The Invisible Economics of Good and Evil

“It is well for our vanity that we slay the criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we had gained by his crime. It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist”

Yesterday I went to a party held by an environmental organisation with whom I used to be heavily involved. It was good to see some old friends, but, also, I was reminded of why I’d given up such heavy involvement with the organisation.

The organisation does much good in showing relatively easy ways we can live comfortable lives without placing a drain on the ecosystem. This is all very positive. But while I was working for the group I gradually grew to feel there was something oppressive about it. And this impression came back to me as I mixed with the people yesterday.

It is not something specific to this organisation, but to idealistic organisations as a whole. I realised that, like it or not, they cannot operated without using those two weapons of mass destruction I’ve mentioned before - fear and guilt - and, to some extent, allowing such feelings to drive their own behaviour. How does anyone persuade someone who is not doing “the right thing” except by inspiring fear as to what will happen if we don’t lift our game - the destruction of the world’s life support systems - and trying to make them feel guilty if they don’t comply. And yet fear and guilt oppress the human spirit and cause the repression of the very spirit of love which lies at its base and would provide the psychological basis for the very world the environmentalist is seeking. This is the paradox.

One thing that struck me is how a good deal of the good in the world, and a good deal of the evil, is invisible to us most of the time.

The good that this environmental organisation does is visible. You can go and see the straw bale houses with their solar collectors and roof gardens. But what of the oppressive feelings of fear and guilt they may unwittingly spread?

Similarly, there is much that people do which helps to liberate others from feelings of fear and guilt, and provides them with feelings of comfort and self-acceptance, thus helping to liberate their spirit. This may be nothing more than telling a joke which hints at the taboo things we keep fearfully buried in our hearts, and thus provides an outlet for the tension, and a reassurance that we are not alone with the dark layers of our being. Anything which reassures us about these darker layers eases their grip over us and allows some of the spirit of love, which is the base level of the human psyche to come to the surface.

See things in this way, and old certainties about what constitutes good and evil come into question.

Do we, as Wilde claims, benefit from the behaviour of the criminal? How much more alone would we feel if no one had ever carried out the terrible crimes we sometimes find ourselves contemplating when lost in the dark night of the soul? Why do some of us seem to find a strange kind of comfort in reading the lives of famous serial killers? These people might have killed a dozen people, but a well meaning “do gooder” may blight the lives of thousands with feelings of guilt and fear. The economics of good and evil is not always what it seems.

Of course this is not to condone the commission of terrible crimes. These people live miserable lives anyway. They may bring us some comfort in retrospect, but they bring none to themselves. It is far better that the dark layers of the human psyche be expressed artistically. Movies and books filled with violence can bring comfort to millions and don’t require anyone to suffer or die.

When conservatives sometimes act as if “liberals” were worse than terrorists it is because they don’t want their spirit to be crushed beneath the jackboot of fear and guilt.

But these conflicts take place on the neurotic surface of the human psyche and serve to repress the spirit of love which is buried beneath. This is why faith in this spirit is so important. Because faith in the unifying spirit of love that lies beneath these surface conflicts is what can soothe away the feelings of guilt and fear. We have nothing to feel guilty about, because our “bad deeds” have probably led to some good ends. And we have no cause for pride because our “good deeds” have probably done as much harm as they have done good. And as for fear, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Allow our true nature to show itself and the problems of the world can be solved relatively easily.

There is a phenomenon in idealistic organisations known as “compassion fatigue”. Doing “good”, after a while, can become too much of a burden - one “burns out”. This is because the “good deeds” are an attempt to keep guilt at bay. Any guilt driven activity grinds down the human spirit and does lead to fatigue. This is the difference between neurotically driven approaches to solving the world’s problems and the solutions that will naturally come when we surrender to our true nature, which is one of untiring compassion and love. In neurotically-driven behaviour proving self-worth is a key objective and this wastes a huge amount of energy and requires that there be “bad guys” in order that we can be the “good guys”. When we set ourselves and each other free, we will find that there are no “good guys” and “bad guys”. There will be just us. And we will work together to help each other because that is the very structure of the loving unity we long for.