Аннотация: Household and religious idea of the good and evil as opposite ethical categories is absolutized up to recognition them by comprehensive. How the situation with them in fact is? and why these concepts are inapplicable to the world of the nature?
I
It is known that since the birth of civilization, good is understood as positive and welcome assessment of actions, in particular, deeds, creation, whereas under evil is understood the negatively-condemned actions, for example, humiliation, infliction of harm, destructive actions.
Naturally, the concepts of good and evil, as polar, were being contrasted, and evil by all means was subject to condemnation.
It should be noted that these moral categories are the very relative, since, for example, harming the enemy cannot but be good for one of the parties, and good deeds often "lead to hell."
Insufficient knowledge, which often leads to negative consequences, also cannot be qualified as evil, because it is rarely complete, but learns on mistakes, receiving a positive result.
Sympathies and dislikes rarely remain the same throughout life.
On the other hand, it should be noted that to animal (natural) life, that is, at its guide by the lowest consciousness, which for the person is qualified by science as subconsciousness, the concepts of good and evil are inapplicable, since the instinctive and reflex actions of living beings are not subjects to assessment from the position of any kind of morality. And it means that good and evil, as respectively relatively the right and the bad, appear only in the presence at living beings in addition to the lowest - instinctive-reflex consciousness of the highest consciousness or self-consciousness.
Therefore, aggressiveness, the desire to humiliate or destroy an opponent, to seize its territory, self-centeredness, in a word, everything that contributes to survival and domination, peculiar of an lowest (animal) consciousness with its irresponsibility from the position of the human morality, cannot be assessed critically by the highest consciousness, which is characterized by selflessness, respect and love for people and other living beings, altruism, decency and conscientiousness; however, with the latter properties alone, you can't survive in an antagonistic, that is, a competitive society, and any person must, willy-nilly, turn to the lowest consciousness, which contributes to him at least survive in the whirl of life, more precisely, this very lowest consciousness itself enters into action when it considers it necessary.
Thus, each person is in a situation of interaction between the lowest and highest types of consciousness, which for the most part comes down to their struggle due to the fundamental difference of the problems, which are being solved.
Nevertheless, this struggle significantly accelerates the pace of development of society compared with the animal world or even with primitive communities, some of which have survived until now in areas distant from civilization precisely because of the weakness of their highest consciousness.
This fact of the accelerated development of human communities in civilization conditions makes it possible to recognize the struggle of the lowest and highest types of consciousness both in each person and in human communities as the main driving force of the development of a civilized society.
It is the struggle of the lowest and highest types of consciousness that causes the emergence of the concepts of good and evil, in the first of which is accented the action of the highest consciousness for the most part, and in the second - the action of the lowest consciousness for the most part, at this, the relativity, or blurring and changeability of these concepts indicates, as a rule, the leading the position of one or another type of consciousness.
Inasmuch the total eradication of the lowest consciousness, which is not only the foundation of human life, but life in general, and the centers of this type of consciousness are the aspiration to survive at all costs and the aspiration to leave behind posterity, that to be exempted from aspirations of this type of consciousness is not possible.
Therefore, the release from similar aspirations or desires - a main goal of Buddhists - is a clean utopia, and it is sad for them.
As for moral improvement - the main goal of Daoism, then it turns out as effective only for people with a high level of self-consciousness, because only they are able to distance themselves as far as possible from the egocentrism of the lowest consciousness, having eliminated the eternal, according to Daoism, equal dependence of good and evil, which in fact can quite often be unequal.
If to recognize compliance of the heart chakra of Hinduism to the highest consciousness, then it absolutely fairly points that poor development of this chakra, that is, of the highest consciousness, means smaller ability of the person to kind acts.
If to consider the lowest consciousness as the main source of the evil, - and the lowest consciousness cannot be eliminated at all, - then views of Christians on evil as dependent essence are not so far from the truth.
Judaism also quite adequately consider evil as a negative characteristic of human existence in the world and deny in independent existence of this negativism, which is actually manifested mostly as a result of the actions of lowest consciousness, as well as as a result of some actions of highest consciousness.
From this brief review, a true basis emerges for the abstract moral (humanized) concepts of good and evil - the highest and lowest types of consciousness respectively both in the person and his communities.
Below these abstracts are being more extensively deployed.
II
If to proceed from existence in each person of two beginnings - the lowest (animal), qualified by the modern science as subconscious, and the highest (self-consciousness) which is present only at the person and defines his actions only partly independently, without having the opportunity to separate completely from the lowest, and designate these beginnings, respectively, as the lowest and highest types of consciousness, first of all we have to state the undoubted difference between man and any other living being, who cannot in any way aware of itself in time, and secondly, it should be noted the difference of living beings from inanimate matter, consisting in the fact that the former are able to "turn" instinctively or consciously the surrounding to themselves, processing the "impulses" coming from it through the appropriate channels (sense organs) in the processing centers, which is absent in any natural objects of the inanimate matter.
In other words, each living being from birth long before appearance of the person has found the new property compared to objects of the inanimate matter - the relative subjectivity. This property is expressed in unconscious ability of this being to processing coming to it on channels of the sense organs of data from the environment, which, after processing in the respective centers, become information for him about himself and the environment, and the creature can use this information, trying to get advantages for itself in the struggle with competitors and in alliance with "colleagues", which means its development in the lower phase of consciousness, which is operating only with advantage for itself.
