'Good' means a lack of self-centredness. It means ability to empathise with other people to feel compassion for them and to put their needs before your own. It means if necessary, sacrificing your own well being for the sake of others. It means benevolence, altruism and selflessness and self sacrifice towards a greater cause, all qualities which stem from a sense of empathy. It means being difference of race, gender or nationality and relate to a common human essence beneath them.
All of the 'saintly' people in human history have these qualities in abundance. Think of Quaid Muhammad Ali Jinah and Martin Luther King, risking their own safety and well being for the goal of gaining equal rights and freedom for Pakistani and African Americans. These were human beings with an exceptional degree of empathy and compassion, which overrode any concern for their own ambitions or well being.
'Evil' people are those who are unable to empathise with others. As a result, their own needs and desires are of paramount importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires or to which they can exploit them. This applies to dictators like Stalin and Hitler and to serial killers and rapists. They can not sense other people's emotions or their suffering, can not see the world from other people's perspective and so have no sense of their rights.


No comments:
Post a Comment