Surviving Evil
Evil is not a matter of the body, it isn’t a measurable quantity that can be moved, removed, or even destroyed. This does not mean it isn’t impermanent, however. Both evil and good come into existence from some unknown plane, or perhaps its more accurate to say we are lenses, letting good and evil into the world through our actions like different colors of light through a prism. Either way, we cannot completely remove it from existence, though we can metaphorically rotate those lenses/prisms to try and alter what we are shining.
There is obvious debate about the difference between the body and mind, the mind and the soul, and these debates share a lot with the question of whether or not good and evil truly exist. To avoid getting sidetracked with those subjects, we will start by assuming Evil exists, and will be defined as anything willingly harmful and hurtful, with no intent to coexist. Good can be defined as the polar opposite of that. It’s vague and imperfect, but we don’t need a perfect definition of good and evil for the purposes of this article.
We we will also be speaking as if good and evil are a solid binary. This is admittedly a false dichotomy — morality is a fluid spectrum, and it isn’t easy to determine where a single action falls on it. Still, given good’s intent to coexist, we believe it’s fair to move ahead assuming “good” will resolve issues while “evil” will try to destroy or remove them. Given that conflict is a normal part of society, and even healthy for a society’s evolution if handled appropriately, an “evil” society will constantly be trying to remove or destroy part of itself (though it will accuse said part of itself of being foreign as justification for wanting it gone).
The polar nature of good and evil means that they will inevitably conflict with each other. Evil will try to remove or destroy the good, while good will try to coexist with the evil through evolution and compromise. Good’s approach to the problem is much stronger once established, as its constructive and helpful nature lead to a coexistence with strong mutual support. Once established, good has the infrastructure to contain and convert evil before it can cause too much damage, and then incorporate the ex-evil into reconstruction and further reinforcement. A well established good existence can convert evil as soon as it starts to shin through, which can lead to utopia and, sadly, complacency.
Good’s strength does not make it invincible. Evil tends to be short sighted, seeking quick ends to immense means, and this makes it naturally weak to tearing down the reinforced structures of good — an “immense means” with no real quick way to destroy it. Evil is not incapable of playing the long con, though: true evil can convince good that it too is good, and avoid attempts at conversion. As Good becomes complacent, it becomes more and more susceptible to this — both being convinced evil is good, and becoming evil convinced that it is still good. Smart and insidious evil will take advantage of both, and can flip the balance in an instant. Once in power, evil can stamp out growing good before it can build a structure strong enough to withstand it.
So how does good survive? Well, if evil has hidden within the good long enough to collapse it, it will try to use the surviving structure to its advantage. It won’t try to maintain these structures, even if it doesn’t actively continue attempting to destroy them, and so the remaining structures are doomed to crumble eventually. Good can — and often will — try to maintain these structures within the dominant evil. One strategy good can use is to try and reconnect these structures, form a new bastion of good powerful enough to withstand and convert evil efficiently enough to at least sustain itself. However, if evil has convinced itself and others that it is good, things get significantly more complicated.
The first step in this situation is knowing how to tell if a structure is good or evil. This is actually quite simple theoretically: the main difference between good and evil is the interest in coexistence, so a good stucture will be somewhat malleable, open to change, while an evil structure will attempt to change the world around it to avoid changing itself. In our opinion and experience, the only good that can be done within such a structure is to make key supports malleable enough to hasten it’s collapse. At the sight of malleability, evil will hasten to resolidify or, true to form, remove and/or destroy the good. Good cannot grow within a system that seeks to eliminate it, and so good’s only chance is to grow separate from said system or structure and demonstrate that evil is not all there is.
We intend for this article to be largely philosophical — it isn’t intended as an instructional manual or piece of advice. That being said, we’ve been speaking in metaphysical terms until now, so we would like to end with something more literal: we’ve said that good cannot grow within evil as evil is too good at destroying it before it gets strong enough to fight back, but it’s important to not that “within" is also being used metaphorically. If one lives “within" an evil society or some other evil, one does not necessarily need to physically move to “get out" of the evil and begin building good to counter it. Good converts evil by reminding or even informing those within the evil, that existence within evil is a choice. Perhaps their only other choice is destruction or removal, perhaps they’ve only ever been told of evil and have no idea good is even possible. Either way, it serves good to try and create other other options for them: of they are lacking something their evil society doesn’t provide, then provide it for them. If they desire something their evil community forbids despite it harming no one, help them attain it.
This is how good builds structure, by connecting people through mutual need and finding ways to provide for each other. Remember, evil is channeled through a person, it isn’t an inherent part of them any more than it is an inherent part of you. Be cautious around those who channel evil, but if you treat them as lost causes, as unworthy of goodness, then you are channeling evil yourself. Good seeks to heal and evolve through coexistence, and evil cannot be eliminated. The struggle ends with death, but what else are we living for?