Thereby the received information, which, being converting into time, creates a changing unidirectional "movie" of the world, a living being somehow feels and understands, since it automatically places itself in it, and can more or less "conveniently" define itself inside it in accordance with the emerging feelings and intelligence, that is, guided by the degree of their own dissatisfaction with the existing position, which dissatisfaction with the position of other creatures surrounding the given one can counteract.
Similar fight for survival of one living being in communication with other living beings the detached onlooker can determine as the ambivalent.
All impacts from outside, allowing this being to survive, breed and dominate, the observer may qualify as positive, or conditionally - as good for the being, and all impacts that lead to the deterioration of his position or death, the outside observer has to qualify as the negative, or kind of as evil.
For another creature living at the expense of the first or even feeding on it, the outsider observer naturally considers the situation in the opposite way, that is, here the "good" for the second being turns into "evil" for the first, and the "evil" for the first - into "good" for the second, which means relativity and artificiality of the concepts of good and evil in principle.
Therefore, it is meaningless to proclaim, as some religious confessions (Buddhism) do, the inevitability of the victory of good over evil in beingness.
Before the appearance of the person, no living being could evaluate own behavior from a moral point of view due to the lack of self-awareness.
It is self-consciousness that has transformed the extreme relativity of the concepts of good and evil, but in fact, the positivity or negativity of changes, undergone by a person or a group of people, into absolute concepts, since each person (a separate community of people) correlating himself with everything else, that is, as if turning himself from an outside observer into an interested person, acquires the ability, unlike other living beings, be aware in one way or another degree negative for itself intentions of other people (communities), which are in practice objective, transforming them in own consciousness to the concrete evil for itself, and transforming natural or public cataclysms into the world evil (Lord's punishment), or on the contrary.
Such approach, putting both groups of people and each person quite consciously into the center of events, got its completeness in the process of civilization development, during which the concept of ownership was formed, finally translating objective actions and intentions from the relative into the absolute category, that the development of religious views not in small degrees has contributed , according to which the world has been built on the struggle between good and evil, that is quite far from the insufficiently conscious actions of primitive people who did not have enough time for thinking about good and evil in the permanent struggle for survival by means of scanty means, the most salutary and effective of which were group solidarity and as a result, the impossibility of the emergence of private property.
Thus, with the development of civilization, general unspoken rules (morality) were being formed, at the center of which the ideas of good and evil (respectively, right and wrong) were being put, as a principle noted by Confucius: "Do not do to others what you do not wish yourself", which is undoubtedly associated with the protection of ownership (private property) by the morality, while the rules of behavior of the distinct communities may vary significantly.
Similar views can appear only in public consciousness of antagonistic social structures for their deduction from the disorder, the means of what is, besides law enforcement agencies, the statement in the masses of some kind of ideological background, in which the taking of else's property is considered as the indispensable evil.
Such appeal to some kind of peacefulness which was capable to be shown only at rather high level of development of self-consciousness, apparently, has contributed to the solidarity of people in their actions in conditions of social structure unfair to the majority of the population with its institutionalized inequality, smoothing individualism and egocentrism as a consequence of the manifestation mainly of the lowest consciousness, but not eliminating the fundamental contradiction between higher and lower consciousness, which is the true driving force behind the development of society.
Before the emergence of civilization, people of an archaic society valued strength, dexterity, knowledge of medicinal herbs, the ability to effectively hunt, prepare edible dishes, etc.
With the advent of new relationships already in the civilizational scheme, the possession of property obtained by various, including unjust, methods, which often exceeded the natural needs of the person, has been added to these skills.
It is clear, that the person can dispose by things for the good not only for himself, but also for people.
Therefore, the term "property" was understood originally as "good" exactly due to the property was the general, i.e. it was used for good of everybody.
This fact is explained by that the private property in archaic society was absent, since both products and things were being distributed on all members of tribe uniformly. Such approach was dictated by survival of all community owing to the low productivity of the same things and food.
Naturally, consumed things and foods were being considered as good exactly for everybody.
Since those times the term "good" has acquired two meanings: good-goods-things and good-blessing-boon-charity-goodness.
In Russian the term "good" and now is understood, on the one hand, as the things, property, prosperity; and on the other hand, as goodness, kindly, the useful, the honest.
In English, like the Russian language, the term "good" is understood and now as things, products (goods), as well as goodness, well, boon (good).
Thereby, the notion "good" has meaning not only as things, products, but it was being transformed to the terms "kindly", "kindness", "goodness", i.e. into a certain positive moral category.
However, this initial attitude towards consumption of objects and products in the form of common ownership during developing the trade relations, forming States, different classes and estates begins to lose its original meaning, turning from good for everybody in property for individual owners.
Thus, good-thing in developed society begins to be understood not as common good, but as the good for specific (private) owners of things. In other words, the good (possessions, ownership) turns into representation of people in use of this good (property) only for the good of the owners.
Similar process of transformation of "good" in "property" happened not only in Russia. For example, in English the good with the insignificant addition "s" (goods) is interpreted as product, cargo, ware, stuff and property.
Apparently, for elimination of an ambiguity of the term "good" in Russian language has emerged such notions of common good as "well", "perfectly", and in English language - the term "well" (perfectly, successfully).
Naturally, people, deprived of property at its division or received its not enough have considered such situation for themselves as unfair, false, inhuman that couldn't but cause in them disappointment and its extreme expression - evilness. All these terms in different languages have related roots, and their meaning comes down to bad relations, the reason which is the varying degree of possession of property.
