It's a good thing to look inside, at your shadow, and know your capabilities.
JP is right on, when he lays this out. You're not a good person when you don't acknowledge your capacity for violence and evil. IIRC, he has it that this makes you weak. And he's right. And that there's no virtue in that.
It is like me not being able to lie. For me, that's not a virtue because I don't have a choice about it. And frankly, it doesn't even make me an *honest* person. I'm still loathe to admit when I've done wrong. I can still deceive myself, even if I can't fool anybody else.
But also. JP looks at it from the perspective of being strong, capable and effective, mostly. There's more to it than that. The flip side is that some of the most evil, terrifying, awful human monsters out there, are people who have never embraced the idea that they *can* do evil. Because holy moly can you wreak a lot of havoc, if you've simply ignored the idea that you might be wrong. That your motives might be other than good. That you can, would, and perhaps have, crushed people weaker than you. That you can delude yourself even about your own motives. That *you* might be "the baddies" as the infamous sketch has it. Because if you start on the assumption that you're the hero of the story, your intentions are pure... everything you do will get rationalized in that light, right down to slicing the beating hearts out of war prisoners to keep your gods happy. Are we the baddies? Nah! We're good people! Everything we do is for the greater good!
The older I get, the more I see that the Desert Fathers have the right of it. Never, ever tell yourself you're the good guy, never dare to think you're making progress, getting better, or that you've climbed higher than the next guy. There the abyss lies waiting for you.
I do wonder how much we will see, in the coming years, of the things you're mulling over, here. We've all got a shadow. I think a lot of people's shadows are considerably closer to the surface, and the world at large seems determined to lower the water level in that pond.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2023-06-17 01:18 am (UTC)JP is right on, when he lays this out. You're not a good person when you don't acknowledge your capacity for violence and evil. IIRC, he has it that this makes you weak. And he's right. And that there's no virtue in that.
It is like me not being able to lie. For me, that's not a virtue because I don't have a choice about it. And frankly, it doesn't even make me an *honest* person. I'm still loathe to admit when I've done wrong. I can still deceive myself, even if I can't fool anybody else.
But also. JP looks at it from the perspective of being strong, capable and effective, mostly. There's more to it than that. The flip side is that some of the most evil, terrifying, awful human monsters out there, are people who have never embraced the idea that they *can* do evil. Because holy moly can you wreak a lot of havoc, if you've simply ignored the idea that you might be wrong. That your motives might be other than good. That you can, would, and perhaps have, crushed people weaker than you. That you can delude yourself even about your own motives. That *you* might be "the baddies" as the infamous sketch has it. Because if you start on the assumption that you're the hero of the story, your intentions are pure... everything you do will get rationalized in that light, right down to slicing the beating hearts out of war prisoners to keep your gods happy. Are we the baddies? Nah! We're good people! Everything we do is for the greater good!
The older I get, the more I see that the Desert Fathers have the right of it. Never, ever tell yourself you're the good guy, never dare to think you're making progress, getting better, or that you've climbed higher than the next guy. There the abyss lies waiting for you.
I do wonder how much we will see, in the coming years, of the things you're mulling over, here. We've all got a shadow. I think a lot of people's shadows are considerably closer to the surface, and the world at large seems determined to lower the water level in that pond.