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The opposite of good is evil. But, as Hannah Arendt and others point out, generally, it is not malevolence that leads to evil; instead, it grows from passivity and conformity.
Evil is born of taking the easy path too often, assuming too much, and avoiding painful efforts.
That is to say, evil is evolutionarily natural: the less you struggle, the more calories you conserve. However, society is not based upon entropy and conservation but effort and consideration staving off casual collapse.
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One way to alleviate rumination is to focus on projects: go fix something.
One way to screw up a relationship is to fix it.
Applying “project management techniques” or “goal-based achievement” to relationships distracts us from our mutual humanity. That is, we are still avoiding our deep-seated problems by distracting ourselves, a.k.a. getting things done or being productive, which allows us to feel better for a moment.
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When we participate in games and sports, we become aware of our individual strengths and weaknesses. This helps us understand how to win and lose, which in turn aids in self-awareness and helps us determine our place in relationships with others. We learn how to function in a community of diverse talents and hardships.
By playing against different teams over time, we engage in iterative learning, which provides us with a broader dataset for pattern recognition. This allows us to develop a broad foundation of strategies and choices that can help us maximize or exploit differences: cooperation or competition.
Left to their own devices children devise their own games, standards, and strategies. A society that avoids games that allow winning or losing (to be converted and stigmatized as “winners” or “losers”) robs decision-making skills and future wisdom from their members.
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Unfairness causes backlash in proportion: resentment at imbalance causes a reactive lockdown or retaliation to rebalance the dynamic.
Our reaction is to change who we are: to protect ourselves, we become someone else.
However, the rage you feel towards others is your own. (You produce and maintain it; you can also drop it.)
A genuine achievement is not getting even, but despite being wounded, remaining kind: remaining you.
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To treat someone a certain way for profit (i.e., “I will give you the cheaper goods and run my business cheaper, and along the way, you suffer indignity”) is a bargain that we make.
To suffer unfair accusations repeatedly is crazy-making.
It turns people into that kind of animal who finds cause in rebelling against the indignity.
Yet, we must overcome this animalistic response in a reversal: offer back an abundance of charity to make up for the lack of trust in humanity. Convert your resentment at pre-accusation not into cynicism, but into easy acts of kindness where even the smallest gesture stands out.
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The fortunate can ignore the unfortunate. Through myriad small (and large) benefits, it becomes impossible to relate, engage, or comprehend the distant poor except in the abstract.
The fortunate, or privileged, have localized, particular concerns that are distant from survival but not without emotional and social pain.
Today’s initiative is to demand their sight morally; that is, the gaze of the privileged must see the less fortunate and empathize (and feel guilt).
Yet, this symptomatically multiplies the positions and disparities instead of diminishing them.
Noticing the unfortunate (or victimized) begets feigned social signaling, adding a layer of selfish deceit and social utility to the sight so desperately sought-after. The gaze that was supposed to recognize a plight and generate focused action for the poor is activated into multiple effects, which act more substantively for the altruist.
Their gaze on the poor benefits the wealthy more.
This pantomime merely cloisters the wealthiest’s actual self further away: by demanding their attention, we are left somehow more blind as they recede behind enacted propaganda, leaving us seeing only an after-image of kindness with no substance.
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Good manners aren’t about your performance; it is about being accommodating, gracious, and a little bit blind and a little bit distracted when somebody else’s performance falters.
Allowing somebody to maintain their dignity is akin to forgiveness: an ultimate kindness and kinship.
This implies that "bad manners" draw attention to another’s failures; it is marking them down and loudly keeping score.
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Recognizing kindness would mean understanding why the person behaves the way they are.
For instance, if I pause to let somebody else walk before me, I am aware of a broader situation and avoid potential conflict. But the unperceptive person, they never sees it, or it just strikes them as odd.
Is there kindness around you that you cannot perceive because you are too self-absorbed?
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When it comes to experimentation, it historically is carried out by those on high, with the testing and results falling on those beneath.
The selection process follows two paths: 1) our compassionate empathy compels us to save you from your wretched self, or 2) your loyalty is rewarded by the uncountenanced opportunity to be raised up.
