Forget about "good as gold". Today it's going to get evil.
But who or what is evil at all?
The devil?
The Illuminati?
The mother-in-law?
Usually evil stands for morally wrong decisions,
a basic power influencing the history of the world
and being the opponent of good.
Meaning: where there is light, there is also shadow.
Of course! God against the devil, the West against the terrorists,
Aspirin against a headache ...
But let's go back to the individual human being.
Who actually defines what is “morally wrong”?
Depending on one's ethic position, definitons differ significantly.
According to Bible critic Benedict de Spinoza, evil is everything
that blocks the self-assertion of an individual.
So it's a force from outside
that prevents us humans from developing freely.
According to Kant, evil is an essential part of human nature,
since humans are not only equipped with reason,
but also with "empirical", entirely worldly needs.
So the inclination to the "dark side"-
has always been a part of us?
His fellow Enlightenment thinker Rousseau sees things differently.
For him, humans are born good.
Only living in the community is what poisons them, makes them evil.
So, are we actually born evil, or is it society that makes us evil?
Nietzsche threw all of this overboard,
declared "good" to be "bad",
and "evil" simply to be a construct of Christian "slave morality.”
Leibniz thoroughly examined evil.
He separated it into three categories.
First the malum physicum:
pain, loss, loneliness, poverty...
things you wouldn’t even wish on your worst enemy.
Then Leibniz described the malum metaphysicum:
small imperfections, breaking points built in by a divine hand.
According to Leibniz, man himself can only be evil in one way -
through the malum morale, the moral evil.
The sin which you commit, when you turn away from God.
In the 20th century, existential philosopher Karl Jaspers
also divided evil within man into three categories.
First: urges of any kind.
Second: lacking will to do good.
And third: the will to do evil.
That is indeed interesting!
Haven’t we always been more fascinated by Darth Vader
than by Luke Skywalker clad in shabby eco-linen?!
Regardless of your religious or ideological point of view -
"pure" evil: killing, stealing, lying
is what is bad for the individual and society.
Yet it seems that we need evil.
Good and evil are in a dualistic relationship.
One cannot exist without the other.
Otherwise, Ozzy Osborne would just be a doddering father,
and every Hollywood film would begin with the happy-end
and plod along without antagonists.
We need evil as an antithesis
in order to find our way in the world of ethics.