Those Who want to “save the world” are its Greatest Enemies

Quite the irony, isn’t it? But I mean it: it’s the people who believe they should save the world who are its greatest enemies. I believe that no one carries out wrongdoing like a TV or fictional stock villain, one who rubs his hands together and celebrates aloud the evilness of his deeds. Real people carry out things believing they are doing good, even if they are stabbing somebody or harassing them. When Hitler went on an extermination spree of the Jews, he never said, “muwahahaha, my evil plan is working.” He thought he was doing good. Same with Pol Pot and his cadre, who believed that intellectuals were the cause of Cambodia’s problems and killing them was the solution. As the saying goes, the greatest villainy goes around pretending to be the heroics.

Indeed, when people carry out genocide, they believe they are doing the world a favor by removing some riff-raff. Note the term “ethnic-cleansing;” it implies the killers are cleaning the dirt out. They believe they’re the heroes when doing this.

Robin Hood has been misinterpreted as stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In truth, he got back the unjust taxes that the collectors of Prince John forcibly took from the people. But I now believe that when people think of stealing from the rich to give to the poor as good, it actually appeals to the secret villain inside. People often want to justify wrongdoing in order to get away and escape accountability. In doing so, they try to make their wrongdoing look like good.

That is how I see the subconscious of the Filipino. Because of the desperation to survive and the desire to do it the easy way, they seek impunity. Muggers will for example use the usual excuse that they are poor to steal. They won’t accept the right judgment that the end cannot justify the means here. They want to fulfill simple needs or wants anyway they want. Bahala na.

Of course, there is what is probably the center of most political debate that people don’t often admit. It is about approaches to freeloaders; It leads to whether the rich should be forced to give to the poor, or if someone claims to be “downtrodden,” “oppressed” or “unhappy,” others should be forced to give them help without question.

The side I favor is indeed what you have may thought: no to forcing of giving to freeloaders. Thus, the idea in the post above about giving to those who refuse to work is dumb. The more common-sensical wisdom is, you don’t deserve anything you didn’t work for. Frequent readers of this site are perhaps familiar with this. The SJWs (social justice warriors), communists and other “politically correct” spoiled brats rage against this. They want other people to give to the poor, but if such people don’t give to the poor, the spoiled brats resort to insulting and badmouthing them in public. The people who emphasize personal responsibility and the you-deserve-it-only-if you-work-for-it ethic are cast as villains, branded with terms such as “right-wing,” “fascists,” or simply “old-fashioned fuddy-duddies.” The spoiled brats might even want to legislate that such people be jailed or punished. They exploit it as a political platform of sorts, using it to paint themselves as the “good guys,” even if they’re clearly the opposite.

They are probably the type, to use the reductio ad absurdum extent of things, who seeks legislation to force people to give them the validation they seek, such as agreeing with them if they declare “I am beautiful!” or forcing other people to give them Starbucks money if they wanted it. And they will claim that it is for saving the world. Such spoiled brat “SJWs” are hoodwinked in to believing that their good is the only good, and in order for their brand of good to spread throughout the world (or at least their country), they believe they must use force. Problem is, such forcing of their own “good” on others is actually violation of human rights. Not giving someone what they want is not taking something away from them; it is simply not giving them what they don’t own or deserve in the first place. It is practicing a human right.

Of course, we can bring in the “Yellows,” “disentes,” Rappler and similar into this. We bloggers continue to call them out as pretending to be good to hide their corruption. They might say, hey, Duterte is also pretending to be the good guy. But no, Duterte never pretended to be the good guy. That’s I guess what he meant when he said, “I’ll be a Hitler to these people.” He made no pretensions about his using violent or objectionable methods in his policies. What you see is what you get.

People should learn to stop, take a good look at themselves and question themselves. That question would be, am I really doing good? Is my good really good for all, or only good for me? That’s one reason you can’t rule the world – and why you can’t always have good things. You don’t really know what’s good, but you think you are it. Another version of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

But what if what you know is good? What if you have the right ideas? Does that give you any right to compel others to accept them? Should you take over the world as a “hegemony of right?” No. Being right doesn’t give you the right to coerce. This idea of a hegemony is itself old-school, as in, obsolete. It was a concept of old times from ancient times to post-colonial times, something that’s simply imperialism. It’s the attitude that our post-war-era parents and grandparents were likely raised on, which is why they like authoritarianism. Today, though, equality is pushed, so a perceived “right” to hegemony is simply an obstacle to human rights.

The people who truly mean well for the world are those who know that people’s desire to control others is the problem. They themselves don’t want to control others, but hope other people will let go of control too. They also look forward to the day when any sort of hegemony would be gone. If people really love what is good, they will let individuals alone to choose for themselves. This is because if individuals are not willing to discern and accept what’s good by themselves, they won’t accept what’s good even if you force them. It won’t be sincere. I know it’s a pipe dream, but I feel that the world scene is moving towards that state of hegemonies breaking down and returning to smaller states and communities like in pre-ancient times (one of the few times I like something in older times). And control-freaks might become the pariah as they should be.

ChinoF

I believe, as my cohorts here do, that what Filipinos embrace as their culture is what actually pulls the country down. And those who seem to be anti-dictators, who may also believe themselves to be “heroes,” are the real dictators.