The Good Vs Evil Delusion

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Culture exists in order to provide simple narratives about how the world works — or rather how we think it works. We are inherently lazy and can get easily distracted. This is why we like to keep things simple. Why bother with shades of gray when you can have black and white right? Dualities such as "good vs evil" exist due to this lazy oversimplification about how the world actually operates.

There are many good vs evil stories. God vs Satan, Jedi vs Sith, black vs white, left ring vs right wing, you name it. Nonetheless, It all depends on the given lens we choose to examine the subject. The more we benefit from our point of view the more the opposite view sucks. It works much like the concept of terrorism. If we are unloading the bombs on the enemy we are the heroes. If they are hitting back, they are the terrorists. Makes sense right?

One of the most fascinating parallels of good vs evil is the one dealing with governments vs private organizations. Historically, state and religion have evolved in parallel with the one reinforcing the other. This is evident until today in Muslim cultures. It was also noticeable in Europe as of recently with the Byzantine empire and later on with Catholicism. It is important to understand here that the entirety of human civilization has been nourished based on these simple narratives that ultimately affect every branch of our lives.

Due to this co-evolution people have come to believe that the government acts much like a God which protects from the private evil organizations. Although this belief is unfounded, it still persists today on every level in our culture. If a piece of research comes from the government, then we assume that there are no vested interests and that its findings are sound. If it comes from a private organization we believe that they just issued their own research in order to generate profit. The government is there to "regulate the markets". People rarely ask who regulates the regulators because it takes one logical step ahead. I guess this is also why most people suck at chess.

The truth is that everyone wants to generate profits and everyone has vested interests. Everywhere. God can be considered from some as good and for others evil. Luke Skywalker, shifted from good to evil and back to being good again. Things are never inherently good or evil. We all carry qualities that define specific situations that intrinsically can affect our morality. It all depends from our point of view and how we have come to judge the end result of the situation. We sum up the outcome for our emotional convenience, not that of objective judgment.

Those who insist on the existence of good vs evil maintain a mostly dogmatic stance towards life itself. They have accepted a specific narrative from their side of the group and they are very hard to persuade otherwise. Whatever the other side is supporting becomes negative and ultimately evil.

We all like to believe that our actions are just, aiming towards the betterment of the world. Thing is, every single dictator that ever walked on the face of the earth had the exact same belief. Nobody believes that they are inherently assholes. If we do find ourselves in such a position, we somehow manage to excuse ourselves by blaming everything else around us but not us. Fuck entropy right?

This peculiar duality might have helped us in our primitive past to evolve and function efficiently. Today, the narrative has become redundant and up to a point, dangerous. We like to believe that we are special and unique beings but choose to limit our individuality into a hasty cultural generalization. By degrading each other to entities of good vs evil, we consequently restrict our uniqueness. Sooner or later others will reflect those characteristics. Sure, they might not exist but our perceptions about them are very much real.