Being Good is Worthless

Being Good is Worthless

It is my overwhelming experience in life that good people do not succeed in this world. There seems to be no benefit to behaving in an honorable or moral way when your life could improve by acting through completely selfish means. This does not mean I think every person should only fight for themselves. Instead, I feel it would be far more ideal for people to no longer concern themselves about the morality of their actions or decisions.

There is no need for us to immediately turn to evil deeds or violence. There is a place in self-interest that includes benefiting those other than yourself. What I suggest is to stop caring about the perceived morality of your actions and instead do what is correct or desired in your own mind.

If I see someone mistreat my friend, then I will serve justice in whatever format I deem suitable. This could be physically hurting the offender, robbing the offender of some possession, or pursuing legal action to the fullest extent of the law. Morally speaking, many would say I have the right to serve justice in such a situation. Others would say that doing harm to any person, villain or otherwise, is amoral and that I should instead approach the problem with kindness and compassion.

I could take a higher salary even though I know it will result in the firing of one hundred lower employees. I could utilize my socioeconomic privilege without deception. If I saw an opportunity to take something I wanted without paying for it then I would take it.

This world isn’t designed for people to act morally. We can donate money to the poor, but then we have less money for ourselves. We can demand equal rights, but then we lose the opportunity to have better rights. This idea of acting while disregarding morality is not new; we already live in such a world.

There are people who recognize there is very little consequence to amoral behavior in most situations in life. There are people who can reach such status that even if they do get caught acting amorally they will not receive any significant punishment. There are people who abuse their power. There are people who mistreat those among them simply because they can.

Quite often, those people find success in life. When faced with this position, several people will respond that such people are not truly successful, that they aren’t happy with their lives, or that their poor behavior will eventually result in negative consequences. There is no evidence to prove such claims as true and no reasonable assumption that any could be true. However, there is plenty of evidence showing such amoral people finding success and happiness in their life.

There are slave owners who died wealthy and surrounded by loved ones. There are cult leaders who use the money they steal from the poor and desperate to enrichen their own lives. There are officers who use their government power to break the laws they swore to protect. There is no question that these people find success in their personal goals. They successfully torment the people they despise. They successfully steal from those they wish to take from. They successfully live their lives free and without major stress because they oppress masses of people.

Happiness is much harder to quantify. It is possible to have what many people would consider objective success and still be entirely miserable. It is possible to succeed in your endeavors, amoral or otherwise, and still feel empty and hollow inside. It’s possible. But, I would say since we cannot reliably quantify or qualify any individual’s happiness that it is foolhardy to rely on the potential for their unhappiness to be a worthy negative consequence to their amoral behavior.

In addition to having no reliable way to measure happiness, I would argue that happiness is a non-useful measure for the quality of life. I prefer looking at satisfaction. Satisfaction is a more pervasive experience for people. That feeling that, if you were to die right this moment, you would be okay with what you accomplished in life. Of course, it is in many people’s nature to always wish they accomplished more than they did and it’s possible for people to die before finishing what they started.

Which brings us to the third possibility for negative consequences: death and the afterlife. Maybe these amoral people succeeded in life and maybe they were even happy during their life. But surely, after they die, they will reap punishment. They must be going to some form of an afterlife where they will experience pain and torment. They must be able to consciously feel saddened by what they regret in life or the people they lost. At the very least, they must be reincarnated into some unfortunate or miserable situation.

Or, if we’re being reasonable, they died and that was it. There is no afterlife of pain. There is no reincarnation (and even if there was, the person still escaped punishment even if their soul carries it into the next life). You can’t feel regret after you die because you can’t feel anything after you die. That’s just it. It’s possible they experienced some agony in the moments leading up to their death, but I feel it's incredibly unbalanced to experience temporary final pain to a potential lifetime of success.

So why don’t we all live like this? Why don’t we all forgo the concept of morality and instead act purely by what we think is right and what we desire? Trust.

We have trust in each other. This powerful unspoken promise we make to each other every day that we bet our lives on. We believe that people are not trying to cause us harm. We believe that people are honest. We believe that people are not inherently bad creatures.

We’re wrong.

In reality, humans can be broken into five categories of intrinsic morality: Super Stars, Stars, the Herd, Naysayers, and Non-Players. The Super Stars do what is right because it’s right and they don’t need any other reason. The Stars started in the Herd but became inspired to do better because of the Super Stars. The Herd just want to do what’s needed; no more, no less. The Naysayers will do what is right for the most part as long as it’s easy. They have either been corrupted by the Non-Players or unmotivated by society to actually put effort into work they really don’t care for. The Non-Players care not for what is considered right and wrong. They do what they want and they’ll try to convince you that them getting what they want is actually better for everybody.

As long as Non-Players exist, we are wrong to trust each other. The Non-Players are those amoral humans who find success because they do not concern themselves with morality. They often find their way into places of power because they had nothing stopping them from betraying a former ally, oppressing a group of people, or taking advantage of a system or loophole in order to move forward in life.

The system of humanity is flawed.

I approached this problem the same way I approach most of life’s bigger questions. I turned the very intellectual and intangible problem into a tangible scenario I can work with and understand easily. For this particular problem, I created three characters who existed in a fantasized version of our world where things that probably would never happen could actually happen. Each of these characters represented a potential solution to the problem of Humanity and I could explore the likely outcomes of each of their individual stories. Once I find a scenario that works, I only need to translate it back into practical terms to apply it to the real world and solve the problem. Easy.

To make things easier, in this fantasy world I reduced the problem area from international intrinsic morality to crime and corruption within the United States. I saw it as a good analog because there really isn’t any reason to be dishonest or outlaw certain criminal behavior as long as such behavior is handled responsibly. There is no objective reason to allow pornography but criminalize prostitution. In fact, by making it criminal, you are encouraging more reckless behavior as people who are mistreated have no avenue to report such incidents.

