The gardener of good and evil

What is evil? Don’t worry im not going to pretend that I have any sort of philosophical insight, I know that many have addressed this question and come up with smart and involved answers. But someone said to me recently that we shouldn’t defer our debates to others clever than us, it’s up to everyone to discuss the big ideas, no mater how inadequate we feel.

[jeepers! you know what I've just realised? I sometimes write this blog, with the voice of her offa sex in the city in my head. Very worrying]

People talk about things being evil, even non-religious people. It’s a given. But is it helpful to our common progress and that of our planet and our children. For such an important and basic element I think it is ill defined.

Maybe it helps to think about good things and bad things that happen and analyse what the causes are, and maybe the cause of that good thing, is ‘good’ and the cause of that bad things is ‘evil’. Is that too simplistic? Yes. But I like simple things, there lies beauty.

Here’s some good stuff. I think people could agree that things which help people live a healthy, happy, more comfortable and longer life are generally good. Also, I don’t think it’s promoting a hippy agenda to say that things which achieve harmony and common human agreement and respect are, in general, regarded as good.

So specifically, some examples; the ability to make fire; forging of basic tools; The Enlightenment; establishment of laws and social discipline; identification of germs (germ theory), invention of antibiotics; mass communications; industrialisation and efficiency of labour; economic theory and progress (the likes of Adam Smith); eradication of diseases; construction of housing; shelter and roads; generation and harnessing of electricity,

You know what… I’ve gone and got bored of this post already… so I’ll leave it at that, if anyone wants to add any comments and add to the list of good things/bad things then maybe I’ll come back with a post script to analyse the causes. And we can put the world to rights.

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