But Kropotkin, what does evil have to do with me?
I am but one person in a large world full of evil and wrongdoing…
my actions are but a small thing amidst the world’s ism’s and ideologies,
superstitions and bigotries that mankind does…
my foibles are minor compared to what I see and hear in the world around me…
and that is the problem… isn’t it?
you see the world as dominating who you are…
and that is a false way to see the world…
we must see ourselves as the be all, end all of
values…
what values that exists within the universe, exists within us…
if there is goodness or evil or justice or hatred or greed or hope or love…
it all begins and ends with who we are…….
I cannot, cannot control the world around me… but I can control
what values I hold……. I can make a choice…….
we humans do not see ourselves as the beginning of good or evil or
justice or ETC… we see ourselves reacting to good or evil or justice…
but we don’t just react to such values, we originate such values…
evil begins with me and good begins with me and justice begins with me……
we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our actions and our beliefs…
we somehow learn to separate our choices of good and evil, hope and justice,
from who we are… we separate our values from ourselves… and treat them
as some separate and distinct values, apart from us……
but we cannot do that…… we are our choices……
“the unexamined life isn’t worth living”
“know thyself”
is two articles of faith with the greatest philosopher
to ever lived…
to accomplish these acts of self-examination, we must first connect
our actions, our choices with who we are……
evil is the choice to enriched yourself at the expense of others…
when we enrich ourselves at the expense of others, we then have
chosen evil… but we don’t think of ourselves that way… we think it
somehow right or due to us to gain at the expense of others…
we choose evil but we then justify it, we rationalize it, we nullify it
with weak justifications like “I was due” or "
“do under others before they do unto you” thus placing every single human
being as attempting to “get” you, so you “get” them first…
my choice to place my bonus before others, is an act, a choice of evil…
and we then find justifications for such an act by saying things like,
“I had no choice” or “the system made me” I must act within the system
that I find myself in, so I can choose evil because if I don’t, I might lose
my job or become less respected…
these rationalizations, these justifications come about because we
hold to ism’s and ideologies that we can use to justify or rationalize our
choices of evil…
I can choose to be evil because that is what drives capitalism…
we can blame capitalism as being the “real” cause of our choices…
but let us return to a previous thought…
autonomous being… if we are to hold ourselves as autonomous beings,
we must then take credit or blame, as the case may be, to make choices
that reflect our values… if I am to be a true autonomous being, I cannot
default to using rationalizations and justifications to maintain my innocence
in any actions taken…I would choose to be good, but the system made me
do evil…
we have so many ways to justify or rationalize our actions and beliefs…
among the many possibilities of rationalization and justifications we use
is patriotism and duty and country and nationalism and Catholicism
and religion and among the many ism’s and ideologies lie many such
justifications and rationalizations for our actions and beliefs…
that is not being autonomous… that is the direct opposite of being autonomous…
if we use ism’s and ideologies to escape accountability for our actions,
then we cannot to be held personally accountable for our actions, beliefs…
and it is all about escaping personal responsibility, personal accountability
for our actions and beliefs…………
that is not being autonomous…….
if I commit a small act of evil, I have still committed an act of evil…
regardless of why or what rationalization I might use and no matter
how small or insignificant my action might be… it is still evil…
if I choose to enrich myself at the expense of others, no matter how small,
it is a choice made…and evil has been done…
I can hold myself accountable and thus be autonomous…
the more I rationalize or the more I justify my actions in terms of
ism’s or ideologies or superstitions or habits or prejudice, the further
I get from myself…
I separate myself from my actions and beliefs by my use of justifications
and rationalizations… this has the effect of separating myself from my actions
and beliefs……. I am no longer in control of my actions if I act from, or make choices
from ism’s or ideologies… in other words, if I must act from or choose to be evil because
that is what is required in capitalism, then I have no control over my actions…
I must conform to the standards of capitalism and I have no choice…
I cannot do any thing else… that is the opposite of autonomous……
the need to conform to the standards and ism’s of a society leads us to
commit acts of evil, large and small, with ample justification and
rationalization from the ism’s and ideology of that society…….
if from my reevaluations I learn I am not a violent person, I am
a peaceful person, that is at odds with an ongoing ism of America
which espouses martial values of violence, the military, of guns,
of war…am I to be an autonomous person and hold to my values or, or
do I conform to the values of America and hold martial values, of violence,
of guns, of war…and do I then use those American values to justify or
rationalize any actions of mind that is of violence or of war?
if I am an autonomous person, I must hold to my values regardless if
they conform to or don’t conform to the values and ideologies of that
society…
most people would rather conform and commit acts of evil,
then be autonomous beings and hold to their own choices, to their
own actions…….
it is easier to rationalize one’s action then to hold to be an autonomous
person………
and so we return to where we started…
I am one person in the midst of a world of evil and wrongdoing…
must I conform to the world or do I hold to my autonomous self
and make choices that don’t require me to escape to
rationalizations and justifications to avoid any personal accountability
for my actions?
so what do you do?
hold to your own autonomous self and suffer from that choice
or do you conform to ism’s and ideologies and suffer from the choice
of committing evil, be it large or small?
for most people, at this point is trying to see some escape from
the possibility of only two choices… they are trying to see some
third choice which allows them to escape from their own accountability…
and be able to blame the prevailing ism’s, ideologies, superstitions,
prejudice, habits for their choices of the actions they commit…
I cannot be held accountable because I was only following
the societies values and ism’s and ideologies and superstitions…
is that your defense for the choices you have made?
rationalizations and justifications… nothing more?
Kropotkin