Posts Tagged With: goodness

FINDING WISDOM IN REGARDS TO EVIL

 Frustration, fear and a sense of helplessness.  The feeling of impending doom.  The feeling that one is surrounded  by clueless, cynical people that are oblivious to a reality that you not only know about, you can feel.  The world used to be a lot simpler, not easy, but simpler.  The fast paced technological changes coupled with the shifting sands of social evolution has made the world into an insanity factory.  Or is it all the changes that’s causing our discord with reality?  Maybe there is an underlying root to the mess of weeds that choke the peace from our lives.

What are some of our recent societal changes that would impact our culture on an epic level?  Certainly, in the last 70 years, there have been big changes.  Atomic bombs, the sexual revolution, space travel, internet, etc.  Mankind’s ability to travel, learn and build has peaked. Yet the feeling of doom is in the air, why?  I think it’s because of what we’ve forgotten, more than what we need to learn.  Mankind, for whatever reason, is ignoring the concept of evil.  I don’t think it’s a conscious decision to ignore the presence of evil, it is a societal game of peek-a-boo, where not mentioning evil means we don’t have to define goodness.

And here is the problem; I really hate “preaching” in the sense that people are saying “who the hell do you think you are, saying those things!”  However, one cannot talk about the evil of teenagers shooting babies in strollers, without talking about where goodnss comes from.  No I’m not going to go into a lengthy sermon about how y’all need JESUS or anything; even if you do.  This is just a warning, that in this discourse about evil, I am going to mention God.  Try hard not to be offended.

HOW IT WAS

Our culture never used to have a problem with understanding evil. I am talking about the western culture here, you know, Judaic/Christian value system?  The golden rule? The Magna Carta? Declaration of Independence? Bill of rights? Rule of Law? Never mind. Lets just work with the fact that older people have no problem with understanding the war between good and evil, many of them died fighting evil.  Hitler was evil, that’s not an issue, he was doing genocide on a massive scale. If your fuzzy on this, well, God help you. I am aware of the fact that we were fighting alongside another socialist demon named Stalin, also a genocidal enthusiast, the label of evil does not change.  I’ve read all the conspiracy theories about who benefited monetarily from WW2, non of it matters.  The men who fought and bled in the war against the socialist hell of Naziism  did so knowing they were fighting evil.

The point I want to make is that the common man had a clear set of codes that he lived (and died) by.  Our western civilization is the most successful and civilized of all others combined.  Modern western society has walked on the moon, jetted around the world, raised the poor to unforeseen levels and healed the sick.  One can bemoan the pollution, industrialization, social mistakes etc until the cows come home, we’re the best so far in the lineage of civilizations.  I know how popular it is to attack everything  about western culture and society today, the progressives use every past and present mistake as a battering ram to push for the very things that our grandfathers fought against.

The light of freedom is flickering out because the battle lines have been blurred, and the good men don’t know what to fight.  No matter how much some people want to stick their fingers in their ears and shout “separation of church and state”, it’s a fact our societal foundation is the Judaic/Christian concept of good and evil.  It seems that many want to keep the success of our society, especially the riches, while fundamentally changing it’s DNA to make their version of utopia. The formula does not work.  One cannot change the foundation of a building and keep the building standing, especially when the only tool is a battering ram.  That is where the frustration and doom comes from.  We’re under attack from within, and it’s a war of ideas and belief.

WHERE IT’S GOING

The trend today, within popular culture, is to mock the moral codes of yesterday.  The idea of moral relativism has gained a foothold amongst the “elite” of our society.  Moral relativism, the belief that things are only good or bad because of tradition and education, is a very subtle poison.  When that formula is applied to WW2 then the allied powers were wrong to fight Hitler, he was only following the beliefs of his aryan culture and we were wrong to judge him.   One can see this valueless system at work in our failed attempt at “multiculturalism”- we are importing gangs, terrorists and many peoples that hold our culture in contempt- and we are powerless to stop them.  Any attempt to apply common sense to the system and the magic word RACIST is shouted from the rooftops, silencing all opposition.

Some people (especially elitist types with more education than brains)  even believe that there is no moral code, that everything is amoral, morals are just figments of our imagination.  This gives us insight into a more rounded view of evil.  Evil is not just blood thirsty monsters and diabolical masterminds, evil can have an “awe shucks” face- let me give you an example.

When president clinton got caught with his pants down, lied about it and then went on his merry way-it pointed to a shift in societies’ view on evil.  “That wasn’t evil-that was just sex” you say?  I don’t think so.  I know that situation was, to some males, a nudge-and-grin moment, and many women are drawn to a man in power; but it was still evil.  Think about it; for Clinton to have such contempt for his position,  his marriage and the truth-what do you think his attitude was/is toward the common citizen.  Clinton’s attitude toward the everyday people was probably the same attitude he had toward his young intern.  He completely fooled the people, the press and all the institutions of the land.  Evil does not have to have a monsters drooling fangs when a wink and a comely grin will do.

