Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Spontaneous Archetypal Variation and the Question of Good and Evil
Let a cloud of hydrogen simmer for a few billion years and all sorts of things are bound to happen.
You could end up with some beautiful flowers…and ugly weeds, some slow-moving docile creatures...and some quick agile predators. Carry the show further (yet nowhere near its “conclusion”) and you may even end up with a life-form smarter than the others but, none the less, packaged in designs slow-moving and docile or quick and agile…or, good and evil.
It should be noted that variation in temperament and the relative value of such differences are not the same thing. A dull person is not "just as creative" as any other. A person or group that is generally good is not just as evil as those that are genuinely evil.
The manifestation of archetypal variation in nature or human character is evident all around us and has been throughout our history. There have been, and continue to be, good and evil to varying degrees in individuals, families, clans, and nations. Nazi Germany was evil and – guess what – so was the former Soviet Union. To make the issue even more difficult; evil people sometimes do good things and good people occasionally do bad. Michael Moore proved to us that Saddam Hussein's fascist police state allowed some people to fly kites and Abu Ghraib proved that evil behavior can, and does, occur in free and open societies -- but this hardly makes either institution even vaguely equivalent.
Asking the perpetually moot question; "Are humans basically good or evil?" is like asking if rainbows are basically red or blue.
No one would suggest that rainbows should be "made blue," but plenty of Philosophers and assorted control freaks have suggested (often demanded) that “we” make people good (while tipping their own hats to some who are genuinely evil).
I once read of a psychology experiment where dominant “alpha males” of exceptional leadership abilities were taken from different schools and brought together, for a time, to a camp. Within their new context, they inevitably split off into their own hierarchy of leadership and submission. This episode is only anecdotal of course, but it can commonly be observed that human personality and character does indeed “branch off” in the same way as any phylum of plant or animal. (For that matter, even geological material over time diversifies into types ; hard, soft, dark, light, rough, smooth, etc.). Those who are lost in the ethers of high philosophical abstraction could of course argue that a scorpion is every bit as beautiful and harmless as a butterfly (or that "Bush is Hitler"). Fortunately such perspectives are primarily limited to the intellectual caste (along with their other fanciful notions).
In any given group of twenty or so people, there’s bound to be one who’s shy or domineering. In any group of a few million, there’s bound to be an axe murderer (this obviously doesn’t mean we should give axe murderers and control freaks our approval). Is it so surprising that humans and their complex world of values and character should diversify into the traits we call good or evil?
Of course good is preferable to evil and, relativism aside, there’s some space open for interpretation but, as long as the universe is one in which spontaneous archetypal variation occurs, we’ll never be rid of evil.
On the flip side, we’ll never be rid of good either – and that is certainly a good thing.
A Comic Commentary from Promethean Visions:
Hating the rich while skiing
Promethean Quote from The Promethean Observer:
"No one can 'prove' that I should be a slave to a collectivist ideal, and I can't "prove" that I should be left alone. None the less, I choose to be left alone."
