All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke
Intuitively I’ve always felt that there was something wrong with the popular quote above. In fact, the deeper I’ve ventured into exploring myself the more I’ve come to dislike the concepts of “good” and “bad”.
In my life I have come across countless thieves, a few psychopaths and rapists, and a murderer, but in my conversations with them I concluded that none of these people had ever actually set themselves out to do “evil” for the sake of evil. Instead, they were all acting out of what they felt and could justify as goodness, whether that was as self-preservation, pleasure, or something else.
Morality as a Collective Guideline
Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good. ~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Morality is a collective attempt to create a ‘system’ or structure of what is “good” and what is “bad” – it’s a way we can rationalize arguing with life itself. Morality makes it easier for us to look at reality and say, “this shouldn’t be!” and believe that we are right.
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However, the truth is that there is no general morality, but rather, morality is relative from culture to culture.
For example, what is moral in an Italian restaurant is immoral in a vegan one. What is moral in Australia is immoral in some Arabic countries. Not only that, but what we call “bad” now can also become “good” at any point in time. For example, killing other people is normally immoral. But when wartime begins, we suddenly rationalize that killing is not only OK, but the more “enemies” you kill, the more respectable you become.
Morality serves to justify whatever we collectively consider an ideal: in this case self-preservation and protection of our “ideals”. What we fail to realize is that on the other side of war, the enemies also consider themselves to be the ‘good’ guys protecting their ideals, beliefs and ways of life.
Most of the people around us will agree with us on what’s moral and what is not, but the people around us can change as easily as a trip to the “ghetto” areas of our city. In that case, good and bad is simply what is popular at the time.
You may be wondering “Surely there are some acts that are unquestionably immoral? Crimes against children perhaps?” Our emotions and personal values are always the determiners of our moral assessments, and these two factors are entirely different from person to person. In fact, within the same person ideas of morality can change throughout our lives. For instance, what I thought of as “bad” many years ago now I consider to be “good”. So although there are some acts that are unquestionably immoral for the majority of us in this moment in time, it still comes down to popularity and cannot serve as an “absolute” rule.
How can there be a sturdy moral “baseline” from which we all make the same measurements, when man himself is so volatile in his perceptions of reality? A static idea of good and evil can only be accepted by a man who is static, stagnant in self-growth, and has a static permanent aim and a permanent understanding.
For such an unchanging person, belief systems are created.
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Religion as a Morality
For many people in the world there is a very absolute and definite baseline for morality and that is Religion.
The same morality as the one mentioned above applies here as well: what the most popular opinion around you is, is generally what you consider to be moral, and anyone who believes in a different faith or has other ideas is considered to be wrong, or along a “bad” path and is in need of saving (think of The Great Inquisition for example). There are roughly 4,200 religions in the world so you better choose carefully!
The problem with identifying yourself with anything other than your own experience is that it is difficult to talk about these subjects without creating friction. Whenever there is a great emotional investment in any element of life, analyzing it is a difficult and confronting experience because our very basis for life and existence is being examined.
Personally, I was raised Catholic and still hold a few of their teachings to be full of insight and wisdom. However to live a life of spiritual truth I’m willing to go to great depths and be ruthless in my exploration of what I hold to be true and untrue, and analysis contributes to either reaffirming my belief that I am on the best path, or helps to open my eyes to new perceptions.
At its core morality – religious or otherwise – is basically judgment of other people. Morality establishes the idea that there is an objective way to assess another person based on the values they hold. This makes morality a tool for the devaluation of other people, to estrange, divide and dehumanize someone in the name of the state, the religion or as a species at large. Once we’ve morally assessed someone, any form of disdain, or even cruelty, can be rationalized (wars, prisoner interrogation tactics, social alienation, etc.)
And yet the underlying premise behind all the great prophets’ teachings is that of non-judgment, love, respect for others, forgiveness, charity, and tolerance. How can that be? At some point in time, the original message behind most of these prophet’s words was lost or misinterpreted.
The word “sin” for example came to mean “against the rules” and deserving of punishment, when in fact, as mentioned in a previous article on karma, “sin” actually means in the original biblical Hebrew language: “to miss the mark“.
