By LEONARDO BOFF*
Despite all the tricks, violence, attacks, threats and shameful use of State apparatuses, those who were guided by the principle of evil were defeated.
In terms of ethics, one should not judge acts just taken by themselves. They refer to a background project. They are realizations of this fundamental project. Every human being, explicitly or implicitly, is guided by a basic decision. It is she who gives ethical and moral value to the acts that pave her life.
Therefore, it is this fundamental project that must be taken into account and judge whether it is good or bad. As both are always merged, which is the dominant one that translates into acts that define a direction in life. Preserved is the realization that good and evil always go together. In other words: reality is always ambiguous and sheltered by good and evil. There is never only good on one side and evil on the other.
The reason for this resides in the fact that our human condition, by creation and not by deficiency, is always wise and demented, dark and luminous, with impulses for life and with impulses for death. And this simultaneously, without being able to separate, as the Gospel, the chaff of the wheat.
Despite this ambiguity, what really counts is the predominant dimension, whether bright or dark, whether kind or evil. It is here that the fundamental project of life is founded. He sets the direction and makes a walking path. This path may have deviations, as is the ambiguous human condition, but it can always return to the direction defined as fundamental.
Acts gain ethical and moral value from this fundamental project. It is he who asserts himself before the tribunal of conscience, and for religious people, it is he who is judged by the One who knows our most secret intentions and gives the corresponding value to the fundamental project.
Let's be concrete: someone gets it into their head that they want to be rich at all costs. All means for such a project are considered valid: cleverness, deceit, breaches of contracts, financial scams and appropriation of public funds, falsifying data, increasing their real value and making the works without the required quality. His project is to accumulate goods and be rich. It's the evil principle, even if here and there he does some good and when he's very rich, he even helps philanthropic projects. But as long as they don't compromise their basic project of being rich.
Another proposes as a fundamental project to always be good, to look for goodness in people and to try to align their actions in this direction of goodness. Since he is human, there can also be evil deeds in him. They are deviations from the project, but they are not of such magnitude that they destroy the fundamental project of being good. He realizes his evil deeds, corrects himself, asks for forgiveness and resumes his defined path of life: trying to be good. This implies always being better every day and never giving up in the face of difficulties and personal falls. The decisive thing is to reassume the principle of goodness that can always grow indefinitely. No one is good up to a certain point and then stops because he thinks he has reached his end. Kindness, as well as other positive values, knows no limitations.
In our country we have lived, including multitudes, under the principle of evil. From that principle everything was worth: the lie, the fake news, the slander and destruction of biographies that were notoriously good. Digital media, inspired by the evil principle, were abused. As a result, thousands have been victimized by Covid-19 when they could have been saved.
Indigenous peoples, such as the Yanomami, were considered sub-human and intentionally abandoned to their fate. In those fateful years when the principle of evil was in force, more than 500 Yanomami children died of hunger and diseases derived from hunger. The main institutions of this country, such as health, education, science and the care of nature, were dismantled. Finally, in an insidious way, a coup d'état was attempted with the aim of destroying democracy and imposing a dictatorial regime, culturally retrograde and ethically perverse for clearly exalting torture.
In them there was also the principle-goodness but it was repressed or covered with ashes by evil acts that prevented its effectiveness, without, however, ever totally destroying it because it belongs to the essence of the human.
But the goodness-principle, in the end, always triumphs. The sacred flame that burns within each one can never be extinguished. It is she who sustains resistance, inflames criticism, and bestows the invincible strength of the just and upright. To the brutality of the principle of evil, the principle of kindness was resolutely imposed, which came under the sign of democracy, the rule of law and respect for the fundamental values of the citizen.
Despite all the tricks, violence, attacks, threats and shameful use of state apparatuses, literally buying people's will or preventing them from expressing their vote, those who were guided by the principle of evil were defeated. But never until today have they acknowledged defeat. They continue their destructive action that today has gained planetary dimensions with the rise of the extreme right. But they must be restrained and won by the awakening of the goodness-principle which is found in them. They, judged and even punished, will have to learn the goodness of life and the good of an entire people and make their contribution.
In history we know tragedies of those who clung to the principle of evil to the point of ending their own lives, instead of humbly rescuing the principle of goodness and their deepest humanity.
Perhaps we are inspired, at this end, by the poetic words of an anonymous author around the 900s and sung on the Christian feast of Pentecost. It refers to the Spirit who always acts in nature and in history: “Wash what is sordid / Irrigate what is arid / Heal what is sick. / Bends what is rigid / Warms what is cold / Guides the disoriented”.
*Leonardo Boff, He is a theologian, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of The Holy Spirit: Inner Fire, Giver of Life and Father of the Poor (Vozes).
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