Good and Evil

"Injustice is a kind of blasphemy. Nature designed rational beings for each other's sake: to help - not harm - one another, as they deserve. To transgress its will, then, is to blaspheme against the oldest of the gods."
- Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, Book Nine #1

For a human being, maintaining one's dignity in the face of countless challenges without slipping into alienation is perhaps life's greatest trial. Despite being inherent, dignity can be lost and the human spirit can succumb to lingering malaise and decay. In terms of good and evil it can generally be assumed that dignity represents good and alienation evil though this is a loose definition at best. Alienation is the degradation of ones humanity and while perhaps seemingly benign at first it is the catalyst for all manner of questionable deeds. For the alienated individual is disconnected from humanity, feeling less and less affinity with their fellow human beings. They will increasingly indulge in their desires and obsessions as a means of alleviating the pain of this removal. Excess and imbalance can be considered the root of evil, and alienation the root of excess. Those who obsess over something will inevitably commit questionable and ultimately outright evil deeds that are totally against human morality, such as murder, to satisfy their desires. These can range from an overpowering love of one's country, love of profit and wealth for its own sake, a love of fame and mass adulation, an over zealous love for one's religion and all manner of other examples of obsessive excess. Those who succumb to and come to be defined by their overpowering desires as opposed to their humanity will inevitably suffer moral degradation - Sometimes to shocking degrees.

Human beings are diverse indeed and as such their viewpoints on the world and of life as individuals vary greatly and are influenced by all manner of perceptions. Such perceptions easily shift as the individual's viewpoint changes. In such an environment it must be stressed that only a handful of human beings are capable of being truly good or truly evil. Few have the capacity to be so selfless, empathetic and compassionate towards their fellow human beings and life in general as to be truly good. By the same token, few have the capacity to sink to the depths of wanton depravity for its own sake as to be considered truly evil. Such extremes of morality are incredibly rare among human beings simply because few have the willpower or deliberate conviction to rise to such heights or sink to such depths. The vast majority of human beings are characterized by varying shades of grey. Some are more alienated than others and are more prone to carrying out questionable deeds; others have a greater sense of dignity and are therefore less prone to such deeds. Many shift constantly between the two, one minute doing good and the next minute doing evil. Without a strong moral foundation, code of ethics and sense of dignity as a human being, human beings risk moral degradation, uncertainty and internal chaos.

Every human being has a breaking point, a point where all semblances of balance, order and decency ceases to have meaning - A point where dignity becomes so buried by the weight of alienation that it appears only as a distant memory to the one who is suffering. This is the abyss, the slide into darkness and the point where alienation takes control; it is a point where perversion and insanity become the norm and where degeneration sends the individual into a downward spiral. It is true that alienated individuals still fulfill a potential of sorts, but with regard to alienated individuals human potential is turned on its head: alienated potential no longer focuses on excellence and how high one can go so to speak, but on how low one can sink into degeneration. That is what evil is, degeneration. It represents a perversion of humanity.

Being moral is to fulfill one's potential as a human being. The excellence of our natural abilities and the perfection of ourselves and, by extension, society is what defines morality. It benefits not only the individual to be good but also the greater human community. Virtue means excellence, it means we are fulfilling our purpose as human beings by upholding the dignity within us that ties us together and makes us whole as individuals, as a community of individuals and as a species. Thus it is virtue that defines the moral human being, the good human being. Our excellence and our maturity define our goodness and commitment to our dignity as individuals and as part of the greater whole of the human species - The greater our perfection the greater our virtue, the greater our goodness and the greater our responsibility. This is what good is, excellence.

Fundamentalists and extremists of all kinds certainly have much to fear from us as Universalists. It would certainly be difficult for a fundamentalist to accept the truth that the so-called "infidel" that he has been fighting for so long is in fact just as much his brother as the fellow adherents to his own religion. He would certainly have difficulty accepting that his chosen path is only one among many interlocking and interconnected paths of being that make up the greater way of humanity. That is unity in diversity, that is excellence, and that is true dignity.

Human beings are ever shifting shades of grey between slivers of black and white.