A reader asks Matt whether he believes all human beings have the capacity for both good and evil.

Matt responds:

That is a profound question.

There are some schools of thought that claim that anybody could be turned into a guard at a Nazi concentration camp who threw people into the ovens.  They would do this all in the name of something or other.

It’s that “something or other” that makes our species different.

I love to watch The Animal Planet channel and learn about the behavior of wild beasts, the birthing of insects, the antics of fish, and so on.

The universe of animals has a consistency.  The lion is always going to eat the little animal who is beloved by its mother.  The mother is always afraid to go because they know the lion is going to eat them, too.  The whole herd will stand in trepidation of the lion.  The birds fly in predictable ways.  The fish swim in a consistent way.

But we never know how the human being is going to act.

When we walk through different neighborhoods, we’re told they’re safe or unsafe.  Does that mean that people should be afraid of me and my wife as we walk through that area?  Are we going to turn from Dr. Jeckyll into Mr. Hyde?

That is the paradox of being human.  We walk in peace and all of a sudden a particular political party or the collective mind of a particular geographic area decides it’s all right to turn black people into slaves, or for Christians to go on Crusades to kill the infidels, or it’s all right for the Huns to kill the Christians.

All of these different competing philosophies of what’s good and bad fly in the face of peace.

Does it just depend on whose ox is getting gored?  Where is the peace, tolerance, and love of our species?

I happen to believe that we’re on a pilgrimage and that we have to overcome whatever tendencies are within us, which are the ability to love and the ability to hate—the good, the evil, and the place in between.

I think that my job is to push the goodness of my life in conjunction with as much of a net that I can throw around myself to either ignore, debate, or love, but to tolerate all the inconsistencies that have to do with me and my life.  I can disagree with someone’s philosophy, but I cannot kill or diminish them.

But I should also live what I really believe.  I should have hope that the god or universe that made me, made me in such a way that I or my descendents will eventually, slowly but surely, come to a place and a point in time which we might call Paradise—where all that we once perceived as bad has been filled in by good.

We can’t do anything about the past; we have to live in the present and plan for the future.  That’s where we make our mistake.  We live in the moment, as if the things we are going to do have no consequences.  “Oh, there’s no food!  Let’s eat the dog!”  “Oh, grandma’s getting old!  Let’s do what we can to move her on her way!”

We have begun to come to the time when those attitudes are not acceptable.

I feel very strongly that our species was not made to fail.  But the victory is not about the goals, it’s about the journey.  Are we going forward or backwards?  Only each of us as individuals can answer that in light of our own perceptions.

This is such a paramount subject.  Thank you for asking the question.  I needed that!

Matt