Sinning was to make a stupid mistake, a transgression against ourselves – it didn’t have anything to do with being a bad person. If the only reason we avoid killing someone is that we don’t want to go to Hell, then maybe Hell would be the best place for us.
So, how can we avoid making mistakes that harm ourselves and others in the process?
The Highest Morality
Intelligence is not enough to live a wise and sensitive life.
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Some of the most famous serial killers and dictators were highly intelligent people, for example, but failed to feel any sense of compassion or sympathy for their victims.
So, why do people suffer, and why do people feel pain at the hands of these people if there is no “evil” in the world?
The answer? Because these “evil” people lack sensitivity of soul. They lack wisdom.
Intelligence and knowledge are tools that help us process and play with the ideas of the fragmented reality that our minds create. Wisdom, on the other hand, is the sensor that experiences a direct connection to it, it is the sentient perceiver of our existence, the pathway straight to the heart.
These misguided and unwise people are incapable of cultivating peace and harmony in their lives, so instead they act on whatever provides a fleeting sense of fulfillment: money, power, gratification. To them these feelings are “good”; they provide security and a false sense of fulfillment, and so they are willing to do anything to anyone to continue feeling these things.
This, to me, is the message our major religions were trying to teach: there are wise ways to live and unwise ways to live. Many people can argue that without a ‘moral code’ the world would go to hell, and it’s true to some degree. There are fear-focused and love-focused courses of action as incentives in life, and our purpose is to grow in wisdom to the point where we can realize the benefits of being kind to others, and the drawbacks of being unkind.
As I’ve previously mentioned, Karma is not an external force that balances the world, but is rather an internal one where we create our own Hell. We attract into our life the same energy we put out into it.
“Good” could be said to be conscious, loving and wise behavior while “Evil” could be considered egotistical, fearful and unconscious behavior. These words work as metaphors for personal growth, as measurements for the quality of life you’re attracting. For example, anything which helps you ‘awaken’ to this wisdom, to experience yourself, to become more authentic and experience something higher than yourself is “good”, while anything that hinders this is “evil”.
The wiser people will realize that “evil” behavior will attract many problems into their lives – such things as enemies, low self-esteem, paranoia, addictions, attachments, persistent dissatisfaction and suffering, world-weariness and cynicism to name a few.
Essentially, those people who do “good” in life aren’t perfectly saintly beings, but are people who realize, if only intuitively, that doing good benefits them, that being compassionate results in less suffering for themselves and produces a deeper sense of fulfillment and connection to others.
If we keep all of this in mind, we realize that people who misbehave due to lack of wisdom aren’t deserving of our judgment, but are in fact letting us know that they are the ones who are in most need of compassion, forgiveness and support. These are the people who have never truly tasted peace or love in their lives, only glimpses of gratification, and therefore act in ways that harm others, and in the process harm themselves.
***
The cultivation of wisdom often comes to those who are willing to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time in order to attain it. To develop our wisdom is to create a conscience.
Morality and wisdom are quite different things. One person’s morality can contradict another person’s morality, but one person’s wisdom can never contradict another person’s wisdom (although many confuse their beliefs with wisdom).
Morality is created and sourced from collective beliefs, and prevents the individual from feeling any true freedom. To become authentic, to be a true individual, we require a thirst for freedom, freedom from the unwise, from psychological traumas, from self-pity, from self-preserving fearful ideas, from primitive instinctual behavior, and from dogmatic beliefs, ideals and values that have been taught to us throughout our entire lives.
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Forget about morality, become consciously aware and search for the evolution, or the Involution, of your inner wisdom.
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It’s interesting, but I came to a similar understanding about a year ago. But I framed it as “effective vs. ineffective” rather than “wise vs. unwise”.
My only problem is that too often when we frame people that do hurful things as needing love, compassion, and forgiveness, we allow their behavior to continue.
I always get the imge of thugs beating up a homeless man and a “wise” person walking up and saying, “Hey, you must really be hurting inside to be so violently beating that poor man. Can I offer you a shoulder to cry on or a hug?”
This is literally how I see the preceding words from Sol being internalized.
