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Labeling things good or
evil is self-serving

Why did that Jewish storyteller in the second chapter of Genesis have God forbid Adam and Eve to eat fruit off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It would seem that this would be something God would want humans to know! Yet, it is the serpent, the pagan symbol of worldly wisdom, that acknowledges as much to Eve.

It is a witty tale and needs to be read with that in mind. After all, the storyteller has Adam and Eve put on fig leaves (which itch) when they notice their nakedness. They cover themselves with something that will constantly remind them of exactly what is covered.

But why wouldn't God want them to know the difference between good and evil? Sixty-five years of watching the human species labeling acts and events, people and ideas as good or evil has led me to agree with the Genesis storyteller. We build our homes under a rockfall and call the subsequent avalanche evil, as if we didn't know that rocks tend to fall down. We refer to natural events that have been happening for eons as acts of God, and lament "Why me?" as if such tragedies were targeted.

We tend to assume that people different from us and ideas we don't share are evil. We suspect anyone who does not cooperate with our intentions or fails to fulfill our expectations does so out of malicious intent. I am aware that most of the hurt and suffering occasioned because of my behavior is the result of my own failure to intend. But all of yours, of course, is on purpose. And even good intentions have been known to go awry, since we are neither omnipotent nor omniscient.

We have great difficulty in distinguishing our wants from our needs, but we act as if the thwarting of either is clearly evil. And someone else is surely responsible for the consequences of my (known) risky behavior.

Human suffering and injury are not good, though we seem too often to learn from little else. And empathic and compassionate acts almost always are, even though we would seek greater wisdom for them.

Still, the Genesis storyteller knew that our human penchant for the labeling of good and evil is so frequently self-serving. Lady Astor reportedly said, "I accept the Universe." George Bernard Shaw reportedly responded, "My God, she'd better!" But, generally speaking, we don't. We label as evil every failure of the Universe to accede to our notions of how it ought to behave.

As for me, I have come to reserve the label -- especially Evil with a capital E -- to one limited variation of the bad we do to one another: when the victim of our acts is expected to cooperate in their own victimization. Stay in the closet. Don't be uppity. Go away, or die on cue. Accept my authority.

A close second is condemnation of the appearance of approval. Once upon a time, it was considered evil to do that which harmed another. Now it is seen as evil to even appear to approve of anything that has been labeled as evil -- or worse, to fail to rail sufficiently against that appearance of approval.

With that ancient Jewish storyteller, I suspect that our ancestors did not eat just one bite of that fruit, but picked the tree bare. And scattered the seeds everywhere they went.

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