Dear Friends,
It seems to me, one of the most Pollyannish things an adult can say is, “I am a good person.” We are not good people, we are bad people, and some of us try to be good. We succeed, to varying degrees, but no one achieves. It is not in our nature to be good, being good is a learned moral act of will. Moreover, it is easy to rationalize that doing evil is doing good. Which makes those who do, bad people who do bad things… that they feel good about. Such people are the most dangerous. The psychopathic despot, who knowingly does evil for power, understands he or she is evil and suffers internally, even if never on the outside. Limiting their evil as a means to an end. The dupe who does evil, and thinks it good, never suffers a bit of guilt. Making the evil the gullible visit on mankind… unlimited.
We can be convinced doing a great evil is actually a great good, especially those with lived experience replacing life experience, people who live in the pseudo reality of a city instead of the gritty reality of the farm, and those brain washed in university. Lived experience is someone else life experience appropriated as one’s own… necessarily lacking subtlety. Life experience on the other hand is actual life experienced by the person. The first gives a false sense of right and wrong based on a second hand story. The second bestows wisdom that can only be gained by living life. Capitalism disconnects the life of someone who lives in a city from reality. Making the gods of the copybook heading appear benign. Moreover, university today doesn’t educate, it indoctrinates.
Good is a state of being that no human, other than Jesus Christ, can achieve. To be in that state, one must have no harmful, lustful or vindictive thoughts. Actions are merely the extension of thoughts. Someone trying to be good still has bad thoughts, but their moral head interdicts between their other heads ideas and actions. Therefore, to say, “I am a good person,” one is also saying that they have no bad thoughts at all, commit no bad actions and their emotions are under their control. Can there be anything more naive than that? The reality of life is, we are all bad people, and some of us are trying to be good. Only until we recognize this, and apply it to our own life, can we get closer to actually being good, instead of being bad and doing bad things, while thinking we are good people… at heart.
The more inexperienced we are, the more likely we are to fall into the mind trap of thinking, doing evil is doing good. Even the psychopath convinces themselves they are doing their victims a favor… by teaching them a life lesson. Folks who believe themselves good people, even though they do evil all the time, are by definition, tricking themselves. The real swindle comes in when we are manipulated by outside actors, into thinking doing evil (woke), will atone for our inner tension, at thinking so many bad thoughts. We have cognitive dissonance when our actions don’t comport with who we believe ourselves to be. That is another reason it is easy to convince ourselves, doing evil is good, because it calms our cognitive dissonance. Showing that our naivete itself is sometimes an inner manipulation.
No villain thinks he or she is the bad guy, no, they are the “good guy” (of their Bacon’s play). Someone who is just strong enough, willing to make the hard decisions, and do the hard things… to save the world. Those high stakes make a tempting lure for that mind trap. Opening ourselves to be manipulated into doing bad and thinking it good. This one single truth would go a long way to limiting the suffering in the world. We are not good at heart, being good is a positive moral decision, then action, to restrain the bad within us. Us bad people can get better… by applying our moral compass to what we are told is good, our impulses and self manipulations. It is better not to act, than to ignorantly serve evil… and become villains who childishly think we are doing good.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
