What is evil? Evil is a force. In the dog world, it’s pretty clear who is a bulldog and who isn’t. Within the human realm, tho, things can be tricky. To rise above evil, you have to defy gravity. To defy gravity, you have to understand falling.
defying gravity
There are rules in the physical world– “what goes up must come down.” There are rules in the metaphysical world as well– basically a set of propositions that explain how things work. Often times, these rules are expressed as common sense: for example, if I bite you, you will bite me.
It is in within this framework of “how things work” that we see our relationships with others: how we form a pack, with order, and how our pack negotiates power relations with other packs. There are forces at work, guiding and shaping the parameters within which all the different levels of power are working– individual levels, community levels, corporate and national levels.
Humans tend to have captured a lot of these metaphysical rules in a code of law. The entire legal system is an attempt to regulate how humans interact with each other. Of course, the problem is that one of these rules is “you can’t legislate morality.”
So, what is done? You fend for yourself. Don’t expect the law to do what humans refuse to do of their own accord. Don’t Expect Protection. Don’t run; don’t hide. Be real.
How?
1. Identify evil.
Evil is when one human prioritizes their desire over what other humans need.
2. Defy gravity.
The goal is to radically accept that evil exists, and then to be above it. The problem, I have noticed, is that most humans are oblivious to gravity until they trip. A human is best at recognizing gravity when his face is planted in the ground already.
This is, perhaps, where that saying comes from, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” The fact is that without a clear understanding of that which keeps you down, it will be rather difficult to soar.
You can soar in all sorts of ways. It’s up to you. My point today is that this is all something to think about. The scariest part is when your face is planted in the ground and you don’t even realize it.
This all goes back to earlier posts about power, conceptualizing power, and using communication.
Till tomorrow, here’s a great video… not only the lyrics, but also what this guy does with his audio set up…
ada.mae.compton 
The classical Christian view was that there is no evil, there is onlyn absence of good, or more specifically, a separation from god. Evil in this view would be more analogous to “cold”, which is an absence of heat, than to gravity.
The problem with gravity as an analogy is that all “things,” all material things, have weight and therefore are subject to gravity. Hegel compares material things to the human will. Just as any material has weight as a part of its nature, so does any act of the will have freedom as a part of its nature. If he is correct, and any act of will is based on the freedom of that individual will, then all acts will be for the benefit of that individual, in your terms, putting the individual’s desires over othe’rs needs, although I would broaden that to include the needs of anything not of the self (plants and animals, for example).
This acting on behalf of an individual separate self is what seems to me to cause most ot our problems. I wouldn’t call it “evil” because it’s just part of the nature of our existence. The individual self simply cannot overcome its own individual perspective.
Many religions, therefore, offer some kind of supra-personal self to identify with (God, Brahma, your tribe). Buddha took a different approach and said that there is no individual self, The idea of self is just that, an idea. And it is incorrect. Because we believe it, life sucks. The only option then is to realize the truth of no self.
All of this is not to criticize. I don’t think you were trying to do systematic ethical philosophy in your post. I was just interested and feeling philosophical.
“The individual self simply cannot overcome its own individual perspective.” This will give me much to ponder. Thanks for your comment, Kent!
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