20 September 2020: Good vs. Evil

My philosophy is to try to do good and stay away from evil. Each week, I try to identify something or someone good to make a greater part of my life and something evil to avoid. Often what promotes good diminishes evil, and visa versa.

What constitutes good:

1. Trying to be as honest as possible, admitting when I am wrong and working to fix my mistakes.

2. Promoting tolerance of others and (nonevil) opposing points of view.

3. Supporting equal rights for all.

4. Working for the betterment of society, even if it involves personal sacrifice.

5. Supporting application of the rule of law to everyone.

6. Strengthening democratic ideals, institutions and countries.

7. Working to weaken the influence of evil people and institutions.


What constitutes evil?

1. Being dishonest on a regular basis or being indifferent to the truth.

2. Promoting hatred, prejudice or violence.

3. Taking away the rights of others.

4. Enriching yourself, your friends and relatives at the expense of others, particularly in government or the nonprofit world.

5. Undermining respect for the rule of law.

6. Weakening democratic ideals, institutions or countries.

7. Supporting, in a major way, evil people or institutions.

Exposure to goodness and evil change who we are, even years after the exposure is gone. In biologic terms, it is analogous to a prion protein, which permanently changes the conformation of proteins it has contact with. This is why it is particularly important to avoid evil. We cannot necessarily "balance it out" by exposure to good.