Therefore, most likely, the term "evil" has arisen during formation of the proprietary relations with fixing of a certain possession by laws in a counterbalance to the word "good". These terms have expressed thereby the opposite relation of people to property. I.e. the property can be as good in the sense of common good, and to provoke hatred, anger on the part of the deprived, which can be generalized by the term "evil".
So, the same formation - things - in the different relations produced two polar notions, which both in religion, and in morals turned into allegedly eternally existing categories - good and evil. Their different interpretation doesn't change an original sense of these categories because as it was stated above, these notions arose concerning the possession and no more than that.
However, in religion this opposite relation to the possession in minds of people turned into eternal fight of good and evil in the world.
I.e. religion has ignored, but rather, didn't want to understand the source of origin of good and evil, stated above, having absolutized these notions under pretence of the need of the struggle of light against darkness though actually it is about different intentions of people, which follow from inconsistency of the lowest and the highest forms of consciousness in each person, which are in permanent fight and collisions.
These contradictions are impossible to smooth. Therefore, the person in the frames of the developing civilization according to instincts of the lowest (animal) consciousness will always aim to multiply the good (ownership) for himself, considering that the opponents of this process are the undoubted evil for himself.
The highest consciousness, in a counterbalance to this selfish aspiration, will proclaim as goodness the giving out (distribution) of property that Christ most brightly has expressed so: "The poor in spirit are blessed wherefore they possess by the Kingdom of Heaven." (The Gospel from Matthew. Ch. 5, item 3).
In this saying he clearly lets knows that good as goodness in the world of aspiration to possession (property) is unattainable.
The being of a categorical imperative of Kant comes down to good, i.e. to the idea of committing of acts by the person concerning remaining people thus as though he has made them for himself.
Here - in the categorical imperative - Kant also tears off "good" from the natural reasons, idealizing thereby the person by artificial removal him from own animal nature (the lowest consciousness).
Actually, the impossibility to eliminate of egocentrism, derivative of the lowest consciousness of the person, denies reach by the person and mankind of absolute good and harmony, but proclaims incessant struggle in the framework of good (property).
The progressive motion of civilization also meant the development of the highest human consciousness, which was expressed mainly in the gradual increase of the cultural and technological equipment of both humanity and each person.
The growth of self-awareness in the form of the expanding the coverage of the masses of people with such characteristic features as self-esteem, sympathy and help suffering, civil conscience, altruism, etc., has led many people to other expression of themselves, which has looked earlier like the underline of wealth, power, influence, corporate solidarity, etc.
The new mass expression of themselves looked like a desire to move away from rudeness and primitiveness in expressing of themselves to various kinds of attempts to become the cultural and creative persons - from rationalizing living space in various ways up to cultural innovations in the form of fashion, rampant graphomania, structuring virtual space using computers and the Internet and etc.
Thereby, a certain devaluation of possessive instincts occurred and, accordingly, an unconscious mitigation of the absolutization of the concepts of good and evil in the form of the withdrawal of a significant number of people from religion with the spread of relativism and agnosticism occurred.
Nevertheless, the habit of qualifying various actions and intentions of people in the established terms of good and evil has not disappeared, and the masses are still far from understanding the above mentioned relativity and conventionality of these concepts.
In connection with the above, it can be noted that the world evil in the form of irrational liberty, as well as its source in the form of "Nothingness" before the world, about which, in particular, Berdyaev spoke, not exist and cannot be, since there is only a process of development of consciousness in resisted to it beingness. This process requires both creation and destruction, which, of course, can be thought of as good and evil, respectively, but the inadequacy of this approach is evident due to finding the negative and positive in each of these procedures: it is possible to build both castles in the air, and jails, and senseless hypotheses, and the states seeking to destroy all people counteracting it; but it is possible to destroy the buildings built on sand, hatred of people to each other, misanthropic theories, obdurate concepts, silly illusions, etc.
Not seeming good and evil, but various opposing forces are necessary for the development of consciousness in general, much like light and darkness are necessary, otherwise it would not be clear what light is and what darkness is. Consciousness in each person should be dived into the struggle between these forces in beingness, being darkening, then lightening, especially since the basis or driving force of this struggle is the lowest and highest consciousness of each person.
It is incomprehensible to people, and therefore they represent everything that harms or counteracts to them specifically as evil, and the opposite -as good. In essence, the process of destruction and creation, which flows through the consciousness of man, gives him freedom, providing an opportunity for conscious actions that cannot but enrich him with new impressions, considerations, knowledge, ideas, and experience.
However, there are forces whose source is unknown or unclear to humans. These forces in the historical development to the person have always been difficult to resist. These forces are natural and social cataclysms in the form of abrupt climate changes, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, epidemics of deadly diseases that are destructive for entire nations, wars, etc.
Therefore, people could not help but attribute these not very understandable by origin and frightening phenomena to the world evil, that has served as a cornerstone for all world religions. Only recently has science been able to understand the essence of a number of these phenomena, showing their natural character without any raid of divine punishment for sins.
The animal beginning in the person does not know neither good, nor bad. It just participates in fight for existence, for survival and when this beginning in the person prevails, he, without thinking, destroys competitors for the sake of itself, continuations some kind of, for the sake of existence of the community.
Similar low intentions, passions, acts are being caused by the animal beginning of the person and they cannot be carried to an arbitrariness and it is impossible to qualify as the conscious, purposeful evil which is initially put in his consciousness - any living being is simply forced to defend unconsciously the life in competition struggle by all available means.
