the tools of mass destruction become ever more accessible and powerful, greed, hate, arrogance, violence, even neglected mental illness, all are open invitations to the death of all. To me the recent pandemic of gun violence is a preview of what happens to a society that can't even define "good", let alone work toward it.
Politics, religion, economics, corporations, all social structures for that matter, must eventually be infused with the imperative of being non-violent, compassionate, tolerant, and loving, or the human species will excise itself from a universe that demands goodness.
And that brothers and sisters, is, sadly, about as far off the reservation as one can go.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Saving America?
The T-Party continues to drive the Republican Party further and further toward … I’m not sure. They claim “freedom” and “liberty”, a USA to be proud of once again. They go so far as to claim that they are "saving" America. And yet here is what I see as the T- Party goals.
Abandoning the idea that civil rights are a good thing for all human beings and replacing liberty with the dictates of religious fundamentalism. Whose religious fundamentalism isn’t yet clear. It will be some sect of the Christian religion and will include a basic intolerance of any other world view. A USA that is caught in sectarian battles between various sects of Christianity sounds more like the Middle East than it does a place of which to be very proud.
Included in abandoning civil rights for all people is revoking equal rights for women. It is hard to imagine any woman who actually supports the idea that old, white men have the god given right to determine how women are allowed to live their lives. It is hard to image that most women think that they should not get equal pay for equal work and that they should have to carry every pregnancy to term, even those resulting from rape and incest.
Though the entire US economy is based on supporting the unrelenting pursuit of war, the T-Party seems the poster children for remaking the USA in the image of the Klingon Empire of Star Trek fame. Cutting taxes while expanding the military machine? (Haven’t we tried that already? And isn’t it a good part of the reason we are in the fix we are in?) Assuming that T-Party people can actually do basic math, I guess that means that roads, airports, waterways, public schools, libraries, National Parks, (the things I think of as the difference between a First world society and a Third World shit hole) are all things they are willing to sacrifice to their visions of a proud American.
(The assumption that these people can actually do basic math may be a poor one. These are the same people who look up at the stars at night, see light that we know has been traveling for millions of years, and then claim that heavens and the earth were created about 10,000 years ago. They can go to any museum in the country and see part of the fossil record, yet many insist that human kind and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time and that Noah’s flood was a real event. These are people who, literally, add 4 + 4 and come up with 11; then insist that theirs is the right view of the world as revealed by a god. Calling them bat-shit crazy may be an insult to bat-shit.)
Perhaps the thing I find most at fault with the T- Party vision is abandoning, vehemently rejecting really, the idea of social justice or collective compassion. Poor people suffer, hungry people starve, and unemployed people are abandoned; and that’s the way it is supposed to be. (Some of them insist that’s the way God wants it to be.) On the other hand trust fund babies and those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, who had nothing to do with earning the wealth they inherited, are coddled, praised, and by no means expected to pay anything to support the society that has taken such good care of them. To me this is pure evil and, (as The T – Party types are universally vocal about their Christian faith) does nothing to dissuade me that religion in general and American Christianity in particular, does far more harm than good in the world.
I am tempted to think that the T – Party types have to have some different view of themselves; that they can’t possibly want to live in the country they claim they want to create. But they have web sites; one can go read what they say, what they want, what they believe. If you go be prepared to see ugly crazy up close and personal. Be prepared to be saddened by the idea that these people claim to be patriotic Americans. And if you are frightened at the idea that these folks live next door and are heavily armed at least take solace in the fact that makes you one of the sane ones.
Oddly enough the T – Party types and I agree on at least one thing; the US is a failing state. They apparently think they can save it by driving the gays back into the closet; the women back into the kitchen, the workers back into the slave market, the children back into the sweat shops, and the brown people back across the borders. We Americans are obviously too educated, knowing the evolution is the way biology works, having some idea of the basic history of the cosmos, and recognizing that there are a lot of cultures and religions in the world and ours is just one among many. And apparently we are too healthy as well, daring to be concerned about things like smoking, obesity, chemicals in our food and poisons in the air and water. As soon as the T – Party succeeds in getting rid of the Department of Education and teacher’s unions, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agency for Health and Human Services, OSHA, frees Wall Street from anything resembling regulations, and cuts Corporate Tax rates to zero, America will be saved.
