It is a great lie passed down from our parents and grandparents that money and power are the roots of all evil, that all wrongdoing is a direct result of these pursuits and therefore they are the cause of all this worlds’ problems and woes. This is a flat out lie; the pursuit of money and power can result in just as much good as it can in evil. Without either of these there would be no human progress, the world would not be able to function properly. Power and money can be good things, and therefore they cannot be the root cause of all evil.
What you have to ask yourself is “what is always wrong, never does any good, and always ends badly?” What never has a god result? What I am speaking of is a frame of mind, and way of thinking, which causes all trouble in this world. So what is the root of all evil? The answer is arrogance.
Arrogance; The belief that, for any reason, you are more valuable, and are of more importance, than your fellow man.
We are all equal beings on this planet (see my early posts on power to see proof of this) and so none of us are “better” then another, and no life, not even your own, is of greater value, or of more importance, then another. Arrogance has always, and will always, lead to one person’s repressing the rights of others. After all, if one believes themselves to be better then another (see the last post “Belief; Our Greatest Joy and Our Deadliest Enemy”) they can then conclude that for the betterment of society then have the right to stop and subdue, by force if necessary, those of a lesser status. Slavery was a result of white Europeans believing themselves to be better than blacks; Nazism resulted in the belief Germans are better than everyone else, especially Jews. When one believes themselves and their beliefs to be greater than another’s, the natural course of events is for conflict to result.
What you have to ask yourself is “what is always wrong, never does any good, and always ends badly?” What never has a god result? What I am speaking of is a frame of mind, and way of thinking, which causes all trouble in this world. So what is the root of all evil? The answer is arrogance.
Arrogance; The belief that, for any reason, you are more valuable, and are of more importance, than your fellow man.
We are all equal beings on this planet (see my early posts on power to see proof of this) and so none of us are “better” then another, and no life, not even your own, is of greater value, or of more importance, then another. Arrogance has always, and will always, lead to one person’s repressing the rights of others. After all, if one believes themselves to be better then another (see the last post “Belief; Our Greatest Joy and Our Deadliest Enemy”) they can then conclude that for the betterment of society then have the right to stop and subdue, by force if necessary, those of a lesser status. Slavery was a result of white Europeans believing themselves to be better than blacks; Nazism resulted in the belief Germans are better than everyone else, especially Jews. When one believes themselves and their beliefs to be greater than another’s, the natural course of events is for conflict to result.
3 comments:
I agree. The unrestrained hubris of man is an evil thing.
I admire your idealism, Jonathan, but the sad truth is, we are not all equal beings on this planet. We should be, but are painfully far from it. From small things, like in our country, women not being paid at the same rate as men, to bigger things like women as total second class citizens in the ME, to even bigger things like child sex trade and genocide.
Is this all due to arrogance? Some of it is steeped in religious tradition. Some of it is cultural. Matriarchal societies throughout history tended to be more peaceful and benevolent; less arrogant as it were. But they died out in favor of the domineering patriarchal ones. Maybe testosterone is the root of evil? ;-)
I do think you have a good point, but I don't know that it can be narrowed down to just one thing. What is it that drives arrogance, the need to feel better than someone else? I think we need to consider that. How does a person arrive at the point of being arrogant? Is it a deep-seated insecurity for which arrogance compensates, or is this a patterned behavior after adult examples?
I ask because I think we also must consider the selfishness factor, and the search for power and wealth which may all be interconnected with what drives arrogance. I just think it's more complicated than one issue.
when I say we are all equal I don't mean we are all treated equal, obviously that is not true, what I mean is that we are all equally valuable and therefor must be treated as equals, and if you do not treat everyone as an equal being then you are not a moral person. historically we aren't treated equally politically but we should be. unfortunately governments and people do not always respect our natural equality, but that doesn't mean we aren't equal, it just means not all people are moral (who thought?).
and I'd say yes, all evil is from arrogance, arrogance is simply considering yourself more important and or more valuable then another, if no one thought this way there wouldn't be any evil, but thats never going to happen. Just think about it, whenever anyone does something wrong to another person, it is because they think the benefit they gain from the act outweighs the hurt the other person will feel, and it is that which i think of as arrogance. If we were all to believe the opposite, that the wellbeing of others is more important, we wouldn't be so eager to hurt others so much. you can't wipe out arrogance all together, but you can diminish it.
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