Kevin's Watch

Balance. We hear about it all the time. The Yin and the Yang, the Hodge and the Podge, the constant teetering of our universe on some gigantic see-saw. We're encouraged to seek it out in our every day lives, to eat balanced meals, to live balanced lives.

Jordan had his Saidin and Saidar, the DragonLance universe had its perfectly accepted gods of good, evil, and neutrality. The force has it's Dark Side, and its Light Side.

Nature seeks balance, with just enough predators to prevent too many prey species, and if we interfere with that balance, eventually it will find a new one.

And yet, in the world, the culture, the society that we live in, balance is neither sought nor embraced. Some would have you believe that we are engaged in a titanic struggle, attempting to defeat forces of "evil", and some will tell you that evil is winning. But the attempt is never to strike a balance of any sort.

Instead, we seem to be trying to eliminate "evil", the "dark", the "negative" to make room for a world in which we only have good. Where we will all sit in blissful contemplation of a perfect world, and not even realise what makes it perfect.

Now as I mentioned, there are those who woud say that "evil" is on the ascendant. But I'm not so sure about that. Maybe the fact that we're pushing so hard in the one direction, without any attempt at balance, is forcing the other side higher, in an attempt to just reach that elusive concept.

Maybe the fact that we're pushing so hard is what's making it an effort. Maybe if we stopped trying to control things so closely, stopped trying to force the issue, as it were, we'd approach a more natural balance?

I'm not sure yet where even I stand on this question. It's just something that occurred to me. The thought that despite frequent allusions to it, what we're trying to achieve is not balance, but rather the total supremacy of one side over the other. Thoughts?

--Avatar

Avatar wrote:And yet, in the world, the culture, the society that we live in, balance is neither sought nor embraced. Some would have you believe that we are engaged in a titanic struggle, attempting to defeat forces of "evil", and some will tell you that evil is winning. But the attempt is never to strike a balance of any sort.

It seems to me the balance is there, because there's always those on the other side of the battle. No, those "attempting to defeat the forces of 'evil'" never attempt to strike a balance, but they'll never actually achieve their goal. Even if one side or the other gains ground, or seems to have won, at one point or another, the other side will always make a comeback.

I think that the total victory of one side over the other would be the end of any significant change. If perfection is stagnation, then heaven is a swamp! And the Is ain't hardly no swamp-cookie.

Aah, it does make for great quotes, doesn't it? And I certainly agree that total victory is impossible.

Thing is though, are there really forces on the other side of the battle? Who is out there saying "we'll just wipe out all the good-doers on the face of the earth"?

Who is out there targeting charities, aid organisations, simply because they're doing "good"? That's the thing. In books of course, it's nicely defined. The evil guys hate good, and are trying to wipe it out.

Reality is rarely so neat though. The "evil" guys in reality think that they are good guys too. They aren't out to stop starving children being fed. They don't want to allow wholesale murder of their own citizens in the streets. They're just the other side of the same coin, a coin which only has a different perspective, rather than a different face.

We struggle so hard to compartmentalise these things. To say that X is evil, and Y is good. But it's all from a perspective that is cultural or societal, if indeed not purely personal.

Now this is not to say that "evil" deeds aren't committed. They sure are. And they're committed by the guys who call their opponents evil. Which, in case it wasn't obvious, is everybody.

They're not committed because they're evil, but because they serve the goals of whoever is doing it.

I really don't see forces of darkness out there, plotting to eradicate the good and the kind from the universe. The people we typically characterise as "evil", are, (sure, with some exceptions), probably kind to children. They probably donate money to organisations that feed the hungry.

If nothing else, they probably don't refrain from doing such things out of malice. Out of the desire to see "kindness" eradicated.

So where/who are those "forces of evil"?

--Avatar

(Oh, just BTW, Public Holiday tomorrow, so see you all on Thursday. )

Balance is inherent to the universe, given the way forces are balanced in the quantum world - well, they call it symmetry.
Great thread, btw.

Inherent in the universe? Sure, I can go with that. The physical universe anyway. Every action...etc. But is it inherent in humanity? Is there anything that suggests that we automatically search for, and achieve, balance in our lives?