On the other hand, the conscious actions of a person, often leading one as individual and his environment to catastrophic results, have the basis in good as it is represented to him, intentions.
In limit option, that is peculiar to revolutionaries, he can wish to do much good for the whole world by force, having brought it kind of the real happiness and prosperity,
The revolutionaries are ready achieving this alleged prosperity, as Mao-Tse-Dun once put it, by means of the destroy if not the whole world, then most of it.
There is a variant of Raskolnikov, noted by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky: his hero opposes self to all other, who, as he considers, are the imperfect, interfering, unnecessary, while he is more perfect person, who deserves to live and create. There is also no evil intention, but there is delusion.
Hitler wanted for benefit of the highest, as he believed, nation, to partially or fully exterminate several nations as imperfect and hindering the advancement of humankind, thereby implementing the model of the "correct" human development. For him, it seemed true good.
But if Raskolnikov later understood own delusions, then the same Hitler did not succeed at lifetime.
Napoleon has justified his actions in capturing Europe by the creating a holistic and harmonious education united under his wise leadership that would not be torn apart by wars more.
Lenin also wanted to bring happiness to the whole world by immersing him in a trouble-free and non-contradictory existence, in which the needs of every person will certainly be met - communism. What came of this is known.
The most common evil in the world is harming by some people to other people, whereas this is in fact either the side of natural and artificial selection in their struggle for existence, or the result of conflicting relations between them, expressed in resentment, jealousy, vindictiveness, mistrust. Besides it can be by the result of errors of behavior, overlapping each other at the interaction in each person of the lower and higher types of consciousness. That is, evil and good are not the basis of the world, the person, do not come from the abyss or from God, but they are merely mythological ideas of people about what is useful and harmful for them, which stems from their own relationships, the dual nature of the human consciousness and the underdevelopment of the highest consciousness.
Behind good and evil hide the aspiration of people in the antagonistic world for the better, which everyone understands in his own way, and therefore tries to eliminate or soften all the forces opposing this aspiration.
Often the fact that seemed at one time for the mind of a person by good and evil, during life changes places. So, for example, happened with Raskolnikov in the interpretation of Dostoevsky.
For misanthropes, the whole world is evil. For revolutionaries, capitalism is evil. For the bourgeoisie, capitalism is the highest form of the existence of society, the kindest of all kinds of good.
The process of creation and destruction is to a certain extent controlled by the human consciousness, but it is not operated by it completely consciously, since some people - with a weak development of the highest consciousness - prefer a smooth and trouble-free existence, preferably with dominance among their neighbors; other people - with a high level of self-awareness - are trying to altruistically lead society to universal goodness and harmony; the third - with the balanced level of the lowest and highest consciousness - want that to them did not prevent to live as they want; the fourth, - in who the lowest consciousness dominate - try to humiliate and subordinate all others.to themselves.
All this, naturally, does not do society monolithic. Moreover, the community of similar versatile individuals does not break up only thanks to the threat of violence at violation of the prescribed legislation, for which, at the level of civilization, that is, with a corresponding increase in the level of self-consciousness in various communities, are automatically formed the competing states with their laws, governing and organizing institutions, judicial and security agencies.
These states, which exploit in the person of the ruling bureaucracy and the estates adjoining it, the main mass of the population producing one or another product, nevertheless, have to somehow strive for development because of the fear of being absorbed by more technologically and culturally advanced or more militant peoples.
Be that as it may, such a social structure in comparison with the rest of the organic world, of course, is a progress made thanks to the emergence of the human self-consciousness, without which living beings were not able to correct anything consciously, that is, would have been forced to develop very slowly at the level of the natural selection.
However, if we return to the concepts of good and evil, which we call into question in its basic essence, then we can recall that in people is often manifested as if in no way motivated malice.
But in fact there are several relationships here.
One thing is that a person in life can be "cornered" like a rat with a threat to his life, the life of close people or something dear to him, and there is no way out of this situation.
Here, as it were, he loses the highest consciousness acquired during the development of the human race, and his aggression is of a purely animal character of defense in an attempt to get out of a losing position.
Reflexes and instincts enter into action. And there is no need to talk about evil as such, since the person here turns into a defending animal, and often looks like an evil animal. However, some psychologists call this state a manifestation of universal evil, which in fact was not, is not, and never will be.
Another attitude is the conscious aspiration of a person to destroy everything around as much as possible. This happens in a strong rage or irritation and passes with the restoration of the normal state.
So here not evil is expressed, but the discontent of the person with the fact that he is not capable to change or make in any way that he wants is splashed out, owing to own inability or owing to the fact that circumstances categorically interfere with it or they just did not ripen.
However, this temporary state of anger towards the world can turn into a permanent one if a person decided that the world does not give him anything, but it only takes away, that he has nowhere to go and not for what to go. This is manifested at low level of intelligence, when a person"s consciousness may be unable to withstand the pressure of the environment and their own ideas and fantasies.
The highest consciousness In this case calls for a struggle, albeit useless and senseless, leading to death, but a struggle. This is a manifestation of dissatisfaction of the highest consciousness.
And the faint-hearted misanthropes begin to recoup on even weaker ones, justifying themselves by the fact that the small fry are worse, but it lives, and here they perish in vain.
Similar behavior has nothing to do with universal evil, since a simple change of circumstances in favor of the weak-souled individuals makes an evil-hearted misanthrope, which is harming everyone, by a good-natured creature who can even share with you the benefits obtained, however, only in order that society estimated him.