I think that’s why I framed it as “effective” and “ineffective”. If someone is being hurt, is in danger of being hurt, or has been hurt, you don’t try to “love them into stopping”, you take action.
Just because someone is damaged inside doesn’t give them the right to continue in behavior that we see as “unwise”, “Ineffective”, or “hurtful”.
While a person’s actions may be understandable, it doesn’t make them acceptable. And sometimes the action must be stopped or even destroyed before we can hope to help a person heal.
Maybe that’s moralistic, but I would rather work towards the health and happiness of everyone, rather than try to love the people damaging our society with behaviors that bring pain to us all. My love for humanity outweighs my love for any individual that is hell bent on its destruction, even if their anger is sourced in deep pain. I will take them down.
Morals exist in every situation, whether we frame them as “wise” or “unwise”or “effective” or “ineffective”, essentially we are judging a behavior, the person, or both.
But judgment isn’t wrong to do. We are built as judgement machines.
The key is the motivation for the judgement. Is it self serving? Is it ego boosting? Does it give a feeling of self-righteousness to mask or basic inability to live up to our own standards.
Judging things from a place of great knowledge, framed by great experience, and tempered with great compassion is nothing to be avoided.
I would say, it’s probably the type of judgement we should all be seeking to be capable of.
But that’s just my judgement of judgement. :-)
I tend to think about “right” and “wrong” as a matter of survival. Every animal on the planet, including humans, has the instinctive drive to live, to survive. In social animals, like humans, that drive includes behaving in ways that benefit the self by benefiting others and thus through group co-operation we survive.
The behavior that is non co-operative or outright predatory ought to be stopped when witnessed immediately and the victim cared for of course…but if we wish to see reduced instances of that behavior, for all our benefits, then steps need to be taken to…well…reduce that behavior.
There is a caveat: sometimes, in order to stop destructive, non-beneficial behavior, the response has to come from the shadow, and thus will not be entirely pleasant, but it will be more effective (and thus a wiser course of action) than a light response.
A shadow response could even become destructive and non-beneficial in it’s own right, at which point we have the choice of stopping or having others stop us. That’s why war ought to be an absolute last resort: it is the ultimate non-co operative destructive behavior that puts all of us at risk for extinction (well, that and not caring for the environment).
That’s why someone can have really dark, disturbing thoughts and fantasies, but are ultimately harmless provided they never put action to their thoughts. The second thought becomes action, and becomes harmful is when it’s a problem.
Ultimately, it becomes very easy to take all moralization away from behavior if you think about it along the lines of survival. It is either beneficial to us or it is not, and if it is not, then it should be stopped, and sometimes it’s best stopped by a response from our shadows as opposed to our suns.
Hi, I found this page quite interesting as it partly explained how I viewed the world. I said partly because I do not thing that wisdom is the cause, it’s more of a related subject to no “good” or “Bad”. In my Opinion it’s the perspective and the way people view things that allows that to create their own opinion of “good” and “bad”. This Text might be completely unrelated but stay this page is pretty awesome in my opinion! The Name I gave my self Is a Nick Name.
Hello i stumbled across this page and i find it interesting. I hope you don’t mind if i challenge some of your thoughts. My goal is to increase in wisdom. You say:
“So although there are some acts that are unquestionably immoral for the majority of us in this moment in time, it still comes down to popularity and cannot serve as an “absolute” rule.”
Is this an absolute rule? Is this absolutely true? Is it absolutely true that there is no absolute truth?
You talk about wisdom being different to morals and the “wise person” knowing and demonstrating love, forgiveness etc. Are you able to give a definition of love?
You say you have met psychopaths etc and that they are essentially broken people who believe they are doing their “evil” acts out of a belief that they are doing the right thing, and that when they become wise they will realise the types of behaviours that will bring reward (sorry if my paraphrase is clumsy). My first comment about this is don’t believe everything that people tell you. 99% of paedophiles will proclaim their innocence even though it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that they are guilty. To me it is never ok or justifiable for someone to plunder the innocence of a child. It is always wrong. Psychopaths don’t care about other people. In fact they often delight in another’s misery. And they don’t always come from brokenness. If a person intentionally sets out to obtain gratification at the expense of another person, and they know their behaviours will hurt and cause misery, then this is an evil act.
