Fighting Evil Is Doing the Right Thing
From one of my favorite reads, The Daily Stoic:
As the pallbearers marched down Pine Street carrying the coffin of General William Tecumseh Sherman, it began to rain. One of them, formerly Sherman’s arch nemesis, the Confederate General Joe Johnston, who was old and frail, was repeatedly asked if he wanted to go inside. Another aid suggested that he at least put on a hat to keep dry. In each case, Johnson refused, “If the positions were reversed, Sherman would not do so,” he said.
It was a shining example of that rare (at least today) sense of honor and duty—an insoluble commitment to a set of seemingly arbitrary, but deeply held, pieces of etiquette. Things that were to be followed even when it was inconvenient, even at high personal cost. Honor trumped all.
It calls to mind Marcus Aurelius‘s admonishment to himself, “Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored.” It was cold and wet that day. Plenty of Yankees in attendance could not have thought less of Johnson. He was tired from traveling. He was honoring a man that had seen to his destruction and beaten him on the battlefield. Yet he thought it was right to pay his respects, and pay them without equivocation.
And he was willing to sacrifice more than just a few minutes of comfort to make that statement. Because at that funeral Joe Johnson caught pneumonia and within a month he was dead.
I was reminded of this by a recent conversation I’m having with a reader here. He’s scolding me for my often argumentative tone, and my “naive idealism” in thinking there is actual good and evil in play in environmentalism.
It will be impossible to convince me that those who seek to profit at the expense of the health and safety of everyone on this planet are not evil and that those who fight against these selfish pigs are not doing the right thing.
Calling out evil for what it is sometimes takes guts, which is why it sometimes takes root. Hitler rose to power in the living memory of some, precisely because of the Germans’ failure to identify evil and extinguish it in its infancy.
Fortunately for this civilization, it features a hell of a lot of people who, like me, simply refuse to accept what’s going on. If we’re respected for what we do, that’s fine. If we’re not, that’s fine too.
Craig,
All noble sentiments, and very difficult to refute. However,at some stage you must ask yourself what really is the definition of “evil”.
Calling people “evil” or “good” is often subjective. Without careful consideration the term “evil” simply gets applied to those with different views, opinions, philosophic, political or ideological differences.
You apply terms like “selfish pigs” and ” seek to profit at the expense of the health and safety of everyone on this planet are ‘evil’ ” to the people whose products and services you purchase by choice and enjoy to sustain a high standard of existence. (Hmm, maybe it’s just the idea of ‘profit’ you dislike)
Calling people abusive names or denouncing them as “evil” grants a license to become self righteous in you bigotry and permission to rate them of being unworthy of basic human rights.
Thus the fanatical animal rights activist feels no remorse in setting an explosive charge killing or maiming a poor worker cleaning the offices of a pharmaceutical company, because the company is “evil”.
We call the terrorist “evil”, yet they believe they are righteous and we are “evil”.
I believe the term “evil” , should be used sparingly, not just to label those with whom we disagree.
But do you really think angry vehement abuse, is effective ? One of my great hero’s is Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, whose sermon delivered to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in November 1957 on the subject, is still worth reading.
I hear you vehemently yelling against the present administration’s “evil” actions, yet when provided evidence of the President’s personal intervention to bring a major research and commercialization facility dedicated to reducing environmental pollution to the US, you remain silent !
It’s this lack of fairness or objectivity that loses you credibility when you bandy about terms like “good” and “evil”. The terms lose meaning when only applied for political advantage.
Meanwhile here under my bridge, our team from the 4th Street Troll Bridge Collective,is busy installing a small river channel turbine to help with our aqua-farm project. We’re just humbly knuckling away, doing our bit. How about you, what are you doing ? 🙂