Friday, September 5, 2014

Utopia, Politics, and Evil

There are external influences and events which affect us.  But our personalities, ideas, and beliefs come from within.  These influences shape us, but they do not define us.

My son’s personality was pretty much set in stone from the time he was out of the womb.  Hell, it was probably defined before his birth.  His brain is already wired a certain that defines how he will act in relation to other people.  The only way to rewire him is to introduce extreme physical or psychological trauma, something I pray will never happen to him.

I bring this up because so many people, across all political spectrums, tend to blame the evils of the individual on external causes.  Serial killers were abused as children.  School shootings were because of first person shooters.  Guns kill people.  SUVs are dangerous automobiles that cause accidents.

Child abuse is a serious evil that tends to be generational.  But I don’t believe that every sociopath who is abused as a child becomes a serial killer or mass murderer in general.  There are many murderous people out there who had a great childhood, especially as they were torturing their neighbor’s cats to death.

Traumatic experiences notwithstanding, they are no excuse to subvert justice.  One of the most abused forms of justice is to declare that a defendant didn’t know right from wrong and therefore cannot be judged guilty but merely insane.  This is probably the biggest scam in the history of justice that came about as our society rejected the objective standard of right and wrong.

The truth is, evil is innately part of us just as good is.  The objective evil is sin, or disobedience to God’s Will.  And while His standards do vary depending on your race and status, the fact remains that to defy Him is evil.  Note that these standards are not subjective, just different depending on who you are.  For Jews, they have a very specific set of standards laid out.  For non-Jews, such as myself, we are allowed a little more leeway with regards to being clean.

In any case, God provides an objective standard of right and wrong because He is right and to defy Him is wrong.

Humanity is in constant defiance of God.  From the most despicable of things like murder and rape to common things like lies and petty theft, we are all sinners.

And Jesus never changed that.  Not yet anyway.  Show me a Christian without sin and I’ll show you a world without sin.  All He has done is made things easier for us to be forgiven by God as we no longer have to make complex animal sacrifices for Him in order to appease him.

Evil cannot be committed by a gun on its own.  It has to be directed by a human being with evil intent.

The goal of the Utopian is to eliminate one or many external causes that are seen as influences of evil.  From the communist who blames to free market to the anarcho-capitalist who blames the government, we see that most political movements are movements based on solving the problem of evil.  This is what a Utopian is.

It is because of my understanding of evil, of human nature, and of God that I am an anti-Utopian philosophically, a nihilist politically, and a Christian.  I know that there are no human solutions to what is wrong with humanity, no matter how many external things are blamed and banned from humanity.

If we eliminated all governments in this world, there would still be evil.  It may not thrive as the anarchists claim it will not, but it will still exist.  And the anarchists have not properly addressed matters of justice where the cost cannot be measured in a tangible way (i.e.. the cost of a human life).

If we eliminated the free market, people would still behave as profiteers.  It may discourage it and there may even be sophisticated computer models that actually accurately determine the appropriate costs of goods and services.  But people will still be greedy, which is the cardinal sin of the communist.

I see all political movements as a form of Utopian in some way or another.  In most cases, they are run by men and/or women who think that if only we do X then humanity will do better.  History has proven that this not the case.  Worse still, recent history has proven this to not be the case but many sociopaths in power will make such arrogant statements such as “Socialism hasn’t worked because it hasn’t had me in charge!”, to quote the late Ted Kennedy.

To understand who I am, you must understand these fundamental truths: there are no political solutions and there is no systemic way to eliminate sin.  No law, no regulation, no good intention, and no belief in humanity will turn people away from sin.

The only thing that can be done is to try and encourage others to love their neighbor as themselves.  And to invite them to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strengths.

Will that get rid of sin?

No, of course not.  But it just might make things a little better.  And that is the best we can do for our future.