I‘m more and more convinced that moral is inherently damaging to the development of humankind. I am well aware that this claim is highly counterintuitive. Most people would say today that humans should have better moral and that we need much more of it to improve the situation on earth. Unfortunately exactly the contrary is true. Please give me a few lines to explain how I came to this surprising conclusion.
Moral claims that the human condition could improve if humans would adhere more strictly to moral rules which prevent them from doing damage to each other. Therefore humans are requested to follow these rules and we call humans who manage to do so „good“ humans and people who don‘t are the „evil“ ones.
The fact that we are trying to improve the world using moral rules for thousands of years and still made very little (or no) progress should make us highly suspicious. Why did this scheme work so extremely poorly in the past? And what could we do instead?
The reason why moral does not work is simple: it is a strategy which can always only be implemented successfully by a small minority. As long as we maintain a competitive system on earth (!), it is for a large fraction of people simply extremely inefficient to adhere to many moral rules.
The view that people enjoy to be evil and have to be pressured to behave well is deeply flawed. The contrary is true: people would love to be good but are often forced to do evil by the circumstances they live in. Of course humans can be also sadistic which means that we can experience a reward (i.e. pleasure) for being cruel. But this is trivial: everything we do is ultimately controlled by rewards and if we could not experience joy from cruelty in certain situations, nobody would commit cruel acts. But the important question is: what would we prefer to do? Now I‘m deeply convinced that 99.9% of humans very clearly prefer to do good. Nobody wants to be cruel.
So how do we explain the terrible events happening right now in Gaza? Are the Palestinians evil? Are the Jews evil? It is hard to overlook the dynamics of a greek tragedy in the events unfolding. The sad truth is: in the current competitive system (!) there are in fact no better options, neither for the Palestinians nor for the Jews. The world reminds both sides to be more „human“, to adhere to moral standards. But everybody familiar with the logic of war knows that there are in fact no better options for both sides.
People who adhere to moral standards are not better people than those who don‘t! „Immoral“ people would actually love to be good too, but circumstances don‘t allow them to do so! To be „good“ is therefore simply a privilege. It does not make you a better person (exactly in the same way a huge car does not make you a better person). I know this way of looking at it takes some time getting used to (but is worth the effort. Stay with me).
And now we come to the damage caused by moral: because of our irrevocable belief in an approach which has never worked in centuries, we are not considering the only option we still have: abolishing the competitive system! Nobody questions the true underlying reason for all cruelty on earth. Why do we belief so firmly that competition is an unchangeable fact we have to accept forever?
The damage done by competition is in fact so enormous that it can‘t be in anybody‘s interest to keep it alive. The wealth released for all of us (even the extremely rich!) if we managed to transition to a cooperative system is so mind bogglingly enormous that it is extremely stupid and irresponsible to not at least consider that such an endeavour might be feasible.
But to prepare the ground for such a fundamental transition, we all must learn. We must let go of this precious view of „good“ and „bad“ people. It is utter nonsense! And yes you too must renounce your precious privilege to be a „good“ person. You are not! We are all just human beings which all have the potential to do unspeakable evil (but fortunately also a much stronger desire to do good instead).
What will you get in return, if you let go this precious view of your „good“ self?
This:
- We are all innocent!
- There are no evil people: the concept makes simply no sense anymore.
(Note: both statements include you!)
And this is just the beginning! If humankind manages to transition to a cooperative modus of operation, the rewards will be so huge that you will have difficulties to comprehend them. Cooperation promises riches beyond our wildest dreams.
What should we do instead? I think we must learn about ourselves. We must study and understand our mind as an extremely complex machine designed over million years of evolution for competition. Yes, our past is competition but our future can be whatever we want it to be. If we start to study our nature in this sense, I‘m very sure we will find out that happiness for everybody is indeed possible. Our deep fears that we might be dangerous, evil people are unfounded. Today we are all scared that others could find out that we are not really saints. That we sometimes fantasize about aggression, unfairness and cruelty. But if we look at these feelings and thoughts more closely, we see that they don‘t mean that this is what we really want to do. And some of our desires only seem to be evil but are actually not.
We should not fear to study the dark corners of our mind. To bring light to this part of us (which we all share!) will not make us evil. The contrary is true: it will lay the foundations for a far better world. In this sense: in the future a „good person“ shall be a person who knows itself. More is, surprisingly, not required: we are „good enough“ to live a peaceful life with each other if we decide to implement a cooperative system.
The transition to a cooperative society is a thousand times more promising than space travel or an escape into virtual reality. Give it a chance and think for an hour about it.
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