What is evil?

This is a topic I usually ignore. It is a highly subjective judgement call. Sure the usual things like pedophilia, murder and rape are brought up and yes these are very nasty things indeed. But what about the Hitler kind of evil, big culturally destructive evil. Well while I was doing the dishes talking with my son about how the use of bio fuel is driving up the cost of food. Then it struck me, it is that sort of thing which is evil. The real scary kind of evil. The wealthy developed and developing nations are foolishly taking the food right out of the mouths of the worlds poor. They can watch their children starve so that we can get enough fuel into our cars and big ass trucks. It's not far off from the holocaust ignorance that German's always claim. It has actually made me understand how they can actually claim ignorance. We go about our lives complaining about paying an extra dollar for bread, or cheese or whatever. These poor I speak of may not make that much a day. Even if they did how can they be expected to pay 100% of their income on a food product that is well above their actual pay. The food riots have begun, Port Au Prince, Morocco, Yemen. Yet we continue consuming. If the Muslim extremest have one thing right it is the attitude that we are the "Decadent West". We fill our fuel tanks with food while the world starves. If that isn't evil then what is? While talking with my son I began to realize that this is a world without justice, bad is good and good has turned into bad. What have any of us done to merit what we have over a small starving child? What could that infant have done not to earn the basic right to eat? Is that just deserts? Do you and I work so hard that we can waste the large majority of the worlds wealth on our needs (wants) to be entertained, over fed and transported from one place to yet another? We just as German citizens during world war two, feel unable to change the way things are. We believe the demagogues, and spin doctors. Yes everything we do is right and our enemies are always wrong and that includes you if you disagree. We send our army's off to invade and kill people who are only defending their families and way of life. Of course we are justified because their way of life offends us. We have many of them stored up in concentrations camps where they are periodical tortured and demeaned for simply being who they are. During World War Two, Allied terrorists where called freedom fighters, remember the French Resistance, the Dutch Resistance and the Jewish Freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. The world has turned upside down and we have become the evil Empire. The bad guys are us. Resistance is futile (unless your Castro). No matter what they say about Castro (human rights violations) the American, British and French governments have all done (and do) so much worst. If you are contrary to the great Empire it will twist all your words, all your actions to create a perception of you which is diabolical, even if the facts are to the opposite. Orwell was right. But he didn't think it all up out of thin air. All governments have been doing these sort of things since the days of the Pharaohs, when the priesthood spun the king as god. Often I realize that the world has always been this way, it is I who have come around out of the blinding evil of propaganda to see some semblance of what is really going on. Waking up from the matrix is not enjoyable. But once your eyes are open it would take plenty of alcohol and little blue pills to try and pretend that it was all just a bad dream and even that could never really work. Just as the man who escapes the Puppet masters of Plato's Cave, their is also great joy at being freed from the idiocy and stupidity of the fable being woven into the minds of the populace. Freedom from all such structures is what the word (freedom) truly indicates. Not the faux patriotic rhetoric spewed by so many liars and political usurpers. A mind which is unfettered, without shackles is the greatest form of beauty any of us can achieve. It is step one on the path to reconstruction.

Cynicism

I am always surprised to hear how surprised people are at the news of corruption, criminality and avarice based behaviour among humans. Yet, I'm also socked when people are taken aback by good deeds and heroic behaviour within out primate ranks. It seems as if neither are considered the norm anymore. Since humans are capable of anything, why is it that human behaviour always astounds humans? Perhaps we are just misinformed, out of touch with each other. The influence of the "me" generation has indeed had a tremendous influence on the modern mind. So maybe anything outside of our personal standardized mode of conditioned behaviour is shocking. Since I'm shocked by others being shocked I might be on to something.
Just as someone learns a new word and is astounded that they now hear it everywhere. It becomes a coincidence, a mystical experience. Or could it be that their previous ignorance simply excluded them from the use and understanding of that word, and they really never had a good idea of what was being discussed in the first place. Considering that everyone one of us suffers from one degree or other of ignorance, it's a real surprise that communication even works (maybe it doesn't). But what actually surprises me is how we think we know so much. I believe that is the root of our general ignorance. Ignorance of ignorance is why I think (in my ignorance) is why we humans are so easily manipulated and controlled by the media, aka the corporations and interest groups who fund it. The British had a fool proof plan when it came to controlling a people;"Divide and Conquer". The division was not just a physical one but a psychological factor as was the conquer bit. Keep them in the dark in their little groups , make them believe what you want them to believe and herd them about as so many sheep and goats. Especially in this age of information, we are so much more vulnerable. The level of distraction is at it's highest ever. Why is Hollywood fluff so popular? How best to calm a population than to avoid informing them and fill them with mindless entertainment (emotional ooze). The best way I have found to avoid a topic is to either avoid anything mildly related to it or change the subject all together. Any school aged child will tell you how they mess with the teacher by finding out his/her favourite subject and getting them off track with it. So it's quite instinctual for us. The key is to realize when you're being messed with or diverted by the media. It seems that we are being pumped with the idea that we are so much smarter and better than our ancestors. Sure literacy stats usually claim that more of us can read and of course this is good. But does that mean we are smarter and more intelligent? Are illiterate people stupid then? Because that seems to be the assumption. Or have we divided the whole world up, stigmatized every aspect so as to be able to analyse and categorize value and worth (good and bad). Is this not the engine behind the construction and maintenance of the great myth of the "Norm"?
As a French Canadian I was raised speaking two languages and experiencing two distinct cultures. What I have noticed here in Canada especially among uniligual people is that their lack of any other culture or knowledge of other languages has imprisoned them in a monoculture. The problem with this is that it is perceived as the only one, the end all and be all. Without a simple understanding of how other cultures don't only speak and act differently they think differently, these monocultural folks are so much easier to control and manipulate. With only one view or more importantly the belief in one view, all one needs is the pulpit to preach from. The western world and its mass media is the dream all demagogues have prayed for since the first homo sapiens walked in groups. Since the likes of Emperor Chin (first Emperor and unifier of China, that's why it's called Chin-a) forced cultural unification (one method of writing) on the people of China and destroyed everything that differed (confiscating all their swords, destroying countless texts) we the people have been subject(ed) to the tyranny of the few greedy. Perhaps calling them "noble(s)" was a sarcastic joke on the part of the oppressed.