Let’s look at each character, their philosophy, their story, and how they solve the problem of crime and corruption in the United States.

Jay Turner

Jay recognizes the reality that people are usually quite selfish, but he also believes that acting in your own self-interest doesn’t mean you have to only benefit yourself. His approach to crime and corruption is to control it from within. He uses his wits, and a little ruthlessness, to take control of the criminal underworld and change it for the better.

Jay allows dangerous drugs to continue selling but he bans selling to kids or selling dirty products. He still allows thievery but only from certain residences and businesses that can ultimately afford the losses. He stops pimps from being abusive to their women. He institutes education reform in oppressed communities to reduce the number of people willing to become criminals in the first place.

Jay goes after corrupt institutions in the same manner. He recognizes that a lot of people just want to get paid to do their job well without doing something they’re uncomfortable with. He uses this to take control over the prisons, courts, public school boards, and other parts of the system so that he can both keep an eye on how things are run and make corrections if need be.

Jay prefers to solve his problems through compromise and negotiation. Sure, he will eventually want you to do things his way, but he’s willing to play the long game and allow some systemic harm to continue for a period of time. When people don’t comply with his demands, Jay will use force. If your business won’t follow his rules then he’ll cut your prices, attack your supply chain, and intimidate your customers. If you continue to induce violence onto innocents he will release a specially trained agent to beat you to a pulp. On very rare occasions, Jay will just kill the person causing the problem.

Unlike many crime lords, Jay chooses to rule through cooperation and inspiration rather than fear or coercion. While he utilizes blackmail in his early days, Jay prefers offering people what they want in exchange for what he wants. He builds trust in the community by protecting the less-fortunate, instilling rules to keep families and children safe, and by introducing new programs and initiatives to help the members of the community improve themselves through education and honest work.

Jay’s method seems the ideal solution. It doesn’t require people to change too much and it improves the lives of those who tend to suffer the most. The people at the top continue to keep their power, status, and resources. Neighborhoods become safer, citizens become smarter, and the nation overall improves.

However, Jay's success relies on the assumption that he can get everyone he encounters to agree with his decisions. We know from human history that no matter how objectively good a policy may be there will always be somebody who opposes it. Jay's plan also hinges on his own mortality. Jay will die and his empire will change regardless of how well he trains a successor or how well he builds the system.

The meaning of words changes over time which results in new interpretations. New leaders come with different experiences and knowledge which results in them making slightly different choices than Jay would make. Eventually, the perfect system will change and it will no longer be perfect.

Matthew Johnson a.k.a. “Hades”

Matthew Johnson tried to be a good man. He worked a crappy job and lived a crappy life, but he still tried to be a good person. But, society beat him down. His bosses denied him promotions for arbitrary reasons. Fundamental expenses like heat, electricity, rent, and food continued to rise even though his wages stayed stagnant. Somehow, he never qualified for any kind of aid programs and he fails to climb the ladder of society to no fault of his own.

Matthew ends up in jail for a relatively minor crime. He really needed to feel better after years and years of muddling through crap and stole a lot of liquor as well as a Television. He didn’t cause any property damage, he didn’t even drink most of the liquor, and the Television was still in the box. Honestly, Matthew just wanted to get something he felt he deserved for once, but he was too much of decent human being to fully commit to it. The courts sentenced him to 25 years.

Matthew emerges from prison a changed man with a new goal. He now believes that there are bad people in this world that ruin it for everybody else. Matthew decides his life mission is to eliminate such people by any means necessary.

As his actions garner more publicity, Matthew inadvertently inspires hundreds of others who feel betrayed and angry with the system. He adopts a new moniker and establishes the Cult of Hades. The cult funds their exploits by stealing from both small-time crooks and white-collar criminals. They carry out assassinations across the country, and sometimes around the world, to eliminate whomever they deem a threat to a better world.

Ultimately, Matthew’s story doesn’t end well. Though he eventually manages to inspire people in the tens of thousands to join his cause, his following pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions of people who are fine with the current way things are. Matthew causes incredible amounts of chaos, but fails to accomplish much practical change in how the system works. Corrupt people get replaced by even more corrupt people.

Matthew’s problem appears to be that he isn’t attacking the root issue of the problem. He is merely addressing the symptoms. It is not the people that need to be eliminated; it is fundamental aspects of the current system that must be destroyed.

Professor Calvin Morrow

Calvin recognizes the existence of the problem and decides that fighting against it is futile. He believes people will never truly change, and even if they did, it would likely only be slightly different and end up at the same result. Instead, Calvin decides to embrace the dysfunctional system and use it to his advantage. He has desires and goals that society deems amoral, wicked, creepy, vile, and inhumane. But, Calvin recognizes that people who find success don’t concern themselves about such issues.

Calvin fully admits that his illegal human experimentation is most likely amoral, but he also points out that the morality of his action doesn’t really matter. The system that demands morality from society is the same system that allows amoral people to prosper and moral people to suffer. In his eyes, Calvin is not disrupting the system. He’s using the system exactly as it's designed.

Calvin’s method does nothing to address, let alone solve, the problem of crime and corruption. However, Calvin does find success with the goals he values. His disregard for the apparent sanctity of human rights allows him to discover things about the human mind and body that ethical practices could never approach. His corrupt political and corporate ties allow him to suppress the voices of those who would oppose him. Instead of using his inherited wealth and status to aid the less-fortunate, Calvin exploits the less-fortunate by recognizing people are less likely to care if certain types of people go missing.

Calvin may not solve the problem, but he was never trying to. Calvin dies a satisfied man.