Just saying…
Hello Mirjana,
I always welcome other perspectives, it helps me explain my own in different ways to further understand them and reach new depths.
Nothing can serve as an absolute rule, not even that one. To have an ‘absolute rule’ implies the world has stopped changing, fluctuation, growing in order to fit into that man made rule. Spirit is an ever changing force, so that can never happen.
Love is a feeling, it is a knowing, it’s not a definition. Wisdom is an understanding that comes from a persons maturation process. Why don’t I stick my hand in fire? Because I’m wise enough to understand it will burn me. We don’t need to create a rule/moral to tell someone not to do it, they can determine that from the circumstances in the moment (the heat, the discomfort to its proximity).
I didn’t say psychopaths will become wise and stop acting the way they do. When we consider mental illness, we can’t apply the same rules to an ordinarily mentally balanced person. It’s like saying an Autistic person can become normal if they learn the rules of social etiquette.
Many studies have found paedophiles have some form of mental illness, finding that it’s almost impossible for them to stop doing it even with chemical castration (many paedophiles, so ashamed with themselves go as far as cutting off their own penis trying to stop and yet still act up).
But now we’re going into the realm of ‘free will’, which as I described in this article https://lonerwolf.com/true-freedom/ has been proven in many studies to be an ‘illusion’. We have no choice in our actions as the studies of Benjamin Libet show, decisions come before we’re even consciously aware of them.
If I was born with the genetic brain of a paedophile, the environmental upbringing and experiences of a paedophile…would I not make the same choices as that paedophile? That would be the key question.
If anyone puts their hand into a fire it will get burnt. This is not a recent phenomenon. It is a rule.
To say that “Spirit is an ever changing force, so that can never happen” is by your own definition something that can never happen because it is an absolute.
To say love is a feeling to me really cheapens it. Love can be a choice in the most dire of circumstances that is entirely motivated by wanting the best for another. It can be very costly. I may choose to do something that is to my own detriment for the benefit of someone else. I may even be willing to have my hands burnt. It is a choice. I may even choose to deny myself pleasure because I believe it is in the best interests of someone else. It can be tough.
If we have no choice then why bother with anything? Why bother to seek wisdom – if it is all genetically programmed. There are many treatment programs for pedophiles that seem to work but almost every one of them works with the person’s denial in the first instance. Denial is evident because they know what they did was wrong, self seeking at anothers expense. That’s why they denied it in the first place. They absolutely knew it was wrong.
You pose a question in the last paragraph of your response that is unanswerable. But the best way to get close to an answer is to study identical twins, raised in the same family where one of the twins is a pedophile and the other is not. At least some evidence that points to the person having a choice and acting on their proclivities.
Thank you for responding to my first post. I guess you can choose to respond to this latest one or not. All the best in your journey
You can be born with the genetic brain of a pedophile, but that doesn’t mean you have to act on the impulse. There are pedophiles who know their inclinations, and who won’t touch child porn (let alone a child) because they know it hurts kids. I have no problem with these types of people because their personal fantasies and thoughts aren’t harming me or mine. I will have an issue if a pedophile thinks it’s their right to touch my son though.
That’s because, even if a pedophile thinks what they’re doing is okay, it’s still ultimately counter-intuitive to the species because it hurts our future…children. For that reason, the behavior shouldn’t be considered appropriate, and ought to be stopped.
Check out Noah Elkrief his videos has so much of this topic
I’m going through a tough time in life, and in just wanted to say your article helped in some way, thank you!
You’re most welcome Anon, that is why we create this small sanctuary.
obviously like your web-site but you need to check the spelling on several of your posts.
Many of them are rife with spelling problems and I find it very bothersome to
inform the truth however I will surely come back again.
Hola Antonio,
We try our best to edit the articles and spell check them but if we have one or two slips, we don’t fuss about it very much.
To me the message is the most important and if the message has to do with accepting life, being open and non-resistant, then being neurotic about grammar contradicts that experience.
