Evil Does Not Exist: An Essay on Grandiosity
Written by John Rozewicki   
Tuesday, 11 July 2006

Grandiosity is Essential for Happiness

Grandiosity, very simply, is the belief that things are much much simpler than they actually are. It is comforting for us to know that we can understand the mechanisms that move society. It lets us believe that things will happen predictably and for explainable reasons.

Motives

One of the most common demonstrations of grandiosity is attribution of motives to actions. This happens very often in politics. A recent example from one of the most grandiose members of the media, Rush Limbaugh, has to do with the global warming debate. He stated in one of his many diatribes that the whole global warming craze was created by "liberals" in order to control the everyday lives of American citizens. This was in response to some of the proposed actions to be taken in response to global warming. The people he's talking about would probably say that this is not their motive at all. Limbaugh does this sort of thing a lot. He talks about an action, attaches a motive of his own choosing, and then rails against this motive for hours. He stacks the deck in his favor in any debate by attaching motives. It is simpler and easier to believe that "liberals" want to control American citizens than to actually discuss global warming in an intelligent manner.

Evil Does Not Exist

Our own president attaches motives in order to make foreign policy easier to handle. Most commonly, evil. He attributes the motive of evil to whomever he likes, and then announces that he's going to take them down because they're evil. There's a beautiful circular logic to it. Evil does not exist, because nobody ever actually believes they're a bad person. No matter what a person is doing they always believe they're doing the right thing no matter what that thing is. If they didn't believe it was the right thing then they wouldn't have been doing it. Saying someone is evil means that their motive is to be a bad person. This requires them to admit that they're a bad person. That sort of thing just doesn't happen very often. Everyone believes they are a good person because the alternative is too painful. People who physically abuse their children believe they're disciplining them fairly. Hitler was a German nationalist who sought to empower the aryan people. Britain was defending their property from those who sought to take it over during our revolution. People who kill abortion doctors do so in the belief that they are taking down people who murder innocents. In war, both sides believe they are doing the right thing. Both sides also believe the other side is evil. The proverbial road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.

Evil, The Feel-Good Drug

Evil means we don't have to think any further. We don't have to look at facts. Motives like evil make it easy for us to explain to ourselves why certain people need to be taken down. Evil makes us feel better. People never fail to do what is easiest for them. This is not to say that people are dumb or lazy. They're not. They just have no incentive to think any deeper than the hard lines of good versus evil. Oftentimes thinking deeper leads to having an unpopular opinion, a bleaker outlook on the world, and the feeling of being out of control.

Please, Give Me a Reason to Feel Bad.

People care about their everyday lives. They care mostly about things that directly affect them. Everything else falls far behind. People have no reason to think about things that don't directly affect them, especially if those things will make them feel bad. People believe in evil because the alternative is too difficult and often painful. [tags]Politics, Notarrogant, Philosophy[/tags]
Trackback(0)
Comments (0)add comment

Write comment
password
 

busy
 
< Prev   Next >