The concepts of positive and negative are ubiquitous. We depict these concepts as an infinite line in
both directions with a ‘0’ in the middle.
The further you go to the right the more positive the number and to the
left the more negative. These concepts
are similar to our perception of good and evil.
The analogy is not perfect but it is useful. That which is principled, from good to better
and bad to worse, is unlike numbers. The
good/bad continuum is not a simple progression of things getting better or worse
with zero in the middle. Still we agree
that some things are less evil, negative, than others. Kicking someone in the shins isn’t as bad as
shooting them in the head. A mass murder
in a church is not as evil as genocide.
And some things are better than others, giving a friend twenty bucks to
cover a minor debt isn’t as good as loving someone enough to marry them and
honor them for the rest of your life and being civil at your Thanksgiving dinner
isn’t as positive a behavior as giving up your life so others may survive. In this model the good things are positive
forces in our world and the evil things are negative. Sometimes it is difficult to determine which good
or which evil goes where on the continuum or even what goes on the good side
and what goes on the bad side of zero.
Like I said, it’s not a perfect analogy but it illustrates my point.
So let’s construct a perfect world where we eliminate all
behavior and actions less than zero.
There is no bad, nothing negative.
There is no evil. And in this
perfect world once evil is eliminated zero behavior comes into question. ‘You could have done something!’ Sooner or later the initial euphoria over
eradicating all evil wears off. More
needs to be done and zero behavior is magically done away with too. There is no room for not behaving positively
in a perfect world where there is inequity and need.
In this perfect world there are no evil deeds and no zero
actions, just positive deeds, only the good line of progressively more positive
behaviors stretching on and on, each one more positive than the last. How long will satisfaction with nothing but
good last? How long until someone
questions the small good things? How
long until someone asks ‘Couldn’t you have given him forty bucks instead of
twenty? Ya know, he really could have
used an extra twenty bucks’. And a push
to eliminate the small, enhance-able good behaviors will begin, again and again
ad nauseum.
That which is good and that which is evil is a matter of
definition and degree. Definition and degree
that only exist because we judge, because there will always be those who say,
‘You should have…’ We cannot eradicate
evil because we cannot do away with the capacity to judge. As long as the capacity to judge exists,
someone will judge something as bad.
You cannot eliminate the use of the word ‘should’ in your
vocabulary or the speech and minds of others.
You can try to stop saying ‘should’ but even if you are successful, it
will still be there in your head.
Whenever the word ‘should’ is used, you have the obligation
to yourself and those you love to ask ‘Why?’
Make the ‘should’ justify its judgment. Make the ends justify the means and then
justify the ends. If the ‘should’ can be justified, maybe something ‘should’
change.
Maybe something ‘should’ be
done. And maybe not, we live in a world
where ‘zero’ actions still exist. In the
small part of the world that you presume to control you owe it to yourself to
be the one who decides.
