It's not hard to believe that we were always like this. Growing up I left it to the scientists and Stephen Spielberg to tell me what the dinosaurs looked like, left it to Gene Roddenberry and my science teacher to teach me about the stars and galaxies. There's so much about mankind, our history and our place in the universe, that I can only chalk up to assumptions that my story tellers are telling the truth. But if you listen closely to enough stories you start to find out the inalienable truths about our people. And so, I have to repeat that it's not hard to believe that we were always like this.
Evil, we were always evil. I'm trying to find proof that we were not. I can find evidence that some of us weren't, that most of us wish not to be, that a few of us don't know how to be; but evil has always been in us. We have always had greed, always had deception, always had jealousy, always rage despite obvious regret, in our hearts. That's where it is, in our hearts. I'm trying so hard to find refuge from this belief but I cannot. Indirectly, I see it everywhere. Don't you? Don't you see it everywhere? Don't you see it in our history books and in every depiction of Rome? Can you tell the tales of our great empires of the past without evil? Don't you see it in our most beautiful poetry? Can Shakespeare be as mighty without Othello's Iago? Don't you see it in our newspapers, our magazines, our great novels, our every printed word? Can you point me to the religion where man's evil need not have been addressed? God himself has had to put words towards our evil, can you imagine? He begs us not to cheat lie and murder, begs that we deny ourselves these ever natural impulses.
But a hungry man will slay, and a hungry hypocrite will at least let die and feast all the same. Then he will pacify himself in justification for his own sustenance. That I might live by your death, gain by your loss, have joy by your suffering, feast by your toiling, because this is simply the way it should be. This we are all guilty of, and to this we lose ourselves in the aimless debate: Is man essentially evil? What a gloriously unimportant question. If this is the case, and there is free will, than we can change our essence; if this is case, and there is no free will, than the answer is yes, but somehow we can still do good. The change from evil to good is in either case easier and for the most part less expensive than a change in sex, and the words we put around nature versus nurture are in both cases pointless. The question to ask of ourselves is not whether humans are essentially evil, the question to ask is whether evil is essentially human. Make no mistake, we are not alone in this - hyenas will have to answer to God for their thefts, Lions for their pride, Praying Mantis' for their cannibalism, pigs for their gluttony, and so on. But as we have evolved to embody every aspect of evil we can think of, can this change? Can we disembody ourselves from this evil, or have we been formed by it? Our societies, our economies, but also each of us in our days. Can each of us identify in ourselves the evils we possess and dispose of them thus? Or do we hold on to them just as we hold on our limbs, and for the same reason? Who are we without the evil within us? Who are you when all of your evil is gone?
Evil, we were always evil. I'm trying to find proof that we were not. I can find evidence that some of us weren't, that most of us wish not to be, that a few of us don't know how to be; but evil has always been in us. We have always had greed, always had deception, always had jealousy, always rage despite obvious regret, in our hearts. That's where it is, in our hearts. I'm trying so hard to find refuge from this belief but I cannot. Indirectly, I see it everywhere. Don't you? Don't you see it everywhere? Don't you see it in our history books and in every depiction of Rome? Can you tell the tales of our great empires of the past without evil? Don't you see it in our most beautiful poetry? Can Shakespeare be as mighty without Othello's Iago? Don't you see it in our newspapers, our magazines, our great novels, our every printed word? Can you point me to the religion where man's evil need not have been addressed? God himself has had to put words towards our evil, can you imagine? He begs us not to cheat lie and murder, begs that we deny ourselves these ever natural impulses.
But a hungry man will slay, and a hungry hypocrite will at least let die and feast all the same. Then he will pacify himself in justification for his own sustenance. That I might live by your death, gain by your loss, have joy by your suffering, feast by your toiling, because this is simply the way it should be. This we are all guilty of, and to this we lose ourselves in the aimless debate: Is man essentially evil? What a gloriously unimportant question. If this is the case, and there is free will, than we can change our essence; if this is case, and there is no free will, than the answer is yes, but somehow we can still do good. The change from evil to good is in either case easier and for the most part less expensive than a change in sex, and the words we put around nature versus nurture are in both cases pointless. The question to ask of ourselves is not whether humans are essentially evil, the question to ask is whether evil is essentially human. Make no mistake, we are not alone in this - hyenas will have to answer to God for their thefts, Lions for their pride, Praying Mantis' for their cannibalism, pigs for their gluttony, and so on. But as we have evolved to embody every aspect of evil we can think of, can this change? Can we disembody ourselves from this evil, or have we been formed by it? Our societies, our economies, but also each of us in our days. Can each of us identify in ourselves the evils we possess and dispose of them thus? Or do we hold on to them just as we hold on our limbs, and for the same reason? Who are we without the evil within us? Who are you when all of your evil is gone?
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