Another manifestation of evil is often considered the actual breakdown of the human psyche, which can occur for various reasons, but is not immediately understood by its surrounding, as, for example, happened in Ancient Rome to the emperor Caligula. In this case, it makes no sense to talk about evil in relation to a sick person.
Summarizing, it can be noted that instead of searching for the true causes of human acts, which consist, as a rule, in human relations, in the struggle between the lowest and highest types of consciousness in the person, it is much easier to refer to the primitive evilness that is allegedly inherent in every person, whereas initially in man there is no evilness at all, but a lowest (animal) consciousness, always tuned for survival both within the individual and within his social group, and therefore trying to dictate to him to oppose everything that is outside, interfering, threatening, that can often be not so superfluous.
At the same time, this lowest consciousness prevents an individual from turning into an ideal personality, that is, completely to overcome own feelings of envy, hatred, egoism, to which can be added the weakness of the intellect and the resulting desire for simple solutions, which usually leads to such disastrous results that, except as the result of acting evil will, it seems impossible to name.
An animal is being converted into a person thanks to self-awareness, but it is inseparable from the animal "passions" in life, which, on the one hand, evokes ideas about the evil nature of man, and, on the other hand, about his kindness, altruism and benevolence.
As a result, arising the myth of good and evil, of primordial innocence and of the fall into sin, which really corresponds to the threshold acquiring animals to self-awareness, which gradually brings these new beings to a certain (situational) understanding both the world and oneself in it, or to the realization of oneself in time.
This new being senses the world (own surrounding) not only from the inside, that is, not only instinctively-reflexively, but it is already able to look at it if any from above and consciously try to find for itself to benefit, for example, by having taken away by force or cunning some good (property) for oneself, having deprived others of it, as well as - to find other values that are inaccessible to animals, in particular, creative cultural, technological and moral, for example, having donated the part of the property to others.
In fact, the concepts of good and evil for human society latently carry the moral content, that is, the content of the concepts "favorable" and "bad" for both the individual and communities of individuals.
If to simplify, then applied to yourself, for example, it is bad to drink vodka, do not brush your teeth in the morning, do not look after your own health, closed in himself, etc.; it is good to be strong, healthy, educated, hardworking, etc. In the relation to community of people, for example, it is bad to brawl, deceive, and it is good to be friendly, and ideally you should strive to follow the moral code proposed by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.
And for the rest good and evil, as a rule. remain behind brackets, since, as it was already shown, practically any intention or action can bear in themselves the negative or positive contents depending on the parties of actions (circumstances): the restaurant frequenter, devouring with pleasure beefsteak with blood hardly thinks of feelings of a bull-calf on the slaughterhouse.
Thus, the abstract concepts of good and evil show that each person is mostly in a situation of struggle between the lowest and highest types of consciousness due to the fundamental difference in their intentions.
This struggle significantly changes the pace of development of a civilized society in the direction of acceleration.
Such accelerated development of civilized communities means that the struggle of the lowest and highest types of consciousness both in every person and in human communities is the main driving force behind the development of these communities, which is clearly illustrated by the concepts of good and evil, which appeared only with the emergence of civilization, i.e. at the sufficient level of development of self-awareness.
In the concept of good, the action of the highest consciousness is reflected predominantly, and in the concept of evil, for the most part, - the action of the lowest consciousness, and the relativity of these concepts indicates, as a rule, on the exit in a human or group relation to the leading position of one or the other type of consciousness.
On the other hand, the indispensable presence and interaction in the man of the lowest and highest forms of consciousness indicates both the ineradicability of evil and the impossibility of the final triumph of good, at least during human life in a society of private initiative, and also during the existence of civilized communities.
III
Let us illustrate with some examples by no means the basic nature of the concepts of good and evil.
Consider the relationship of the people and the state.
Is the state evil or good for the people?
As you know, states did not always exist.
There are many theories that put forward one or another reason for the emergence of states.
We, in turn, believe that the state arose only as a result of a massive increase in the level of people's self-consciousness to the extent that they could, using their creativity, improve the production technology of all vital products - from the agricultural implements and the hunting tools up to methods of domestication of animals, up to such extent that the excess of the products of labor have arisen.
Earlier, in a primitive society, that is, with a relatively low level of self-consciousness of each person, there was no the excess of food and resources, and the meager food reserves were being more or less evenly distributed to all members of community by the most respected members of the community, from what, actually, depended the survival of each local community, that is, it was in this way that individual and group behavior in primitive communities was dictated by the lowest consciousness, dominating at that time, which was responsible primarily for the survival of the living being.
In the new situation - with the appearance of an excess of various kinds of products - has become impossible to agree on their fair distribution. To the similar "public" contract insufficiently high level of self-consciousness hindered: in the new conditions of the surplus of various products of labor for the lowest consciousness into the forefront there is not an ensuring survival of a being, but egocentrism with its desire to capture all the excess only to its own advantage, that, certainly was difficult to overcome yet to weak highest consciousness.
The animal (lowest) consciousness still largely dominated over still weak highest consciousness with its altruism. Therefore, the lowest consciousness was dictating a person to take away from the weaker or unsuccessful in conditions of a disintegrating primitive society, food, grounds, buildings, women, tools for oneself.
The temptations that arose for the possession of products and resources led to a confrontation in their achievement between different actors, bringing chaos into society.
