What is "evil"?
This post is actually inspired by @pjcswart, who wrote an interesting post on South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma. There he asked the question: "Is Zuma really that bad"? It got me thinking. What exactly does it take to be evil. A lot of the time I fall back on Ayn Rand (Not always! She's a bit overboard at times. Her philosophy is flawed, sometimes she seems narcissistic but a lot of the time her reasoning is sound).
So, to explore what evil is, here are a few excerpts from Ayn Rand's work.
“The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness:
"Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict 'It is.' "
Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged:
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."
...
"I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it."
Too often we "unconsciously" find ourselves living our lives according to the ABNORMAL because it sucks us in. Look around you and you'll see it happening everywhere. And we accept it and live by it. Be it ignorantly or unconsciously- people are nevertheless willing to serve evil. There should be no excuse. Live your life according to the NORM. That is what there is. Evil is impotent. "Whenever evil wins, it is only by default..."
Thanks for reading,
@lynb
Those are some powerful words my friend. To do nothing is to allow evil to reine. Just because we don’t want to acknowledge it, doesn’t mean it fails to exist. Once we acknowledge it is our responsibility to do the right thing no matter what.
It is more pervasive now than ever before. Greed and lust for power are testing us all.
Thanks my friend.
One of the most difficult things for me to distinguish while growing up was when to stand up against it and when to rise above it and be indifferent. Sometimes I still struggle. There is some basic premise I should be using that would make the decision quicker but I'm not sure exactly what it is. My integrity, my self-worth. Those things together anyway. Still I am unsure.
There have been time so in my life where things have been said and I took too long to decide if I should say something against it and then later found myself regretting not standing up for myself, almost like it looked like a lack of self- respect. Actually it was me trying to think about the situation rationally, not to act on emotion, but I took too long. That shouldn't be that way and that how I know I'm missing some basic premise. When I figure out what that is I think I'll be a lot stronger and sure of myself in these situations.
Love 🐾🐾 ;-)
And you are right - it is about power. Or the feeling of lack thereof for some people. The world can be an evil place because of insecure people who crave power because of their insecurities.
You are not alone. I have sat many times trying to digest the situation wondering if it was appropriate to be say my peace. Instead, regret has come and I kick myself for the things that should have been said. Much Love my friend. ❣️🐓🐓