Blog Archive

15 March 2012

We are understanding altruism better as as a collective. Its darkside counterpart is sometimes referred to as evil, while on the other hand some people think we are all kind and altruistic by nature (give or take some extreme abherrations) and that we learn ill-will. Perhaps we do, but competition can be brutal and there are factual examples of pervasive evil and cruelty in our history. So we as human beings have a lot to work out as far as getting past the hate and greed and fear.

We need a global ethic, a "One Love", that belongs to all well-socialised human-beings and which is not controlled by corporate interests or selfish and persistently ignorant sociopaths. We need to understand our religious history in the context of cultural evolution rather than blind absolutism. We all seek to be part of something which is great. This is impossible to achieve if we insist on one-sided global ethics by ceding our conscientious activities to sanctioning institutions which use violence to maintain status and deny a better quality of life for the majority.