There was a need to restore order in new relationships between people. The result was the emergence of a single factor that could restrain the mercenary intentions of the opposing individuals. So the state formations of various type have emerged.
The conditional good of these new formations with all their institutions, or their positivity, was reflected in ensuring a certain order in relations between people in one way or another, in particular, legislatively, declared and supported by forceful influences if necessary. To this, largely, forceful and unjust order for the majority of the population, it had to adapt and tolerate this order in order to get rid of the fear of arbitrary violence against it.
The positivity, or "good" of the state, is also manifested in the fact that, competing with similar formations, the state, in order not to be absorbed by own neighbors, that is, willy-nilly, is trying to create conditions for technological and cultural progress, which means the transition to more than less civilized society to accelerated development compared to previous times.
In this process, for thousands of years, an experimental fact was found that confirmed the need of a state, oppressing and robbing own population, but at the same time somehow tries to ensure technological and cultural development in the frame the community: if this development stops or slows down significantly, the country is being either captured by its neighbors, either goes into hibernation or chaos.
On the other hand, if to look at the state with eyes of the peasant, handicraftsman or any hired worker, from which by taxes and other levies the state often take away the very necessary, then, except the negative, or spiteful feelings to this state is difficult to have other sensations.
At the same time, the representatives of the imperious structures, distributing what's taken from the workers, basking in luxury and enjoying power over subordinates and the humiliation experienced by them. Naturally, they have the warmest feelings in relation to the state, that is, it is good for them.
So what is the so-called "the people"? and how to relate it to the state in order to minimize the negativity, or "evil", emanating from the latter?
To answer these questions, it is necessary to clarify, of what main layers are consisted the people, and how the lowest and highest types of consciousness in the representatives of these layers relate.
The people or the entire mass of the population of each state is divided according to the ratio of types of consciousness available to individuals into the following main strata: ordinary people (philistines), representatives of the imperious structures and other "heads" (elite), informal-intellectuals.
The weak development of self-consciousness and equally the weak manifestation of the lowest consciousness (low level of dissatisfaction of consciousness in both cases), which are in a balanced state, characterize the basic group of any communities - so-called ordinary people (philistines). All members of this group are guided generally by own mind and experience: they are occupied by themselves as well as own wellbeing, and do not aspire to either "high" or "low" goals, limiting themselves by the desire for a hassle-free life in satiety, in which trouble is desirable to see only on the monitor screen.
Philistines do not feel the aspiration to new due to own efforts, trying to obtain more comfortable state in life from a position of simple acquisition and consumption of the good things of life.
Most often, such people who consist the vast majority of the population out of politeness are called demos (the people), and politicians always appeal to it, perfectly understanding whom to deceive the easiest.
Despite all this criticism, it is difficult to condemn the people masses, as it is usually engaged in daily monotonous work, not having prospects for another kind of activity that could contribute to the development at these masses of self-consciousness.
The habitual standard dictates to masses to live as everything, consuming what is, creating around itself an environment of artificial and natural objects only in order to regularly to update it, finding satisfaction in this incessant process.
The population has no understanding that the pursuit of consumer values is quite monotonous and never gives the result which is completely satisfying the person.
At such behavior the person actually demonstrates the preference to the monotonic existence - as if to the life-sleep with rare moments of awakening which, as a rule, are initiated by external circumstances (marriages, divorce, new job, diseases, death of the close persons, etc.).
Having lived such life, similar reasonable beings with surprise discover in it, in effect, absence of interesting and outstanding events precisely because they were trying to follow to the pragmatic approach.
In this respect, they are remarkably similar in behavior to animals, for which, although they cannot reason, the main thing is getting sensations.
Such persons avoid the participation of any public activities, being interested only in their own well-being, but avoiding any risk. They do not resist the authorities and avoid any extremism, but only so long as their survival is not at stake - after realizing this, they crush everything and everyone without any hesitation and reflection.
Nevertheless, the philistines are the main soil for formation of intellectual and imperious layers; representatives of these layers are being grew from this soil accidentally, hereditary or thanks to these or those proficiency, competence or abilities which raised them above the average level, and this soil they can ruin or improve as the people masses are as a rule passive, because of the employment of the monotonous work for survival and nourishment; stagnant traditions; religious delusions; predispositions due to the low cultural level to the negative impact of the active propaganda of information frauds, even more fooling the people, the lack of adequate education and upbringing, that does not allow it to use in large quantities social elevators and to set before itself the high purposes: similar sad and gloomy life does not promote transformation of all mass of people into bright, educated, cultural, creative, vigorous and sociable subjects at all. Such of the people stands out only a few percent.
Thus, the faceless mass of the people outwardly acquires development in the person of their representatives in power and in informal-intellectual opposition to power.
Informal intellectuals, pursuing basically the goals opposite to the goals of the representatives of the power elite, are forced to appeal to the people, proving their rightness and anti-people of the elite-oppressor, which, in turn, must justify itself and stigmatize by shame of the rotten informal-dreamers who can only speak, not rule and predominate.
Thereby, the people, willy-nilly, are involved by energy of this struggle into a forward motion, which can also be evolutionary at the consent of the power elite with the opposition from the nonconformists-intellectuals to certain compromises in the interests of the working masses, but it can jump into a different course if there is no such agreement, which is reflected in the public consciousness as a clear injustice, transforming into a more or less successful attempt to remove the ruling elite from power upon the occurrence of suitable conditions.
