Since the dawn of mankind the battle between good and evil has been prevalent in various cultures across the world, from religious texts, mythologies, music and other areas of life but most importantly in our day to day interactions with people and that's the topic of today's discussion. We can all agree there are two sides to the story and we have the 'good guys' on one side and the 'bad guys' on the other. Society through various moral principles, laws, tradition and customs have set aside certain behavioral traits which are deemed as good because they are more or less beneficial to everyone and then there are certain traits which are deemed bad or evil because they are not to the benefit of everyone and in certain situations where they are, the only benefit a small fraction of the masses.
I, myself am of a view, my perspective is that life isn't black or white (clearly defined) but full of various greys areas where the lines between 'good' and 'evil' intersect but that's my opinion however and should be taken with a grain of salt.
With that said we'll take a look at certain character traits that puts people in a positive light and those that puts a negative view on people.
In our various interpersonal relationships with other humans behavioral traits or characteristics such as honesty, compassion, respect for others, humility, courage etc. are considered to be good and a person who displays such character traits is considered to be of good character or a good person. The opposite of such characteristics include dishonesty, cruelty, pride or arrogance, cowardice etc. and person who displays such behavior is considered a bad person. I will not be getting into the practical aspects of such characteristics as that would be an entirely new topic on it's own, however we are now going to delve into why people who are considered to be good are the ones responsible for creating bad people, this might sound critical and triggering to some but it's a necessary evil for the highest good of all, no pun intended.
I'll first start with the religious and spiritual narrative of God and the devil, a theme across various religions across the world notably the three Abrahamic religions and it's precursor Zoroastrianism, God (various identities) is portrayed as the embodiment of all that is good and light, the devil being an incarnate of evil and darkness. However what most people fail to critically examine is that God in 'his' perfection, wisdom and goodness was involved in the creation of the evil devil. The Christian Bible story depicts the devil as a being of light named Lucifer created by God that eventually turned against 'his' maker and sought to overthrow 'him'. What is worth looking at is that God allowed him to go about his way to wreak destruction on 'his' other creation but what truly caused Lucifer to turn against God is vaguely explained to be jealousy and envy, seeds of evil that originated out of nowhere in a being that was perfectly made out goodness to be a force for good, surprising right? I know, then to even make it more interesting, God 'himself' blatantly claimed in Isaiah 54:16 from the Bible to be the one who created the destroyer to destroy, that destroyer being the devil. Jacob and Joseph's actions from the Bible leading to the other siblings becoming jealous and eventually selling their brother into slavery and faking his death. In the Qur'an the devil is portrayed as angel named Iblis who was created by Allah (God) before mankind, however after he refused to bow before Adam (Man) God's newest creation whom he saw as beneath himself, he was banished from the presence of his creator for his defiance and became the evil one who tempts mankind. In Zoroastrianism however, Ormazd (God) a being of light and goodness and Ahriman (devil) a being of darkness were intertwined in a battle of good versus evil until they called a truce to let humans decide which side of the fence they wanted to be on, this contrasts the ideology of evil being an absolute just like good, a reflection of the underlying principle of duality. When we take a look at one of the many ancient Egyptian creation myths, the world was created by the goddess Ma'at with the help of the cosmic serpent Apep however a disagreement between the two led to a split which culminated into an eternal battle with Apep being the evil antagonist who opposes the good Ma'at, something which clearly could have been avoided if the two found common ground.
Let's also take a look at pop culture and we'll see a prevalent theme of seemingly good people being responsible for creating monsters, one such example is that of Batman and Joker from DC comics, Joker was originally Jack Napier a failing stand-up comedian who was influenced by a gang to dress up as a costumed criminal character known as Red Hood to distract police during their criminal activities something he agreed to in order to make money to be able to take care of his pregnant wife but unfortunately for him, his wife died during childbirth along with the baby. To make matters even much worse for the already broken and grieving man, his farce as Red Hood caught the attention of an overzealous Batman who was in the early stages of his superhero career and wanted to make an example of any costumed criminal or villain he came across tracked down Jack and after a short chase that sent them to a chemical plant ended with the bat knocking him into a vat of chemicals that bleached his skin snow-white, his hair green and lips blood-red, that along with his already existing depression drove him completely insane leading to him taking on the Joker identity and going on to commit numerous atrocities to torment Batman. So here we see Batman a force for good being the one whose actions led to the creation of a sociopathic killer clown who became responsible for so much death and destruction within the DC universe, including the death of one of Batman's sidekicks and the crippling of another. Another example is the 2007 Disney animated movie Meet The Robinsons where the indirect actions of the well meaning main character Lewis in the past leads to his childhood friend Goob becoming a villain in the future and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe the good intentions of the superhero Iron Man led him to create the artificial intelligence Ultron to protect the world but it ended up becoming evil after seeing humanity as a threat to it's existence. I could go on about so many other examples of good and well meaning film, TV, video game or book characters that ended up creating villainous characters due to their actions and inactions.
In our everyday life's here on earth we see some of these parallels so many times from well meaning politicians and statesmen of various countries in the course of their actions to give their countrymen a better life end up injuring people in other nations either intentionally or unintentionally thereby creating enemies for themselves. A perfect example is the relationship between western world, Africa and the middle east. Through the overexploitation of the African continent over centuries in the best interests of Europe and America, a lot of afflicted young Africans in contemporary times has resorted to diabolical ways in order to get by such as the infamous Nigerian email scams and some of their victims end up being innocent and well meaning citizens of western nations whose better livelihoods were as a result of the injuries inflicted on Africa by their leaders or ancestors something they had no part in but indirectly responsible due to not knowing or caring to know about the plight of people in far away lands who have been hurt by the very system that gives them a good life. It's the same with middle eastern nations, the invasions by western nations in their quest for resources or to promote democracy and world peace over the years have created a deep resentment towards them by the natives of said nations and some of them have resorted to violent terrorist attacks to voice out their grievances. The world can never truly have peace unless leaders across the world seek the well-being of everyone and not only their own people as that would lead to stepping on the toes of others in the best interest of their various countries.
In our interpersonal relationships people of high moral standing like to look down on others of lower moral standing, the so-called lowlifes without even knowing or caring to know that they are sometimes responsible for the behavior of such people. We like to speak out against the snakes in the grass but these so called snakes in the grass are people that we have hurt either directly or indirectly with our actions and inactions and has created resentment towards us and that resentment can become a lethal bite against us should said people take action on those feelings. Not being there for people when they need someone, seeking one's own happiness at the expense of others no matter how well meaning you may be will create enmity against you, giving preferential treatment to one person or people and leaving out the rest creates resentment towards the favored ones and the person or people who put them above the rest even though they may be good people who are not at fault, we see this a lot of times at workplaces, schools, families and even religious settings. We create enemies for ourselves when we our own good and that of the people close to without seeing how it affects others, not reaching out a helping hand to others and being there for them when we could, judging people harshly without knowing their circumstances, all these and others action lead to the creation of rivals not matter how well meaning we may be, and those affected will go on to hurt other people because hurt people hurt people and it's a vicious cycle that must be broken through care, understanding and compassion for all. I believe if more people took pains to seek not only their self interests but that others as well, the world would be such a beautiful place to be. My advice is not only to have good intentions but to also the bigger picture of how our actions and words affects others.
Wishing everyone a happy new month and 'May' the odds forever be in our favor. Peace, love and light to all.
Ad Astra 🙏🧿❤️
