The Cold Dark Night Sky Signals An Undying Drive for the Best that Is in Us. Goodness CAN Prevail. Part 4 in series

The undying cold dark night sky drains entropy (disorder) and lets information (order) grow on Earth, which lets us build. Capitalism builds new prosperity and beats fighting. Goodness can prevail.

Recap: The expanding universe’s cold dark night sky (Part 1) drains entropy (disorder) and allows information (order) to grow on Earth (Part 2). The ability to create new information allows us to build. Capitalism builds new net wealth; it makes building more profitable than taking, making it the peace and prosperity economy. Meanwhile, Marxism takes people’s wealth and sets them fighting among themselves, which leads to great poverty and wars (Part 3).

“Good” Builds. “Evil” Breaks.

If one takes the point of view of trying to be as true as possible to “what is” (trenchant words), then it’s possible to define good and evil simply: “Good” builds. “Evil” breaks. (Subject only to short term deviations, such as breaking ground to plant crops or to build homes.)

Over time “building” makes you stronger and more satisfied in what you do and can do, while “breaking” breaks you down, making life progressively worse.

In any civil society where various beliefs about divinity are allowed (religions are mixtures of beliefs in divinity and rules for worldly behavior), it doesn’t matter to society whether one believes in God or not, for some behaviors build (whether religious or nonreligious) while other behaviors break (whether religious or nonreligious), and we all have to live in and obey the laws of this world or else suffer the consequences, be they divinely created or not.

To put it another way, most people understand and feel that we have to deal with powers in this world much greater than ourselves. Adjusting well to those forces leads to similarly happy behaviors. There is something spiritually, as well as worldly, rewarding in this.

As to that, I once read in a Wall Street Journal book review that John Calvin, the early Protestant leader, felt that there are two paths to God: via the holy scriptures, and by obeying the laws of this world, for surely God built his laws into this world.

Contrast this to totalitarian theists, totalitarian anti-theists, and people who follow them. Their arrogances lead them to try to overrule reality: the dictatorial theists, as if they were God or God’s chosen agent on Earth; the dictatorial anti-theists, as if they are in rebellion and superior to Natural Order.

Re the latter: Saul Alinsky opens his book Rules for Radicals (the “bible” of “community organizers”) with “an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical….who rebelled against the establishment….he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.” It’s as if saying that their plan is to turn life on Earth into a living Hell. 

Whether theist or anti-theist, totalitarians eventually crash and burn as a result, while harming countless people in the process, because fighting reality leads to ruin.

Charles Dickens put it this way in his Tale of Two Cities: “the leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur,” where Monseigneur was a man of great arbitrary power (chapter “Monseigneur in Town”).

Interestingly, The New English Bible, Oxford University Press (Copyright 1961,1970) contains a footnote saying that some translators add “do good to those who hate you” to “love your enemy” in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The King James Version of the Bible includes “do good to those who hate you” in the text itself in a clause following “love your enemy.”

That’s why, at times, I have called capitalism “the Jesus Economy,” though I don’t mean it in a religious sense, because capitalism creates so much value that even enemies can find it better to cooperate than to fight, doing good to each other in the process.

Also, when it comes to information, it can be better to give than to receive, at least among people of good will, for exchanges of information—and cooperation—can lead to such things as solving problems, doing new and better things, finding deep satisfaction, feeling inspired, forging friendships, and providing salve for the soul. In such cases, cooperation produces new “order,” aka “organization.”

Having good people in your life is the greatest riches you can achieve. They give in non-transactional ways that you may not have even imagined existed or that would happen to you (without negotiated transactions, such as buying and selling or “I’ll do this if you do that”).

Find good people and be as good as you can to them—not condescending, not sucking up, not miserly, not effusive; just nice. You will never regret it.

To sum up, lyrically, an undying drive for the best that is in us is built into the basic structure of our unbounded, expanding Universe, which produces the cold dark night sky on Earth. Whether Divine or Natural, it amounts to the same thing regarding our behavior on Earth: We are all better off by building rather than breaking, taking, and faking.

Goodness Can Prevail by Virtue of Superior Character

Capitalism’s ability to build new net wealth also means that goodness can prevail:

The act of building requires new information, which itself requires looking reality in the face, constantly testing one’s understanding of it, learning from it, and applying the information productively.

Such constructive activity, in turn, requires and builds those character traits associated with “virtue” that build people up, while “sins” break people down. Physical vigor is part of this too, being one of the original “liberal arts,” which collectively are those attributes that allow a person to defend his or her individual liberty (which is why I wrote posts on weightlifting, and running). This has long been known.

In his 3,000 year-old epic poem The Odyssey, Homer shows in action how Odysseus, Penelope, their son, and a few friends prevail over great evil (108 suitors against them). They prevail by virtue of superior character: they remain steadfast and masterful while the suitors break down in numerous ways, which include incompetence, panic, divided interests, and lack of cohesive action. I show this in my play Penelope and Odysseus.

Yes, even in the darkest of times, “good” can prevail when good people fight relentlessly for it.