Good versus Evil

May 8, 2024 Cognitive Insights No Comments

Especially in the West – where my familiarity is greatest – this has been seen as a continual and never-ending battle, as in the story of Saint Michael versus the Devil.

Yet, Nietzsche warned us to look beyond good and evil — advocating for a deeper understanding beyond the superficial concepts of both.

In-depth, good and evil can be about very different things than at the surface.

In-depth, it’s not so much anymore about what can be put in some Ten Commandments. Instead, it’s related more to being a human being in all its diversity as long as it’s authentic.

In-depth, being good is about being real and true to oneself — authentically expressing and understanding one’s own diversity without the imposition of external judgments.

In-depth, it’s about what grows from the inside, in good support, aligning with a focus on Inner Strength.

‘Good and evil as an internal struggle’ is not a good start.

Framing good and evil as an internal struggle does not foster growth; instead, it stifles the developmental process.

This idea has, of course, been very counter-cultural in the West for a long time ― which means that it’s still there even when not consciously. The ‘good’ has been seen as something for which one must battle against oneself. The Socratic deamoon (inner self, source of inspiration and wisdom) became a demon. The deeper self became the enemy within, externalized toward anyone coming along at the wrong moment.

Saint Michael has been a terribly violent archangel.

With us or against us?

In the dichotomy of good versus evil, there is little space for gray in between. ‘Gray’ means for the one side that you are at the other side and vice versa ― no enviable position.

This notion by itself is polarizing, of course. It makes people prone to fall into the traps of rhetoric populist leaders who exploit pre-existing societal tensions for their own gain.

Toward a future in which people (societies and individuals) will have even much more technological possibilities to wreak havoc of all sorts, it is mandatory that we evolve ‘beyond good and evil.’

In a world of the good versus the bad, the bad will always be the good versus the other bad.

The English against the Germans; the Russians against the Ukrainians; the Americans against the English, the Russians, the Muslims, the Chinese, or themselves. Whatever, there has always been a vice versa.

Humanity should have grown up by now. We shouldn’t take this anymore. We should know that evil of such kind doesn’t exist.

Moreover, in what should and will happen, super-A.I. will be bust or boon, lending more urgency to the matter.

Toward more grayscale

Moral understanding is not static but grows and becomes more nuanced as one becomes more attuned to the subtleties of one’s mental processes. It is essential for our future that we transcend the traditional battles of good versus evil, recognizing the need for a more nuanced moral understanding as we face advanced technological capabilities.

This means that Open communication – to oneself and others – is needed to a huge degree to enable the go-beyond. As a matter of fact, the latter is a huge challenge!

Needed to reach Compassion

In short, we cannot proceed as we have been doing for all too long. Our path forward must diverge from the past; we urgently need to deepen our insight into subconceptual processing to foster global Compassion.

This is an immense challenge!