I’m pretty sure they are wrong.
In any case, should their verson of America come to pass, it wouldn't be worth saving. It would be, in fact, beyond saving.
Abandoning the idea that civil rights are a good thing for all human beings and replacing liberty with the dictates of religious fundamentalism. Whose religious fundamentalism isn’t yet clear. It will be some sect of the Christian religion and will include a basic intolerance of any other world view. A USA that is caught in sectarian battles between various sects of Christianity sounds more like the Middle East than it does a place of which to be very proud.
Included in abandoning civil rights for all people is revoking equal rights for women. It is hard to imagine any woman who actually supports the idea that old, white men have the god given right to determine how women are allowed to live their lives. It is hard to image that most women think that they should not get equal pay for equal work and that they should have to carry every pregnancy to term, even those resulting from rape and incest.
Though the entire US economy is based on supporting the unrelenting pursuit of war, the T-Party seems the poster children for remaking the USA in the image of the Klingon Empire of Star Trek fame. Cutting taxes while expanding the military machine? (Haven’t we tried that already? And isn’t it a good part of the reason we are in the fix we are in?) Assuming that T-Party people can actually do basic math, I guess that means that roads, airports, waterways, public schools, libraries, National Parks, (the things I think of as the difference between a First world society and a Third World shit hole) are all things they are willing to sacrifice to their visions of a proud American.
(The assumption that these people can actually do basic math may be a poor one. These are the same people who look up at the stars at night, see light that we know has been traveling for millions of years, and then claim that heavens and the earth were created about 10,000 years ago. They can go to any museum in the country and see part of the fossil record, yet many insist that human kind and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time and that Noah’s flood was a real event. These are people who, literally, add 4 + 4 and come up with 11; then insist that theirs is the right view of the world as revealed by a god. Calling them bat-shit crazy may be an insult to bat-shit.)
Perhaps the thing I find most at fault with the T- Party vision is abandoning, vehemently rejecting really, the idea of social justice or collective compassion. Poor people suffer, hungry people starve, and unemployed people are abandoned; and that’s the way it is supposed to be. (Some of them insist that’s the way God wants it to be.) On the other hand trust fund babies and those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, who had nothing to do with earning the wealth they inherited, are coddled, praised, and by no means expected to pay anything to support the society that has taken such good care of them. To me this is pure evil and, (as The T – Party types are universally vocal about their Christian faith) does nothing to dissuade me that religion in general and American Christianity in particular, does far more harm than good in the world.
I am tempted to think that the T – Party types have to have some different view of themselves; that they can’t possibly want to live in the country they claim they want to create. But they have web sites; one can go read what they say, what they want, what they believe. If you go be prepared to see ugly crazy up close and personal. Be prepared to be saddened by the idea that these people claim to be patriotic Americans. And if you are frightened at the idea that these folks live next door and are heavily armed at least take solace in the fact that makes you one of the sane ones.
Oddly enough the T – Party types and I agree on at least one thing; the US is a failing state. They apparently think they can save it by driving the gays back into the closet; the women back into the kitchen, the workers back into the slave market, the children back into the sweat shops, and the brown people back across the borders. We Americans are obviously too educated, knowing the evolution is the way biology works, having some idea of the basic history of the cosmos, and recognizing that there are a lot of cultures and religions in the world and ours is just one among many. And apparently we are too healthy as well, daring to be concerned about things like smoking, obesity, chemicals in our food and poisons in the air and water. As soon as the T – Party succeeds in getting rid of the Department of Education and teacher’s unions, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agency for Health and Human Services, OSHA, frees Wall Street from anything resembling regulations, and cuts Corporate Tax rates to zero, America will be saved.
I’m pretty sure they are wrong.
In any case, should their verson of America come to pass, it wouldn't be worth saving. It would be, in fact, beyond saving.
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