UNTAMED BEINGS
WHO DARE SAYS THEY ARE RIGHTEOUS?
In an era where the woke brigade, faux ‘critical thinkers’, and mainstream media is trying to revolutionize almost everything including ethics, the status quo, and even downplaying the importance of religion in our lives, I think it’s extremely important to re-think how we tread on some of these issues.
Our ancestors carved out cultural ethics, morals, and shame for a particular reason. Then came religion as well to set out red lines that shouldn’t be transgressed. Consequently, this has instilled in us a form of baseline morality. In other words, the aforementioned factors came to refine us. Now although some of these baseline moralities might be very subjective and differ depending on geography, culture, and whatnot, overall they were put in place to regulate man’s innate nature to do evil. Man is inherently evil!
Who needs Religion? Who needs to succumb to primitive laws that were applicable some 1000 years ago and are still valid in today’s modern world? Who needs to believe in God? Very plausible questions indeed. Actually, you do because- if not for anything at all it provides you with a moral framework.
When an individual loses their baseline morality, it is just chaos, distress, and sheer hedonism. Like a series of dominos, it might morph into nihilism ultimately. And that is no picnic at all.
I believe naturally we humans are more inclined to do evil than good. Our primal instincts are more predisposed towards evil than the better good. And who says the ‘good’ is better?
In the Holy Quran, Chapter 12:53, Allah says:
Lo! the (human) soul enjoineth unto evil, save that whereon my Lord hath mercy….
In other words, the human soul instinctively is a persistent inciter of evil. This suggests that man’s inner self constantly commands and directs him to do odious deeds.
The most dangerous people in history were motivated by the desire to do good - no matter how they understood it. Even evil people think they are doing good, otherwise, it’s too difficult to do evil. The best way to do evil is to convince yourself you are doing good in order to subdue the baseline morality (I mentioned earlier) instilled in us by society and religion.
That isn’t to say there aren’t evil people in the world, but those who are just evil or psychopathic are usually unable to motivate enough others to rally behind them to collectively induce cruel or large-scale harm like the Holocaust.
There is a book, Ordinary Men written by Christopher Browning. It tells the story of how normal individuals like you and I were externally motivated to play a pivotal role in afflicting undisputedly one of humanity’s heinous crimes. How did middle and working-class men of the Reserve Police Battalion of the German Gestapo responsible for mass shootings and roundups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in 1942?
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were all trying to improve their societies and were able to persuade others to implement their plans. Hitler didn’t think murdering millions of people was evil. He thought it was necessary to improve his country and the world. So did Stalin. So did Mao.
During my holidays last summer in Antalya, I stayed in an Air BnB apartment for a couple of days. The apartment, owned by an English woman in her middle ages, was strikingly beautiful, well kept, smelt so nice, and in relatively perfect order. It was veritably evident she had invested a great deal of money in the maintenance of the apartment. It was hands down the best place I have ever lodged in all my traveling escapades last year - by far.
One day during our discussion, she told me that even though she enjoyed earning decent money from Air BnB, she was still a bit concerned about the subtle risky nature of what she had signed up for. She cited a hypothetical scenario, say some persons could possibly book her apartment, check in and inflict gross harm either on her or items in her apartment. There was literally no guarantee people she took in would comport themselves in the highest possible form - as expected of normal human beings.
I used to have a colleague at my former workplace who was a vegan- a decision she took overnight because she had watched a detailed documentary the previous night with her mom on how animals are maltreated by humans. She explained how she was struck very deeply by humans’ cruel handling of animals notably during slaughtering and slicing them into pieces to be sold at supermarkets. She became so paranoid - at a point - she was unable to even enter the aisles of a supermarket where meat was displayed. Where others saw the cuts they were going to prepare for dinner, she saw rows of dead body parts. That vision only served to confirm her belief that humans are inherently cruel and full of terror.
I said, ‘’What do you mean by that? You cannot be this naïve. You are a university graduate. You have obviously read about the horrors and atrocities of the human past. You live in Turkey. You watch Turkish news.……’’
She said as a matter of fact, she did not watch Turkish news.
‘’ Fair enough,’’ I replied. But what about all the weekly femicide hashtags you see on Instagram and other social media platforms? Hasn’t that taught you anything about man’s thirst for violence and disorder?
Regardless, she told me she couldn’t believe people were capable of such ruthless violence (especially to poor animals). She kept on saying she still thought that wasn’t enough supposition to justify the vile scenes she had seen in the video the previous night. I was a bit taken aback by her response but the gentleman in me - at least on that day :) - made me comfort her, telling her she was at least doing her little best to decrease her carbon footprint by being vegan. Hurray. I wished her the very best in her vegan journey unperturbed.
Humans are inherently evil. Maybe your grandmother was right in always reminding you of being skeptical of human intentions. Maybe you should be. Henceforth - probably not.
Therefore, the fact that you or someone else’s intentions are good means something, but not a lot. What matters more is the results your actions produce. If your behavior does not produce the outcomes you want, change it.
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Every villain thinks that he is really the hero.
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