The Pageless Book

There are two types of people in this world; those who believe that there are two types of people, and those who understand that we are all one people. The root of all evil, the origin of suffering, is within the belief that we are all divided – us against them. Let me be explicit about what I am saying; when one human suffers, all of humanity suffers, and where one human harms another, there is evil.

If we were to work together, famine, disease, poverty, and war could become distant memories. We have the technology to feed the entire world and heal those suffering from the deadliest of viruses; because we believe we are separate, we don’t take the initiative to resolve these issues. We, as individuals, believe that we can’t trust others to do the right thing or share their wealth, so we hoard power and money, creating war and poverty as a result. This is the cause of the majority of human suffering. Can we all agree that is evil?

Previously, I’ve argued in favor of relative morality and against absolutes in morality. While the conclusions of my reasoning have stayed the same, the actual reasoning itself has been evolving. I no longer feel that the dichotomy between relative and absolute morality is as clean as I previously believed. There is an absolute to morality; to sustain the survival of humanity under the best possible conditions for the longest period of time.

Morality is, at its very core, a function for the survival of social creatures. During the dawn of humanity, morality meant to have loyalty to one’s family, clan, or tribe. A moral person had to defend their people against outsiders, who brought with them disease and war, or at best were competition for valuable resources. Men were expected to hunt, women were expected to bear children, and life was short and violent. This isn’t the best possible condition we can expect today, but with their limited technology, it is the best that could be hoped for at that time.

As our technology has changed our circumstances, the restrictions that were at one time necessary to maintain our species have become less meaningful. The problem is that human morality is lagging behind the morality that our technology can afford us; we are still caught up in the “us against them” paradigm, when our technology can support a “one human family” paradigm. This is hindering our evolution as a species and causes far more human suffering than is necessary.

Yes, we as a species have made some progress; racism, sexism, nationalism, and bigotry of all forms have been cast as shadows by the light of reason. Yet they still linger in political and public discourse. We still harbor this “us against them” mentality that unnecessarily hampers our ambitions as a species. I’ve come to the conclusion that evil isn’t a metaphysical entity with malicious intentions. Instead, evil is the divisions within humanity which hinders us from achieving world peace and prosperity. We are one people. Once we realize this, all obstacles become surmountable.

First Image from Bob Bobster. Second Image from “Headovmetal”. Final Image by Jason Ford.