Good and evil
May 27th, 2010
There’s nothing
inherently powerful about good or evil.
They’re just lying around. You have to pick them up
and empower them to give them life and effect. Drones don’t fly themselves
and shoot their missiles into family compounds on their own; Mr. Obama has to
pick them up. Collateralized debt obligations that fuck the world’s economy sixteen
ways to Christmas don’t have Wizard of Oz flying monkey wings of their own —
bankers have to pick them up and put them in motion (after lobbyists have
picked up some other forms of evil and cleared the way, that is). Saying
something dark and untrue about someone doesn’t happen of its own
accord. Someone has to pick it up and say it. Pumping seawater
into a well where pressure is building up, and you know it,
but the seawater is cheaper than drilling mud,
and you hope you’ll get away with it and
make a couple more nickels of profit –
that doesn’t just happen, someone
has to pick that decision
up and give it life.
Good is the same way.
You have to pick it up and shake it a little
to make it work. If you’re a Pam Omidyar and you have
billions of dollars lying around, and you say you want to save the whales,
you actually have to pick up some of the good lying all around your feet and in
your monumental treasure chests and shake it, not just lip about it. If you
know a way to keep people from dying in sewage or having their
barely-damaged arms and legs hacked off with hacksaws
and no anesthesia, well, that’s some good that you
have to pick up and shake a little bit.
It isn’t enough to let it lie there
and trust that it will
animate itself.
It won’t.
And that’s how
all good and evil is.
It’s just lying around, inert.
Little girls don’t get their faces burnt
off in wars unless someone picks up some evil
and empowers it. Big whales and little ones don’t get
harpooned if someone picks up some good and
gets between them and the harpoon ship.
And every bit of good and evil
in this world is just
like that.
