In yesterday's blog I used the term ‘evil’.
This blog is an attempt to explain what I mean by evil.
I know the literature on evil and I know the religious concepts that underlie most popular views of evil. I do not derive my view directly from these sources.
I have abstracted from the Ten Commandments and the general milieu of our social mores a single underlying ethical point. To me, evil is the torturing of an innocent person or being that is unable to defend itself. My most extreme image is Saddam Hussein feeding living political enemies into tree chopping machines, feet first.
This is a corollary to my basic premise that the first human right is self-defense.
Therefore all acts against an innocent person or being that they cannot defend against, is a form of evil.
In the specific environment of pro-commerce, evil takes on a broader meaning. Commerce thrives on meritocracy, diversity, openness and love of technology.
When one is anti-commerce, one is opposed to these four qualities.
* To be opposed to rewarding merit is to oppose the development of each individual's unique human characteristic; that is bad but it is not evil.
* To be opposed to an individual because of who they are in a society that lacks diversity (think of a disabled person); is bad but it is not evil.
* Openness is a fundamental quality of honor and opposition to commerce is to deprive people of their core honesty; that is bad but it is not evil.
* Lastly, to oppose technology, (there are many arguments about the harmful side effects of technology); may be bad but it is not evil.
To oppose all four of these attributes of commerce is evil.
Commerce is what brings us modern health, abundant food and meaningful work. Commerce raised us out of poverty. To oppose these powers of modernity is to oppress individuals.
Commerce raised us from the life of misery we all lived for nearly 20,000 years, misery that still exists in much of the world. Parts of the world still live without modern commerce… they have not benefited in health or food supply or fulfilling work.
Opposition to commerce is, in my mind, evil because it condemns all of the poor people in the world, to live lives from of pain and suffering from which they are unable to defend themselves. Opposition to commerce condemned those who lived in India during the 1950s and were starving, as well as most of the world in 1800 who had nothing but bodily suffering and regular famine in their lives. To put people in that environment or to keep them in that non-commercial environment is evil (think N. Korea and Cuba).
To support politics that leads to a future that stifles personally fulfilling work and suppresses the medical advances that commerce generates, is equally evil. That is the goal of modern Leftism.