No Evil

In those shoes

One of my tenets is that no one is bad. There are no evil people, no hiss-the-villains. Here’s how I come to that conclusion.

First, I know there’s nothing wrong with me. I will not, cannot, act to intentionally hurt another being (human or otherwise). Of course, that doesn’t mean that others never get hurt or eaten on my account. But I try to minimize the damage. I have a yardstick.

Next, it’s my conviction that if I ever found myself in another’s position, really in that person’s stead, with the same background, upbringing, bag of genes and cards dealt out by life to play, then I would act exactly the same way. I’m talking about meat suits here and self sheathes. I’d be that person.

Being that person, I know I couldn’t be intentionally cruel. Ergo, neither could (s)he. Every action would be the best thing that that creature would be able to do, given the baggage that they were born/brought up with.

Are you with me so far? Do you understand without necessarily agreeing?

Mass murderers, child abusers, genocidal politicians–from their perspectives they are behaving rationally. They are operation also under the delusion—we would say—of doing the greatest overall amount of good. They have a different worldview where, there but the grace, go I.