Monday 3 June 2002

Pic of the day: Dandelion - bad or beautiful?

When good people do bad things

I seem to remember that there's a book called "When bad things happen to good people". That's certainly an interesting topic, but I'm not sure how relevant it is. How many good people are there really in the world? I mean truly good, so good that nobody think they got what they deserve when bad things happen to them? But of course when bad things happen to us or our loved ones, we think it is a horrible injustice.

In fact, most of us think of ourselves as good. Oh, there are exceptions. Black Metal fans, Satanists in general, some teenagers and a few other disturbed souls. But the vast majority of people think of themselves as fairly good. So how come that most of all these people grate on each other's nerves and are generally held in much lower esteem by others than by themselves? My theory is this: It is because good people happen to bad things. And while we know that these things are not typical of ourselves, others are not so fortunate. They judge us by what we seem to do, not by what we meant to do.

***

So why do good people do bad things? Again, we need to clarify. There are two very different ways we can do bad things: Without knowing it, or despite knowing it.

In the first group again, there are local bad things and universal bad things. Local: For most Westerners, eating beef is quite natural. While not actively a good thing, it is considered harmless and natural. But if you go to India and do the same in a devoutly Hindu village, you will earn their enmity for life. To kill a cow is as bad as killing a human, not to mention eat it. Or to take an even more extreme example: Two men who are deeply in love with one another will not just feel that it is harmless to make love, but that it is a decidedly good thing; indeed to not do so would feel to them a crime against each other, themselves and love itself. But to Christians and Muslims (and probably some more) it is a horrible sin and an unspeakable insult against the Creator. So, are they good - for doing what they believe is right - or bad, for doing what we believe is wrong?

Then there are things that we generally agree are wrong, but could just happen to do anyway. For instance, you're enjoying a large bar of chocolate and your dog is looking at you with those awww eyes. In your generosity, you share your chocolate with it. Since chocolate is poison to dogs, it will die some time later in horrible pain. But you didn't know that. You thought you were doing a good thing, and presumably so thought the dog. But you were wrong, very wrong. Or perhaps your friend is making puppy eyes at you and pawing you to have sex, and you generously agree to that. But unbeknownst to you both, you have a sexually transmittable disease from one of the previous puppy eyes, and your friend is hit hard by it. You meant to do good, but you did bad, very bad. Things like these happen all the time. We make an error in our judgement, and others suffer from it. Good people happen to do bad things.

***

Now if only it could stop there. But you know it doesn't. Some times good people (that's you and me) do bad things even though we know it's bad. Perhaps not horribly evil things, like killing people or burning down their homes. (Though in times of war, good people are known to do that a lot. I'd like to think I wouldn't, but my dreams tell me a different story.) But there are degrees of bad, and frankly most of us don't such awe-inspiring good things either, do we? Mostly we don't sell everything and give to the poor, or take a wound that was meant for another, stuff like that. Well, most of us don't, most of the time; and our bad is on a similar scale as our good. Hopefully a bit less.

Like, for example, we're on a diet and it's the middle of the night and we can't sleep because of the sound of the snack crying for us. So eventually we figure that we'll damage our health more by lying awake all night rather than just get up and eat the bloody thing. (Well, fatty thing more likely.) Oh yes, it feels bad, but not all that bad, at least until afterwards. Then it feels a lot worse. I hear from reliable sources that people have the same experience with tobacco, alcohol and non-relationship sex too, when they've gotten really used to it. (Not that I would know, of course!) It doesn't really help that some people are snacking shamelessly while we try to hold ourselves to higher standards.

Now if harming ourselves wasn't enough, most of us have at some time or another been angry at people and said hurtful stuff, or done hurtful stuff. In fact, most people start doing this already as small children, and continue way into adult life. While not all actually bash noses in, it's very few who don't hurt some feelings and regret it later. It was bad, and yet we did it, even though we are good people. How can that be?

Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism all most touchingly agree that it is because we desire what we shouldn't, and because of our pride (we want to be seen as more than we are, or at least not less). But why? What is the explanation for it? Is there a reason, beyond that some reptile or demon did some stuff thousands of years ago? I dare say there is.

We are primates, that's what we are. Our intellect knows that even if we lose status, we won't actually starve or be eaten by predators; but our brain doesn't know that. So, unless rigorously trained or brightly enlightened, our brain will continue to do what has served our ancestors well since the dawn of time. After all, they survived to have us, so clearly they must have done something right. Yes indeed. But they may also have done something wrong – in fact, we all do – and besides the times have changed. Life is no longer nasty, brutish and short. If there was ever a time to start to do good, it must be now. Certainly we don't want to add more bad to the world, we want to add more good. Right? Right?

But don't expect it to happen overnight, unless through divine intervention. Probably not even then.