I’ve been hearing words and phrases echoing again and again, like tired slogans. “The greater good” & “the right thing to do” are spewing from the mouths of almost anyone discussing current events, especially the past couple of years. I seriously wonder “ How can we even define Good or Right, anymore?” Observation and reason tell me, definitions & meanings of ‘greater good’ are riddled with holes to the point of complete evaporation. It doesn’t seem possible to solidify the concepts of ‘Good and Right’ when we’ve built a world wherein a certain portion of the human race, consider themselves as existing above rules, while the remainder are forced to obey or face consequence. So, basically, what’s ‘good’ for one, is often the opposite for another.
Heads of monster-sized companies are allowed bail-outs, tax exemptions etc, while regular folk (tax payers with no vote or say in the matter) are rarely so much as privileged with knowing who’s pockets their money is lining. Huge sectors such as Pharma are given tremendous leeway and they sometimes endanger and harm society, while they themselves remain in an agreed-upon protective-bubble. It seems to me, there are far too many such agreements, exemptions, government scandals, secret contracts and seemingly unyielding conflicting interests among the powerful, once again, leaving ‘greater good’ somewhere lost and floating in the quantum zone.
It certainly looks to be that many of the super-wealthy with their powerful friends are steadily focused on dreaming-up more ways to trample over, dump blame onto, and dismiss the needs (let alone, desires) of the majority, while they profit either in status and/or wealth. By my moral compass, this isn’t even remotely right or good. And all this has been allowed to happen almost in plain sight, for any that are looking, that is. We’ve allowed hundreds of luxurious private jets to circle the globe so they can gather to discuss carbon-footprint-rules to be obeyed. The rest of the people are forced and coerced to try ever harder, to surrender themselves, lose their employment and even their children, in order to fix climate-change, end a pandemic, or some other reported urgency. Is this ‘right’ or does it smell more like smoke & mirrors presenting only an illusion of ‘greater good’?
In the past couple of years, particularly, I've asked what ‘good’ (if any) has come from such powerful groups. I’ve seen and heard, plenty of finger-pointing from the powerful, almost always laying blame onto whatever suits their stories and makes them trillions of dollars, and I’ve witnessed the dispensation of extremely harmful mandates. I’ve heard hateful divisive unjust accusations, entirely devoid of evidence or science to support the allegations. The harmful mandates dispensed have caused suicide, depression, bankruptcy, loss of freedom and the shredding of basic human rights. Is any of this ‘good’ ?
Such massive devastation has been allowed to divide and cripple our society; this was done without debate, without a vote, and despite the absence of unquestionable evidence or unbiased independent science that might at least begin to validate some of the harms done.
Dear reader, would you not agree that a ‘greater good’ would involve positivism toward the whole, not just the part? Let’s face it, ‘Greater good’ simply can’t exist in a world divided. My personal view of a ‘Greater Good’ requires that we live with freedom and respect as opposed to orders, expectation, threats, coercion, surveillance, etc. And it is with that belief that I strongly suggest: Until the powerful count themselves as equals and are equally willing to contribute their worldly toils for the ‘greater good’, there truly can be no such thing, which leaves us currently with a most costly illusion of smoke-&-mirrors.
