Do you think humans, in general, are basically evil?
As we move deeper into the autumn here in Australia,
the season of quietude after the exuberant lifeforce of summer, I have turned my thoughts to the hero of my life, who has just quietly died...
and realized that actual heroism receives no oration, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.
It alludes ot a state of mind in which a human being can set aside boredom to experience reality calmly and openly appreciating it for its richness without demanding from it anything as easy or satisfying or ready-made.
Not everybody is able to find this state of mind but everybody is looking for it. It is about pain, humanity's pain, anybody's pain, about your pain.
Vaclav Havel died few moths back at the age of 75. In the euphoric days in 1989 after he went from ex-political prisoner to President of Czechoslovakia I was there,
on the city square, one of the many students demanding change. He was an absurdist playwright who led the bloodless Velvet Revolution that toppled one fo Eastern Europe's coldest Cold War regimes.
He was thrust into a role he did not choose of teaching his countrymen what it means to build freedom.
He came from a little country but his message spoke to the world - a world that is now a different place without him.
He died quietly suffering from a recurring dream that the old secret police showed up and threw him back to jail.
The truth is that type of heroism is rare and yet we live in an age of transformation. We are more connected as a world than we ever have been.
What happens in one part of the world has an immediate impact on the other. We are in a 24/7 information drill, but we have lost our moral compass.
We have the greatest inequity since the 30s Depression. 17 of the richest countries in the world have gone backward on equality and 210 million people are out of work.
Leaders around the world slowly realize that we need to talk about innovation, sustainability and reform, not just about corporation and greed.
We do need transformation, but the question is, what values should we set for ourselves. Good or evil, just because all of us have powerful inborn traits doesn't mean we can't stretch the limits of our personalities when the stakes are high enough.
We need to balance three equal identities: our inborn personality, the expectations of our culture and family and our personal desires and our sense of what matters.
Are we going to let thing wash over us or are we going to strike out and change and grow and challenge?
The answer depends on what you want out of life.
The most evil thing we can do is do nothing.
People have inside
basic tendency and goodness
and also their evil side,
from a fascination with wars
and gangsters
to an endless production line
of horror films
violence seems to have
a special place
next to love
in our hearts.
Studying massacres
through the ages
violence is a fundamental part
of our history,
there are lessons
to be learned.
Are there any changes
over time,
are we less or more evil
in our modern century?
Patterns are changing,
especially,
the motivation
behind brutal acts,
people used religion
as an excuse to kill
before the 18th century.
In our modern world,
it is politcs,
ideology and race
that seems to be
the prime motivators
behind mass violence and killing.
Massacres related to colonisation
between 1780 and 1820
in South Africa,
Australia,
North America
or even Europe,
are topics
people do not want to
talk about.
There are
state-sanctioned
massacres
happening
all around the world
in this minute.
Is it evil
to watch
with curiosity
the suffering of others
far away
from us?
Political violence,
terrorism,
representations of violence
at schools
and on streets,
popular violent culture
is a part
and parcel
of the way
we see today's world.
The universal nature
of aggression
and bloodshed
has already soaked
into
our human core.
The plight of refugees
in Australia
remains one of the biggest
black spots
on the name of a country
that is so proud
of its democratic traditions
of a fair go for all
and special concern
for the underdog.
It locks men,
women
and children up,
desperate to escape
just such oppression
in intolerable conditions,
driving many
to despair,
self-harm and suicide,
while Australians close their eyes
and go on with their lives.
People have inside
a basic decency and goodness.
If they listen to it
and act on it,
they are giving
a great deal
of what
it is
the world needs most.
Robert F. Kennedy once said:
" Each time a man stands up for an ideal,
or acts to improve the lot of others,
or strikes out against injustice,
he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope..."
What is it
that occupies
your thoughts?
Evil acts and violence
are such fascinating topics
to discuss with a lot of people.
Many of them
believe
if suffering went out
of life,
courage,
tenderness,
pity,
faith,
patience
and love
in its divinity
would go out
of life too.
And yet,
they keep dreaming
about Robert F. Kennedy's words
and want to believe
that:
"...those ripples build a current
that can sweep down
the mightiest walls
of oppression
and resistance."
A loving person lives
in a loving world,
a hostile person lives
in a hostile world.
The most of us
live
and view
the world
through
the shades
of gray.
Vaclav Havel
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