the good we see in the world is defined by the evil we perceive without evil there is no good
without the dark there is no light without a clearly defined anti-hero there is no hero
and this explains why we are so quick to demonize those who think differently or oppose us
tribalism is in the very fabric of our being our current culture desperately searches for the
anti-hero because we need to label bad in order to have a sense of good if we can find a villain
that allows us to feel morally superior if there isn't a villain we will create one
and now society is more divided than it ever has been whatever side you associate with the other
side must be demonized the more we perceive them as evil the more polarized we become
but the question is how can you be sure if you're on the side of good even the most
wicked characters in history thought they were on the side of good as alan watts says diabolical
things are done in the name of righteousness and be assured that everybody of whatever nationality
or political frame of mind or religion always goes to war with the sense of complete rightness the
other side is the devil certainly everyone cannot be on the good side or else evil would not exist
the truth of the matter is good and evil only exist in the eye of the beholder
there is no line between good and evil there is no clearly marked boundary you can point to
jordan peterson says you can't divide the world neatly into perpetrators and victims
and then assume that you're only in the victim class and then assume that gives you access to
certain forms of redress it gets dangerous very rapidly if you do that sort of thing
today adolf hitler is widely considered the most evil man to have ever lived but in the early 1930s
hitler was heralded as a hero not just in germany but around much of europe he had turned the german
economy around and was building an efficient abundant innovative society in 1936 hitler and
the germans hosted the olympics which displayed german prosperity for the entire world to see
that same year he received a 98 approval rating from his people and a 99 percent approval rating
from the austrians a country that hitler took over with no force or violence in 1938 he was times man
of the year the nazi regime was supported and praised by intellectuals economists nobel prize
winners and the media how did this prosperity lead to concentration camps and gas chambers
it didn't happen overnight it took a step-by-step process of the nazis thinking they were doing good
thinking they were on the side of nobility and virtue thinking that every action they took was
for the absolute betterment of humanity hitler's motto was the common good before the individual
good and eventually his ideology to attain the common good would lead to a holocaust this
same process can be mapped onto every genocide in history from pol pot in cambodia to mao and china
to stalin in the soviet union these men all thought they were fixing civilization they
all had a vision of creating a utopia but in order to get to that utopia mass suffering and
mass murder became necessary a world where you and only people who think like you are good is
also a world where you are surrounded by enemies bent on your destruction who must be fought writes
jordan peterson it is much more psychologically appropriate to assume that you are the enemy
that it is your weakness and insufficiencies that are damaging the world then to assume saint-like
goodness on the part of you and your party and to pursue an enemy you are inclined to see everywhere
it's easy to look at the external world and point a finger but it's highly difficult to look within
ourselves and see our own flaws jesus said do not judge or you too will be judged for in the
same way you judge others you will be judged and with the same measure you used it will be measured
to you why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to
the plank in your own eye how can you say to your brother let me take the speck out of your eye when
all the time there is a plank in your own eye you hypocrite first take the plank out of your
own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye
the speck you see in your enemy's eye is nothing more than the reflection of the plank in your own
before you go fixing the world examine your own contradictions we often become what we
oppose beware of making it your mission to eradicate evil as you are likely to turn into
the very thing you were fighting against writes eckhart tolle whatever you fight you strengthen
whatever you resist persists this is the meaning behind the ancient proverb the road to hell is
paved with good intentions or as alan watts puts it the do-gooders of the world are troublemakers
those who think they know what's best for others are often the ones who inflict the most harm
having the ability to observe your own flaws will dull the desire to bend the world to your will
having awareness of your own capacity for evil will dampen the need to point
out evil in the world alexander solzhenitsyn author of the gulag archipelago lived through
stalin's brutal communist rule which took the life of about 30 to 50 million people
during his time in a soviet work camp he became acutely interested
in the nature of evil in his reflections on evil in the gulag archipelago
he emphasized that all people are capable of evil and that often evil is committed because those
involved ignorantly believe themselves to be holy and unmistakably on the side of good.
solzhenitsyn wrote gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes
not through states nor between classes nor between political parties either but right through
every human heart and through all human hearts this line shifts inside us it oscillates with
the years and even within hearts overwhelmed by evil one small bridgehead of good is retained
and even in the best of all hearts there remains an un-uprooted small corner of evil
it is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety but it is possible to constrict
it within each person there is no line in the external world between good and evil because we
all have the capacity for good and evil within ourselves in order to rid the world of evil we
must detach ourselves from ego and recognize our own inner demons in order to understand how good
you can be you must have an understanding of your shadow side no tree it is said can grow to heaven
unless its roots reach down to hell knowing your own darkness is the best method of dealing with
the darkness of other people says carl jung everything that irritates us about others
can lead us to an understanding of ourselves the realization from this is that good and evil are
nothing more than mental constructs recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes
the good and the evil likewise converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole
when we demonize something in the external world we reveal a void in our own psyche when we try to
dehumanize another or villainize something we only reveal our own ignorance when we promote shame
blame and punishment we reveal just how little we know about our own inner demons and our nature
the ones who are able to look within themselves and separate their true essence from their ego
will stand as a beacon of hope for others the ones who can emancipate themselves from ideology
tribalism and the fixation with external enemies and look within their own heart with humility
and honesty will emerge with a heightened awareness this is the beginning of freedom
you