Here is another small example found in popular culture, comparing yesteryear to the present.  In 1938 the comic book character of Superman was born, he stood for “truth, justice and the American way”, and he is today a much loved hero.  Over the years the cultural elite has learned to sneer at heros and what they stand for, even to the point of trying to “kill off” superman (or maybe they were trying to sell more comics).  Superman is a “saviour” character that fights evil and inspires people to reach toward goodness; to be their best.

I watched a movie about some other “heros” that was based on a comic book written in 1986 called Watchmen.  In this story “good” guys do bad things, bad guys do evil to bring about “good” and the only character with clear moral vision is vaporized.  The story was written to deconstruct the idea of the hero and it is a contemptuous jeer toward the concept of ultimate goodness.  These examples show the path we have walked down, culturally speaking, and it’s un-settling.  Good remains good and evil remains evil.

HOW EVIL PUSHES FORWARD

The tools used to push the agenda of evil are really quite simple, the trick is to recognize the tool user.  The world has so much good in it, it must be hard for the forces of evil to push out all that joy.  The smile of a lover, the giggles of children, the awesomeness of creation; they all conspire to derail the agenda of evil.  The trick played on us by the amoral is to paint the world grey, and it is not easy.

True righteousness and evil do not mix, unless ceaselessly agitated, much like oil and water. If oil and water are constantly in turmoil the appearance is a foamy solution, if left in peace, then the two liquids again settle out into different forms; and the line of differentiation can be clearly seen.  the main thrust of those that demand a world to be not black and white, but grey, is much the same.  The container that holds the mixing of the two is our soul, and the agitation in our post-modern society never stops.  Fear, anger, doubt, ugliness, and counterfeit goodness are thrust upon us at every turn.

Our societies ability to inform and entertain is used as a crucible to boil and agitate goodness-with-evil and serve that unholy soup as reality.  Men are creators, builders and stewards; but are painted as moronic destroyers.  Women are nurturers, healers and life givers; but society upholds the pushiest and bitchiest among them as heroines.  People are not judged by character (that is now neither good nor evil) but by skin tone and inflamed entitlement.  Animals have more rights than babies (animals are seen as perfectly amoral) and the creation is worshipped instead of the Creator.  Mankind is on the brink of war over perceived wealth when real wealth is held back from the common man.  The drums of evil overpower the goodness and beauty of the world, and people are either confused or indifferent to their fate.

WHAT TO DO

Find peace. Grasp wisdom. Make a stand.  Simple, but not easy at all.  Find peace where you can find it, start by cutting your television cable.  Feed birds, pet a dog, play peek-a-boo with a baby, look at the stars, canoe down a slow river, grow a garden, build a chair, sit by a fire, paint a sunset;  call this reality.

Grasping wisdom is more challenging, at least to those who won’t acknowledge where wisdom comes from.  For those who hate the idea of God, at least pick up a bible and read proverbs.  Even if you think the whole christian thing is on the same vein as the legend of the tooth fairy, proverbs speaks for itself, its either right or wrong; read them over 5 or 6 times and decide (it won’t hurt you, I promise).  If you can get through proverbs then I double dare you to read ecclesiastes, its a story about a man who had everything a man could want, and the meaninglessness of it.  In the end he dispenses the boiled down wisdom of that experience, the lessons are invaluable for combating the world’s siren call to always want mooooore of everything. If you are the poetic type, read the psalms.  The psalms hold the beauty of a sunrise, the power of a galloping horse and the joy of children’s laughter.  If you’re the type who believes themselves to be more than a cosmic burp (and believe in a creator), then ask God for wisdom, he promises to give it to all who ask for it.  After this, or during this, forge the code of right and wrong you will live by.  Think deeply, trust much, and draw your line.

Now, make a stand!  You don’t have to be narrow and rigid, as your wisdom grows, your code can be tweaked.  Just don’t be swayed by the the latest sitcom idiot’s blathering or politically correct mumbo jumbo.  I am also not talking about a code that defines the “right” number of crackers to eat with soup, think in terms of broad strokes.  Big concepts like: “is it right to kick a farmer off of his land because an “endangered” frog lives there?  Or, “should the government take money from the industrious people and give it to the lazy?”, broad strokes, you get the idea.

People used to live by codes, men have sworn to defend their code to the death. I think that time is coming again, people are going to have to make a stand, or they will be slaves and have everything decided for them.  All the institutions and machinery that we have built up to shield us from personal moral decisions is crumbling or being fundamentally changed. Our concept of “society” may again come to mean those who we are social with, and those whom we can share a life “code” with, not an abstract thing we are spoon fed from the elitist’s idiot box and magazine factory (media).  Don’t let the moral relativist’s sneering contempt fool you, goodness is the high ground, the standard will be raised and righteousness shall win in the end.