Humanitarianism and Evil

I've known many people with humanitarian tendencies, and many of them have lived a life of heartbreak. Humanity had disappointed them. Nothing murders humanitarianism more reliably than people being bastards, particularly the little guy – the person whom the humanitarian wants to help.

Many people with such tendencies blame all evil on the system. In fact the system is just one potential source of wrongdoing among many others. There are all sorts of places that are not the Western Civilization that are bad. And in the Western civilization itself, evil is in no way limited to the leaders. Gangsters, the mafia, and Jehovah's Witnesses do not run the Western civilization; but none of them begin to be benign.

Of course the system is capable of wrongdoing. But it is far from the only thing that is capable of wrongdoing. This is a lesson I've had to learn from life. There are plenty of “little guys” who are complete bastards. Whereas even within the system there are good-hearted individuals.

One of the last mistakes that you want to make is be blind to evil within your own ranks. I have a friend who is a businessman in Russia and Poland. When I talked to him about my former girlfriend having had a husband who was a businessman but behaved abominably toward her, he told me that if he really was a businessman then he was good. This is wrong – dead wrong. I've had to learn from experience that not everyone from my demographic is a good guy. It was a fairly expensive lesson, and I hope that my friend does not have it coming to him in a way that is that hard.

In fact we will find both good and evil everywhere. I used to worship the self-made people, until I had two of them over the Internet treating me like absolute dirt. I have even found evil among the creative people, who would be the last people from whom one would expect such a thing. Whereas I've also seen good in completely unexpected places, such as for example among the “rednecks.” These are the last people with whom one would expect me to get along; but I've found good in those people, and I think that others from my demographic should as well.

Humanitarianism becomes credible when people choose to act rightfully. It becomes non credible when people choose to behave like jerks. If foreign aid winds up in Swiss bank accounts, or if charity donations fund the BMWs of the executives, people will rightfully not want to contribute. Nor would they be willing to pay welfare checks that wind up funding crack. Nor would they be willing to fund situations that raise gangsters.

Generosity is too valuable a commodity to be abused. Nor do the rulers own evil. All sorts of people can be either good or bad. Do by all means confront the wrong in leaders. But do not fail to see the evil in your own ranks, whether you be a businessman, an intellectual or a politician.