h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I live in an incredibly brutal country. Rape, torture, murder … it's a way of life for many. It's been that way for a while now and despite political changes, the underlying condition is not changing. As I see it: evil is just the way people 'ordinarily' go about things. It takes a huge effort NOT to be evil. And even people who are trying not to be evil, often fail. Evil is easy. It's only necessary to not care and to not take care. Good is hard: you have to care, you have to have discipline, and you need to be correct about your understanding of basic facts of life. Get it wrong and you cause hurt. It's very easy for things to quickly become incredibly ugly.

Are any people intrinsically evil? Perhaps so, in that they want what they want and don't care if they hurt others in getting it. But this condition can be cured. Only a tiny percentage of people honestly are unable to experience compassion. To the rest, it can be taught - both on an emotional and intellectual level. (Also a material level - those who struggle with meeting their own material needs often don't concern themselves much with the needs of others.) But that's merely the start. Not being evil needs to be an encompassing holistic philosophy and discipline. Fall short of that, and you fall short of not being evil. Making you no worse than the great mass of humanity. But being as good as the typical person is simply not good enough, not if you want life to ever be less of a total mess than it is right now. And the fun thing is, it can be even worse, and it can indeed become much worse, and if we don't work very hard, it will indeed become much worse.

I hear you, Willem.