Anyway, among the average inhabitants there are always subjects with a somewhat higher level of the lowest consciousness, which in this case can cause them to strive not only for a well-fed, calm and prosperous life, but also for dominance among their own kind. Taking away from the highest consciousness the appropriate share of intelligence, which includes increased ingenuity, and from the lowest consciousness - speed of reaction, quite good strong-willed qualities and energy, skill to communicate, sufficient dexterity, cunning, insidiousness and unprincipledness, these individuals get advantage before the others - more inert members of the community in the form of philistines, highly moral intellectuals of all sorts and other relatively sluggish or anxious with another matters of members of the population, who are not able to deftly push aside or slander an opponent, as well as really enjoy the humiliation of the subordinate, and at the same time endure the mockery from the side of their superiors.
The lack of intelligence the persons, broke into the power elite, compensate by the involvement of numerous advisers, but because the decisions eventually have to be taken them, insofar they, as the true creators of their own happiness, initially consider their activities from the position of personal (corporate), and not the people's good with a roll in the direction of retaining power, gaining a greater degree of their own dominance and the acquisition of all kinds of privileges, clogging up in addition to it the various management and economic structures with own mostly incompetent offspring.
Therefore, the hopes of naive masses to correct these moral freaks, cunning, hypocritical rogues, representing the power elites of various states competing with each other, have no basis, regardless of the structure of the state and its degree of development - from despotism to parliamentary democracy.
For representatives of the power, a dominant inevitably is the lowest consciousness, that is, in their consciousness there is a clear lack of awareness of themselves as self-sufficient personalities and not as consumers. Power and practically the unlimited access to privileges and property belittles them so much that they see in the masses only a source of wealth for themselves and a field for the manifestation of their own low instincts. However, fearing the anger of the people and the counteraction the informal opposition, they are forced to resist anarchy, retaining, in particular, through reforms, the order that ensures the functioning and development of society, but, naturally, not from noble motives, but only from a sense of self-preservation.
Except philistines as well as the power elite, representing mainly the organizational- managing contingent from the highest officials and the most advanced business, in each community there is a layer of the people of brainwork, intellectuals of all kinds, as well as - relatively few representatives of the rest of the population, who managed in one way or another to rise in their self-consciousness to the level that dictates their aversion to the amoral and selfish behavior of the power elite.
These persons have the hope of reorganizing society in the direction of harmony, that is, equality, fraternity and at the same time liberty, without understanding that liberty always resists to equality, justice, destroying any stability. But this hope for harmonious world order can never disappear in their blissful consciousness: they as true humanists, are not capable to believe that horrors of our world cannot turn into prosperity of each person and all mankind eventually.
Informally-oppositional part of intellectuals, to which various educated people from this or that generation can be attributed, are active, honest, sincerely wishing good to the people, that is, with the dominant higher consciousness, have never joined and will not join the hypocritical and self-interested governing elite of the state. Already reached level of the highest consciousness, putting material benefits on the last place among life values, will not allow them to commit similar. Therefore, they will always expose the unscrupulous, hypocritical and thievish individuals in power of this world, to fight for the rights and civil liberties of workers, involving them in this fight as much as possible widely.
Thereby, their opposition to imperious elite does not allow society to freeze in place, being reflection of antagonism of the lowest and highest types of consciousness in each person.
The struggle between them when the passive behavior the most part of the rest of the population occurs continuously with the dominance of a more energetic governing elite, which is provoking self-hatred from everyone else, and thus forming that antagonism that does not allow society to stop in developing.
It is for this reason that any coup or revolution that overthrows or even destroys the entire power elite, as it happened, for example, in China repeatedly, relatively quickly leads to the reproduction of former - antagonistic - order in society, that is, restores the condition, under which is possible development of society.
In Russia, after seventy-year cataclysms, the same thing occurred. If this recovery does not happen, then the community will disintegrate, merging with neighboring states.
The imbalance in the confrontation of the power elite and informal intellectuals leads either to stagnation in the development of the community, or to disorganization of the control system and the onset of chaos with unpredictable consequences.
Thereby, the driving force of social development, as well as development of each person, is the hidden interaction of two forms of consciousness: the lowest, or natural (animal), and the highest, or self-consciousness.
The rest, significant in number of strata of society, from a political and social point of view are not of great interest, being due to quite low level of self-consciousness and, accordingly, in their pragmatic aspirations they are more or less close to philistines (representatives of the security and police services, military, small businessmen, creatives, criminal elements).
This brief analysis shows that the heterogeneity of any community in the context of civilization demonstrates different, often diametrically opposed aspirations of certain sections of society, which is reflected in various ideas about good and evil, although, of course, the "sign" of majority of civilization communities is the Sermon on the Mount of Christ with his precepts, which, alas, remain just an elusive horizon for people.
The structures of power, that exist for managing society and its organization, at one level or another, perform these functions well or badly, but, being torn off from the masses by hardware, they quickly turn into fairly autonomous cells, preoccupied with their own interests and their own self-preservation, which go for them to the fore.
The only "cure" for this bureaucratic "disease" is feedback with the people (voters), as well as the rotation of officials as often as possible, that turns into profanation under conditions of an authoritarian regime, but in conditions of developed democracies it looks quite respectable outwardly, being expressed in various clubs, the various types of press, TV programs, Internet communities, elections at all levels, etc. but actually the imperious elite of these countries does not at all concede in own field of activity, where it robs everything that is possible, and everyone it can overcome, both in its own country and beyond its borders with a polite smile on their lips, reinforcing their actions with favorable legislation for itself, law enforcement agencies, various types of bribing of trade union leaders and other opponents, reducing the opposition only to a superficial difference, but with the preservation of their own vested interests, as it happened, for example, with the trade unions in Great Britain, transformed into a Labor party, which reflects the interests of the same negligible predatory and hypocritical imperious elite.
