The age-old question of whether we are born good, evil, or neutral is one that we ask ourselves some time in our lives as we attempt to figure out who we are and understand others. Depending on what recently occurred, I have swung through each of the options in the past.
For a long while, I have believed that the question is not really a valid question because it was too muddled by what each term meant. Somethings are good to some, evil to others, and lastly the rest do not care at all. But because of all the superhero movies that have been coming out for the last decade, this has gotten me to thinking why does "good" triumph over "evil".
And in my limited reality, I feel that people are good. There is a lot evil events in the world, but when compared to the mass of the people, it really is the smaller percentage. But even then, I think people want to be good so there are even fewer people who are evil to be evil.
I think this is evolutionary because it is easier to survive by being good even though sometimes we believe that good people finish last, but rather good people stay alive whether it is physical, financial, or social. It is easier to be good because we do not have to put as much effort in being helpful to others than being evil.
To be evil takes a lot of energy and time. On the basic level of just pure evil, people seamlessly group together to fight a common enemy. This leaves the evil people who need to fit in with the good people.
These people then need to understand two worlds, one is the lie that they live and the other is hiding their true intent. This also scales down to smaller evil deeds like corruption, self-promotion, or even white-lies.
Even just braving a smile but dislike the person underneath takes more energy than just ignoring the person. If we could tell the difference, we would prefer to be with the person who is more forgiving.
I believe that simply by having good intent is natural because it is fundamental to our ability to survive because we do not waste as much energy as evil people. This would also explain why many of the unsuspecting evil people are highly intelligent. I get tired just remembering who doesn't like to hang out or work with other people. Many times, I believe that I only seem intelligent because I do not waste a lot of time with rumors where I tried to keep up but I became physically drained. I really do feel dumber as I figure things out because it always seem others seem to pick up on social cues and little tidbits so much easier than I do.
So although I have had some evil thoughts, I am probably too stupid to be any good at it. Unfortunately, this does not cover where my good intentions may clash with someone else's good intention. For example, the US presidential election nominee selections.
Well, it kind of does but not as cleanly defined as the prior examples. Although I believe people are well-intentioned, this area points out how lazy we can be. If we believe someone else will do something or if we do not understand which option is correct, we do nothing. On the extreme end, we have the capacity to become silent witnesses where we do not call the police even though a major crime occurred in a somewhat public area believing that someone else would have called it in. On a lesser end, we do not report misbehavior especially in a work-place because we are afraid of our social status of being a tattle-tale.
So the majority of people agree on good-intentions when life and death is the ultimate result, but when it comes to evil activities that are not life and death then our good-intentions become fuzzy even when we know what is right and wrong. If we add in evil activities where people believe they won't be caught or punished, this becomes even more dicey (like speeding when driving).
Then what is good people? Those who have more good-intentions than evil ones? Those who only have good intentions? Ultimately, I think the general population are misguided well-intentioned people. Our conflict is primarily on short-term gains versus long-term gains. Basically, when is good-enough, enough?
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