Not many disagreed with the claim in my previous post that evil always wins.
Maybe it’s more obvious than I thought. Everybody knows it, and your reaction upon seeing that I have discovered it, too, is “Duh.” On the other hand maybe this bleak side of Jones is too much of a downer. You don’t believe me, you think that Good can triumph and you don’t have time for an intervention right now.
But Theresa and Emma Goldman (whom I crudely call “Goldie”) both stood up for the forces of Good. My first reaction was “What planet are they living on?” Years ago, even before I read Crime and Punishment, I had a theory about how you could have anything you wanted in life. It was so simple I couldn’t believe everyone wasn’t already implementing it. Here it is: Take whatever you want by force and kill all the witnesses. I had noticed that hard work and talent do not necessarily lead to success in this world, so I was thinking of ways to get stuff, in case my own hard work and talent failed.
Stealing it was one of the options. Hey, it had to be at least considered. In considering it, one of my very first thoughts was “What if I get caught, and go to prison, and end up with a boyfriend?” This line of thinking lead to my theory. Criminals get caught because witnesses tell on them, therefore you should get rid of all the witnesses. Not just bribe them or threaten them, but kill them. That way you get to keep the spoils, and there are no repercussions.
I never put my theory into practice though. I didn’t want to kill anybody. I didn’t even want to steal the material things I wanted. I wanted to earn my own way and have the respect of others, and as Goldie remarked (sort of) in her comment, I wanted to be able to look in the mirror without cringing at the sleazy, double-dealing murderous thief I had become.
As a result I haven’t gotten rich or powerful. Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t return my calls, because she knows in advance that she doesn’t want to meet me. Probably if I had followed my theory – with some modifications to account for security cameras and DNA tracing – I could have had Gwyneth in so many ways by now. But I opted for living the good life instead. Damn those Catholic schools.
But even though I am not much of a player, it seems obvious to me that if you’re willing to resort to cheating, lying, stealing, threatening and actually causing physical harm to others (in other words, if you’re willing to do Evil), you can come out on top in competitive situations, which is what life is. A dope like me would feel so bad about this that he would not be able to do it for long without breaking down and confessing, and then doing prison time. In my previous post I gave four simple examples of how this works, so I won’t belabor this here.
I suppose what Theresa and Goldie are trying to say is something along the lines of “If we’d all play fair, carry our own weight and help each other, it would be a better world.” Granted, and I’m all for it in principle. But if one guy decides to take what he wants and kill all the witnesses, he can negate a million good deeds.
And sadly, that guy is always out there.
Theresa – Bless you, Angel! Just when this theoretical discussion had almost floated away like a runaway weather balloon, you touch it with humanity. There’s a time for talk, and there’s a time for cookies, I know.
I do make a bad cup of coffee, and I’m waiting to hear that cello.
It’s more than “I don’t like their definition.” I believe that their definitions intentionally lie, mislead, and mislabel. If I were living in a society that said openly that greed is good, that the most greedy should be rewarded, etc., I might (nay, would!) disagree strongly with those principles, and I would try to show the flaws in the assumptions and arguments. In contrast, the current folks create programs that do exactly the opposite of what the programs’ supporters claim will happen. IIRC, at the intro to 1984, Orwell basically said that you could define complexity away, you could eliminate freedom by eliminating any way to talk about it, for example. (Wittgenstein says something related, though he was talking about complex language and complex life being inextricably intertwined.) IOW, what you can say and what you (can) do are deeply intertwined. Thus, a political party–like the current administration–that basically lies about its programs and the effects of those programs is engaging in a different kind of deception–evil, let’s call it–than is a political party that is trying to make a case for a program with which you disagree.
p.s. Theresa rocks!