All concessions that are made for the people masses, are strictly forced or they carry in self usual deception.
Actually, the difference between the ruling elite of the despotism or authoritarian regimes of one kind or another and democratic regimes lies only in the fact that at democracy the ruling elite masks its chronic incapacity and dullness by regular change of rulers, but for some reasons - out of the same group of people, allegedly according to the voice of the people, to which actually the valid choice due to specially and accurately thought over selective rules is not provided, and quite inert masses can appeal in the protection, except rather rare own indignation and almost fruitless addresses to the mighty of this world, only to own elite - to intellectual nonconformists; however, these intellectuals, being able to constructively criticize the authorities, have no ideas of development, except for utopian ones. This deadlock situation is usually resolved by no one unregulated, but still progressive motion from crisis to crisis, due to the constant influx of new information, during which holistic communities somewhat increase their technological and cultural level.
How can one minimize the "malicious" influence on the society of the ruling elites?
The well-known recipe says that for this it is necessary to arrange regular re-election of the ruling elite through a universal vote.
Practice shows that similar democratic elections as a matter of fact alter that a little from a position of accounting of wishes of most of the population.
The imperious elites of all countries are mostly engaged in their own enrichment and showdown among themselves.
How, then, can the quality of the ruling elite be improved and thereby increase the proportion of "good" for the working masses?
Based on the above, theoretically here you can build on the following.
First of all, we note: the ruling elite, managers and officials do not arise from the air and not only by inheritance, but initially - from the masses of the people.
The quality of these masses is very low, because the lowest consciousness, that was being formed for hundreds of millions of years, which reached its peak in primates, is covered with a relatively "thin layer" of higher consciousness (self-awareness) in the person, that was being formed only during the last several million years, beginning with the hominids.
One can imagine the crowds of these half-monkeys, who are being situated in the "aviary", fenced by a set of laws, some moral installations and threats of imprisonment in the "punishment cell" for "wrong" behavior.
The overwhelming number of these semi-literate creatures are forced to simply survive in a cruel world, and self-consciousness for them is by no means a prime necessity.
At best, their highest consciousness balances the action of the animal consciousness, giving of individuals, who are indifferent to everything except satiety and trouble-free existence.
The rest of the population, as a rule, may be worse or better morally, but not by much.
Of all significant strata of the population, only a layer of the informal intellectuals-(intellectual nonconformists) has the highest consciousness as an obvious dominant, because of what they, with rare exception, have no desire to be dipped into "a dirty pool" of policy in which with pleasure climb like pigs these dodgy, impudent, hypocritical and vigorous "half-monkeys" to whom to spit on everything and everyone, except themselves and own pleasures.
However, the minds of the intellectual nonconformists are filled with fake or even extremist ideas, because they believe in the triumph of justice in the form of the gradual reconstruction of the humanity into a harmonious society eventually. Nevertheless, already one aspiration to good in relation to "poor" people makes them wonderful critics of the mighty of this world.
Time the defect of base, from which there is a set of "servants of the people" is obvious, that hourly is confirmed by practice of all countries of the world, the following suggestions could be suggested for one, of course, not a solution, but to alleviate such hopeless situation.
First, in order to ensure the greatest possible responsibility of those who elect their own "servants" into the state apparatus, it should be that the voters are persons, who have an education not lower than secondary. This, in particular, will allow them with some knowledge of the case to understand how candidates are deputies, judges, ministers, etc. with the request of the relevant information.
Secondly, the voters should have a certain autonomy and independence in material terms, which is possible, as a rule, if they possess some property, for example, real estate, as well as if they have financial assets that exceed debts. Otherwise, they are easy to bribe or coerce due to the threat of dismissal, eviction, etc.
Thirdly, for attraction to elections of people not indifferent, interested in progress and prosperity of all society, but not individuals and corporations, it is necessary to allocate from lump for participation in elections only those who really participates in production of goods and services in the age from 25 to 55 years, that is the most productive and responsible for themselves and own families age.
Fourthly, in order to exclude the creation of corruption networks, it is desirable to remove officials of all levels from public service after the expiration of three-year term of their job with the transfer they to another job, as well as to eliminate the possibility of adopting them again to the job into the state structures over the next 5 years.
Fifthly, each public servant conducting or supervising work on certain objects or the directions is obliged to provide quarterly the report on work flow and the obstacles revealed for them for them to the special commissions of the active voters, controlling voluntarily the important for society areas of activity at all levels, which strengthens the active (civil) society, reveals the true quality and timeliness of working, as well as promotes an exception of an overrun of the budgetary funds.
Sixthly, the voters receive in the person of own initiative groups at all main levels of the state activity the right to recall at any time the officials who did not cope, judging by the reports received by these groups, as well as complaints and actual state of affairs with the solution of tasks set.
Seventh, the incomes of civil servants are limited to the size of the average wage in the country, that repels obvious fraudsters and rascals from the state service.
Of course, such innovations may seem far from the existing practice, especially in conditions of authoritarian states, in the current conditions of a general decline in morals and passivity of the population, but without them, any community is doomed to the stagnation and subsequent decomposition.