Evil is defined by communities. We each live in many different communities, each of which has some definition of evil, which is constantly adapting to the current reality. Moral issues arise when two or more our community's definition of evil in the specific situation are different.
Prey animals know that predators are evil. Lambs know that wolves are evil. Wolves know that ticks are evil. Lions know how to cooperate with family and compete with non-family. Humans are predators and prey, cooperators and competitors, in very complex ways because we create very complex communities. Individuals are judged evil - by communities. Without communities, evil does not exist.
Very sobering piece. I've also encountered evil on a personal level, twice and survived it. Thankfully, truly evil people are rare. People with bad intentions are not. Greed and power lust are commonplace. They can lead people to do things we might consider "evil", but a truly evil person, someone who is utterly rotten and stinking, foul and inhuman to their very soul - rare. I've only encountered two such people in my almost 54 years and you never forget them.
Back in January 2023 I was starting to feel a little more optimistic. Elon Musk had just bought Twitter and had sacked all the censors. More and more well-known figures were speaking out against what to me were obvious establishment malfeasances. However I couldn’t understand why so many of the general public still didn’t smell a rat: https://metatron.substack.com/p/why-do-so-few-of-the-general-public.
Almost 2 years later, I’m not so optimistic and if Trump loses the presidential election the West could very soon be in big trouble. This recent post by Kaihatsu gives a great overview of the global tyranny we face and the establishment’s growing clamour to shut down free speech: https://keihatsu.substack.com/p/the-growing-threat-of-censorship.
It's hard to say which way this will go; civilisation is on a knife-edge at the moment. If the Democrats somehow manage to steal the election this time though, with the US almost certainly gone, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the rest of the world.
And this is probably why the population as a whole is so inextricably entwined with the existence of evil in totalitarian regimes. Because in a very real sense, it is the act of us OBSERVING evil which breathes life into that evil and it is up to us, the people, as to whether we become passive or active observers of evil. And by active I mean, actively PARTCIPATING in evil or actively REBELLING against evil. So, three choices in total: only one of them might be considered 'good'. Guess which?
Evil is defined by communities. We each live in many different communities, each of which has some definition of evil, which is constantly adapting to the current reality. Moral issues arise when two or more our community's definition of evil in the specific situation are different.
Prey animals know that predators are evil. Lambs know that wolves are evil. Wolves know that ticks are evil. Lions know how to cooperate with family and compete with non-family. Humans are predators and prey, cooperators and competitors, in very complex ways because we create very complex communities. Individuals are judged evil - by communities. Without communities, evil does not exist.
There is something to that.
🎯🎯🎯
Very sobering piece. I've also encountered evil on a personal level, twice and survived it. Thankfully, truly evil people are rare. People with bad intentions are not. Greed and power lust are commonplace. They can lead people to do things we might consider "evil", but a truly evil person, someone who is utterly rotten and stinking, foul and inhuman to their very soul - rare. I've only encountered two such people in my almost 54 years and you never forget them.
Back in January 2023 I was starting to feel a little more optimistic. Elon Musk had just bought Twitter and had sacked all the censors. More and more well-known figures were speaking out against what to me were obvious establishment malfeasances. However I couldn’t understand why so many of the general public still didn’t smell a rat: https://metatron.substack.com/p/why-do-so-few-of-the-general-public.
Almost 2 years later, I’m not so optimistic and if Trump loses the presidential election the West could very soon be in big trouble. This recent post by Kaihatsu gives a great overview of the global tyranny we face and the establishment’s growing clamour to shut down free speech: https://keihatsu.substack.com/p/the-growing-threat-of-censorship.
It's hard to say which way this will go; civilisation is on a knife-edge at the moment. If the Democrats somehow manage to steal the election this time though, with the US almost certainly gone, I don't hold out a lot of hope for the rest of the world.
And this is probably why the population as a whole is so inextricably entwined with the existence of evil in totalitarian regimes. Because in a very real sense, it is the act of us OBSERVING evil which breathes life into that evil and it is up to us, the people, as to whether we become passive or active observers of evil. And by active I mean, actively PARTCIPATING in evil or actively REBELLING against evil. So, three choices in total: only one of them might be considered 'good'. Guess which?