I don't think so. I think that the whole concept of balance is, if anything, the antithesis of human nature. At least, if our actions are anything to go by.

Of course, it may be a fairly modern phenomenon. Maybe Kin will chime in here, but didn't ancient cultures have a far more relaxed approach to a concept of "evil"? Certainly they acknowledged and tried to appease what we would consider "evil" gods, just as they courted the favour of "good" ones.

Now days though, religion (and government for that matter, hell, for that matter, society as a whole) seeks to expunge "bad" and "evil" from our experiences. And I'm not sure that it's necessarly a good thing. Not in the way I'm looking at it anyway.

And I'm not talking about things like trying to make sure that no child is ever hurt or abused. That's just one of the aspects of it that people tend to focus on.

But good needs its antithesis as well. Lest we forget completely what is good, and, more importantly, why things are good.

(And thanks. )

--Avatar

I agree, Avatar.
Yes, inherent to the universe; but human nature - indeed the macro universe - is nothing more than a complicated mass of variables. The complexity of things would not result in balance. Perhaps us seeking balance is nothing more than sorting order from chaos.

Chaos begat order begat chaos begat order ...

I'm gone for, like, an hour, and I can't seem to insert my thoughts into the conversation! Let's see...

As for whether or not there truly are forces of evil/darkness, that's something we've discussed quite a bit, eh? Well, whether or not, I don't think it matters. What matters is that people perceive their enemy, and fight against them.

But I think there are people and organizations out to "wipe out all the good-doers on the face of the earth." There are those who want absolute power over every person on the planet. I honestly don't know what the attraction to that is, but some want it. (I've never understood why any Satan-type would want to torture anyone forever. Even if you think it's fun to cause pain, wouldn't you get bored after a millions years and billions of screams?) And they need to get rid of the good-doers first, so they don't inspire others to resist. And they have to constantly be on the lookout for new good-doers, otherwise, it's constant rebellion against the tyrant. ("Once word leaks out that a pirate has gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it's nothing but work, work, work, all the time.")

And we've seen enough of these people. Hitler, Milosevic, Stalin, and the horror in Rwanda, to name a few. Unless we want to give all of them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they truly thought ethnic cleansing was for the good of humanity. But I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were sadistic beasts who took joy in killing, and wanted the praise and obedience of those who were not killed. And there were, and are, way too many individual atrocities committed by those who didn't need to even if they did think ethnic cleansing was good.


Another aspect of this thread is something else that we've discussed - the degree to which humanity is part of nature. We often speak of "natural processes," as opposed to things that came about through "human intervention." Some say that, since we're part of this planet and universe, and (for those who believe in evolution) arose through natural processes, humans cannot do anything that should be considered outside of nature.

But I disagree. I think that, through natural means, something has arisen that is no longer part of nature. There is clearly balance in nature; balance and cycles. Everything, acting in true taoist fashion, takes what it needs, and leaves what it doesn't. The cycles can continue because nothing is fool enough to do anything that could stop the cycles. Granted, it's not that nothing is "fool enough," it's just not in anything's nature to do such things.

Except, of course, humanity. We wipe out species and entire ecosystems, sometimes on little more than a whim. The results are often disasterous. Obviously to the extinct species, as well as the species that depended on the now-extinct. Which, either immediately or eventually, includes us. Heck, there's enough people willing to wipe out our own species! Wa's up wit dat? I doubt any member of any other species would do that if it had the opportunity.

Fist and Faith wrote:But I disagree. I think that, through natural means, something has arisen that is no longer part of nature. There is clearly balance in nature; balance and cycles. Everything, acting in true taoist fashion, takes what it needs, and leaves what it doesn't. The cycles can continue because nothing is fool enough to do anything that could stop the cycles. Granted, it's not that nothing is "fool enough," it's just not in anything's nature to do such things.

Great post, but I disagree. Evolution is all about adaptation. Some apes have learned tool use in order to better adapt and survive the environment. Technology is like that for us; it has enabled us to better survive and pas our genes on. Therefore technology is natural. Additionally, it is a product of something entirely natural: our brains.