Warmly,
Sol
Your right. I believe there is no real good and evil as it’s all belief system; everybody thinks differently. There is only wise and unwise decisions which we choose to make that determines who are as people.
To make the decision of living a life guided by wisdom is already determining who you will be as a person. Thank you for being open and receptive to the message in my article :).
‘good and bad is simply what is popular at the time.’ This is very true. This same principle has been applied to every layer of our lives, from what is good and bad in terms of ‘crime’, to sexuality, to the things you like, the way you act and what clothes you wear. The society I live in is forcefully imposing ‘it’s’ views of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ on me every day of my life, through advertising and media down to people simply ‘policing’ and judging one another.
Thanks for the article, this is a topic I have been contemplating most of my life.
Hola John,
It’s wonderful to see the reception this article has had and the awareness our readers have in realizing the truth about morality.
The media constantly does bombard us with clear images of the good hero and the bad villain, perhaps that is why anti-hero’s are so unusually appealing, they are not as clear cut as offer much more complexity.
As long as we are aware of the non existence of these imaginary forces, we will be able to decide wisely rather than react emotionally to black and white perceptions.
That is our true freedom.
“That is the nature of total acceptance, change what you can but accept that which you can’t. In fact, good can also be brought out of a situation like this;…” Now we are back to good and bad?
Perhaps “let” was a poor choice of words. How about “If Luna,…” Basically what you are saying, if indeed I grasp it at all; Is that my feelings of anger at the time were an old way of feeling regarding the murder of someone? I should have looked to see how I could help that man grow into a wiser human being.
(I cannot continue. The old adage “take what you need and leave the rest”, comes to mind.)
I enjoy many of your posts, as well as Luna’s.
Hola Douglas,
By mentioning “good can also come from this” I’m trying to express that judgement can work both ways, what we label as ‘bad’ can also have a ‘good’ aspect to it, making it pointless to attach judgement to a situation out of our control.
Our natural reaction to something we deeply don’t want is of resistance in the form of anger or sadness. If we come to understand this emotion in the terms of ‘wise’ and ‘unwise’, then we make a conscious decision of experiencing this emotion as a passing feeling that fades away if we don’t attach ourselves to it through identification. That is what I write about in our Self-Mastery article and what I plan to explore a bit tomorrow in our “Freedom” article.
You can choose to help that man grow into a wiser human being, however that depends on whether this man is receptive or not to changing which again comes down to your wisdom of observation and if it is worth the effort to do that.
We enjoy reading your comments :)
Well, I ought not to post this, but for the sake of discussion, let Luna be raped and murdered, then tell me that all you ‘”feel” about it is that, “That was unfortunate.” My wife was murdered. It was something more than “unfortunate.” Was it evil? I don’t know. My own interest in this writing stems from my being so judgmental. I am seeking to let go of that aspect of my personality.
Hola Douglas,
“Let” implies that I have some control if that were to happen to Luna. Most people are emotional masturbators; they are so resistant to life, so caught up in their entitlement of what they ‘feel’ is right, and wrong, that they think becoming “angry” when a situation demands it like in this rape scenario is a natural and healthy response.
Will my approval or disapproval of what happens in this case change anything? Of course I would prefer if this didn’t happen, but if it does, my reaction to it would not change anything other than make my self miserable over something I can’t change. That is the nature of total acceptance, change what you can but accept that which you can’t. In fact, good can also be brought out of a situation like this; charities and movements can gather awareness out of such a tragedy for people to pursue a deeper understanding of themselves, of what could drive someone to do such a thing.
The root of all wars, all rapes, all misery and murders is exactly this emotionally masturbatory way of thinking. That we should take revenge, that there’s an innate sense of justice, that we expected something and our needs were not met so we violently take it. I feel angry women don’t pay attention to me, or I feel intense desires to have sex and because I listen to my emotional and sensory masturbatory senses without having the necessary wisdom to detach myself from them realizing that is not me, I listen to them and act out.
I’m sorry to hear your wife is murdered and I can understand how you would perceive this article in such a light. But we’re so habituated to this way of thinking, for centuries and centuries, that we don’t stop and reevaluate if it’s the only way of perceiving the world.