My connection for today comes from a book that I read last year called "Something Wicked this way Comes". In all honesty, I thought it sucked. It gave a very 1 dimensional view of good and evil, so much in fact that I thought the book was almost a satire and would end with the "evil" turning out to be nothing more than paranoia. Sadly, it didn't end this way and I was quite confused. The book made it blatantly clear that there was a definite line between good and evil, but I don't agree. The people modern society considers evil never think of what their doing as wrong. In "Something Wicked this way Comes", they didn't really add any character development to the bad guys, so that doesn't really count. But all real people who have committed crimes that seem inhuman do it either because of a mental state or for some sort of greater good cause. Sure, people can be greedy and selfish, but those qualities in and of itself are not all bad. They are survival traits. When you see on the animal channel about how different animals fight to get mates and the ones that don't just end up dying, we don't look at those winners as evil. Technically they just killed another of their kind to get a mate. Plus, there are so many cultures and so many definitions of what's evil that finding an absolute evil that biology determines for everyone is impossible. There are immoral decisions, don't get me wrong, but I believe that no act nor person can be completely and purely evil. Even in the worst torture I've learned about, WW2. The Nazis weren't "evil". They thought that they were doing the world a favor and starting a new super-civilization. They certainly weren't being moral in my mindset, but it was all caused by ignorance, greed, cowardliness, and a whole lot of other crap. But note how these acts in and of themselves are not evil, it's only when you take them to ridiculous extremes that they become harmful. Onwards...
This weeks edition of reflecting upon Sophie's World is going to be centered around Romanticism. I have some more background information on Romanticism than the book explains, so I'm sorry if I sound too much like a genius...Oh wait, I always do that. Anyways, I think that a healthy does of Romanticism is important. Freedom of expression seems to be flourishing with Lady Gaga but not so much in daily social life. My dad and I actually had an argument over the way I held a fork. I said that it was my individual choice and style to hold a fork so brashly, as it is more comfortable for me to stab my food like I'm holding a sword. Dad said that I was making him look bad in public, and I asked why he should care what people judge of him, you should be confident enough in your parenting abilities that other people's glances shouldn't bother you. He said it was selfish for me to make him look bad; I said it was selfish for him to depend on me to make him look good. This was a very casual argument by the way, no chairs were thrown in the restaurant. I think I ended up losing just because my brothers agreed with my dad like a bunch of suck-ups but that's off topic, and I would just hate to be off-topic. So having a sense of your true self is important, and if everyone acknowledged their feelings that everyone has but still feel shameful of like jealousy or just plain out wanting something, instead of pretending we're all little angels, maybe we could realize that humans did not evolve to be perfect and I think if we faced that fact, we might be able to get a lot more accomplished and live more fulfilling lives. But that's incredibly idealistic, which is another thing the Romantics liked. Idealism is good in doses, but refusing to face the reality of situations can lead to some serious consequences. So, I believe that a balance is important; you can take a lot of good things away from the Romantics, but we also must keep in mind that we are living in reality.
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