Fist and Faith wrote:Except, of course, humanity. We wipe out species and entire ecosystems, sometimes on little more than a whim. The results are often disasterous. Obviously to the extinct species, as well as the species that depended on the now-extinct. Which, either immediately or eventually, includes us. Heck, there's enough people willing to wipe out our own species! Wa's up wit dat? I doubt any member of any other species would do that if it had the opportunity.

There have been cases where species have hunted other species to extinction.

Fist and Faith wrote:And we've seen enough of these people. Hitler, Milosevic, Stalin, and the horror in Rwanda, to name a few. Unless we want to give all of them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they truly thought ethnic cleansing was for the good of humanity.

It's quite well documented that Hitler believed Jews were a plague upon the face of the earth (or something along those lines). Very few - if any - people do things they actually believe are evil.

Loremaster wrote:Technology is like that for us; it has enabled us to better survive and pas our genes on. Therefore technology is natural. Additionally, it is a product of something entirely natural: our brains.

I completely agree.

Fist and Faith wrote:Heck, there's enough people willing to wipe out our own species! Wa's up wit dat? I doubt any member of any other species would do that if it had the opportunity.

They might, if they evolved to the extent humans have.

I don't think nature seeks balance in any meaningful way. Sure, there's Newton's 3rd (action/reaction), but then there's entropy, too. Net reactions go toward disorder. Balances happen in the short term, but look at all those species that have died out - would they think there was balance?
Equilibrium is generally just a lull in the action. Balance will occur when the universe dies a heat death in another fifty (?) billion years.

most people are neither truly good or truly evil. saying that, falling on the side of evil has many immediate awards (cash, drugs, sex, stuff) that good doesn't seem to have. why wait for heaven when you can have all you want now? good is seen as giving up stuff now for a reward later. and most of us have trouble controling our impulses.

DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!! I just spent an hour typing, only to lose it when my finger accidentally hit the touchpad while the cursor was on the picture/logo at the top of the page!!! Now I'm just pissed!!!

Fist and Faith
now you must find balance.

Consider the Pendulum. It swings back and forth , crossing the same mid point. Where is the balance? Is it the centered midpoint? or is it at the far point where the pendulum stops and starts its journey on the return path.? Is balance that which holds us in check of our excesses or is it a midpoint from which all excesses are equal distance? or more plainly,,how can you know what the balance is if you never tested the extremes?

Seems paradoxial. It works on a personal level tho. And that is the only place anyone can know balance. Any larger scale is oxymoronic imho...MEL

dennisrwood wrote:most people are neither truly good or truly evil. saying that, falling on the side of evil has many immediate awards (...sex...)

Why am I always the last to know things like this?!?!?!


*begins plotting*

>doh<

looks like more confession for me!

I tend to agree with the people who say that since humans are a part of the natural order, the crap we do is part of the natural order as well. Yes, a lot of the stuff humanity has done has thrown Nature out of whack. But I think Nature probably has some failsafe measures up her sleeve--as soon as our actions throw the balance to far in one direction or another, we'll make the planet unlivable for ourselves and go extinct. This is completely and utterly natural.

It's sort of like a mountain that becomes a volcano. Here you have this pristine majestic thing one minute, and the next minute, you've got a wasteland blast zone 100 square miles big, filled with dead things and destruction. 10 years later, you've got colonist ferns and wildflowers, which means that the pollinators will arrive, and then critters that eat the pollinators start showing up, and then bigger critters to eat the pollinator-eaters, and so on--all in a place which, half a geological blink ago, looked like the dark side of the moon.

Humanity is a blip, an afterthought--the last thing created, or one of the most recent things to evolve, depending on how you look at it. To think we could push Nature out of balance is just one more example of the kind of conceit that allows some people to exploit Nature's resources in the first place.

This doesn't mean I think that we have the right to exploit Nature. "I can, so I must" is Despiser-talk (Master Eremis in MN says almost exactly the same thing--see my recent dissection! ). Humanity's current attitude toward Nature (i.e., "suck it dry") will only lead to our own destruction, and I'd prefer it if that didn't happen. I just think that we'll destroy ourselves long before we manage to de-Nature the planet.

Excellent post, Myste!