What is good?
Back then, in 2000, I thought being good meant to have good intentions. Because I naively thought that good intentions would actually lead to good actions. Well, I was wrong AGAIN!
Looking back I think that this naive, black and white way of viewing good and evil had it’s root on religion and Hollywood. Religion recognises pure good in humans as well as pure evil. Movies (but also fairy tales) used to have clear cut “bad” characters. There was no second dimension in the protagonists or antagonists, no excuses, no real reasons for their evil actions. They were just bad people (or wolves). But that doesn’t exist in real life.
What I didn’t see back then is that everyone wants to think they’re good so they think they have good intentions. No one goes to bed thinking “hehehehe, I really screwed everyone up today again because I’m such an evil genius!”. Ok maybe some people do but I really think it’s not a common thought. Most people will find an excuse of why they did something: “I did it because they screwed me up first”, “I did it for the good of my family/country/planet”, “I did it because I was jealous”, “I did it because I was insecure”, “I did it because I had no other option”, “I did it to protect myself”.
And you might say my dear reader that some of these excuses can actually be valid for some actions. And you might be right. These excuses could have been used to explain a wide range of actions, from small, even innocent ones, to murder. And that’s where the idea of “what does it mean to be smart” from the previous article fits in.
Ideally, we would take a hard look on ourselves and judge our excuses almost mercilessly. There is (almost) always a course of action that will take into consideration other people. That will be compassionate, honest, vulnerable and will have the optimal result for all people involved. Of course we are humans and we might sometimes choose a course that’s more selfish, less honest and will have negative consequences for other people. Sure, that can happen.
And that’s one the biggest epiphanies I had the last years. Someone who’s not stupid is not necessarily smart, and someone’s who’s not evil is not necessarily good. They just are. Most of the people just are. And they will do good things and bad things, smart things and stupid things. And some people are more aware of it and some are less aware of it. Some people are actively trying to think of the consequences of their actions and some people are almost trying not to.
And here is where I started differentiating my approach when I judge people: How do people react when they make a mistake or something that they consider wrong? Do they find excuses for themselves? Are they honest to themselves about their choices and feelings? Are they open to hear criticism about their actions? Do they try to make up for them? Do they learn from them?
What I see is that most people don’t. Most people will use one of the excuses above as an end to the conversation. They think they admit a mistake and that’s all they need to do but in reality they just find a way to excuse it – so they will probably repeat it again. That is lazy, an easy way to look (and feel) good and it usually has no real impact on how they treat others.
Most importantly, people won’t question themselves. If your first reaction to something that’s difficult for you is to say or do hurtful things, to manipulate people, to totally ignore other people’s feelings – then you’re not a good person. Maybe you’re not evil, but you’re definitely not good. You’re just average, indifferent. Being good should be something more – something that most people just aren’t, not all the time.
And that’s fine. I don’t expect everyone to be a saint and I’m not either.
But we should be aware of that fact. We should acknowledge that we and most people around us are capable of good and bad things, we should be careful with the excuses we find for ourselves and we should be critical of other people’s actions without falling to the trap “but they had good intentions” or “they look like a nice person” (yes, most “bad” people don’t have horns). The opposite is also happening of course, some people tend to judge negatively others because “they don’t look nice” (too many tattoos?). We should judge actions, results and intentions – but the deeper ones, not the “nice” surface ones that we like selling to ourselves.
Why you might ask? Because, in my own humble opinion, this is how we make the world a better or worse place.
On a personal level, we are humans and it’s hard to be vigilant all the time. We’ll make mistakes and stupid things. But we should strive to improve ourselves, be more empathetic, be nicer. And we should strive to make people around us improve themselves too. That’s why friends are important. Since I started being more aware of these things I found myself falling in those “excuse” traps sometimes – knowing that they exists doesn’t mean that you can always avoid them. Sometimes it’s hard to look at yourself and admit that you did something just out of selfishness, especially if that something hurts others. That’s why I want friends who will be my mirror when I will try to find excuses for myself, who will be critical of my actions and remind me of my biases and blind spots. That’s why choosing the right friends is important and can actually make you a better person. A good person even.
On the next article I’ll examine how these are applied on a larger scale and affect our society, political choices and treating our fellow humans.
Read part one here
Iokaste's random thoughts 