Ego and God-Image: Part V

BLOG

For a contented ego, all things big and small matter only with regard to their impact on me and whatever it is that matters to me . . . The God-Satan duality exists within our own being where there is a constant conversation going on between Self and ego,  between what lies in the shadow and in the light. It is that conversation alone that transforms the dark shadow. The Rt. Rev. Larry Maze. “Ego-Self Conversations and the Problem of Evil,” The Rose (Athens, GA, Emmanuel Church, Vol.15 (winter-spring 2009), p. 27.)

Throughout this series I’ve written about the problem of opposites and the need for us to integrate both sides. By now you may be thinking:  If evil is the opposite of good, and if we’re supposed to integrate pairs of opposites, are you telling me I need to condone evil as well as good?  I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong!

This issue is a major stumbling block for every thinking seeker.  Here’s the bottom line:  The opposition of evil-versus-good belongs in a separate category all its own. Why? Because unlike the others, which are morally neutral expressions of naturally occurring energies, good and evil are dualistic judgments about the worth of these energies.  Over the centuries patriarchy has judged the feminine side of many of these pairs evil and the masculine side as good. As philosopher Michael Washburn noted to me in a letter, “This is a horrendous category mistake, but it has successfully disguised patriarchy’s judgment of women by making it seem as if it were a fact about women.”

Okay, I get it that we can wrongly judge things evil that are not, but surely there is evil in the world, you might argue. And we know it when we see it. Isn’t there some standard we can all agree on that will help us overcome personal biases and think maturely about this?

Good question! Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg and Dr. Carol Gilligan of Harvard University have devised and tested theories about moral reasoning that should be of some assistance. The following is a condensed summary of their findings.

Three Levels of Moral Reasoning

Level I: Pre-Conventional

According to this theory, we all start out at Level I. Here we reason that bad is whatever gets us punished and prevents us from getting what we want, and good is whatever keeps us from being punished and provides what we want. To people who think like this, it’s okay to lie, steal, and cheat as long as we are clever enough not to get caught. This thinking is natural and normal in young children, but prisons are filled with adults who never grew beyond this immature, self-serving morality.

Level II: Conventional

The Level II emphasis is on the conventional values of our families and social groups. Bad and good start out being whatever gains the disapproval or approval of our parents. Then they gradually come to be defined by whether we do our civic duty or experience guilt if we do not. Estimates are that the moral reasoning of about sixty percent of the population is based on this way of thinking. It emphasizes the importance of gaining your family’s and society’s approval, having a conscience, doing your duty, acting responsibly, keeping laws, and making personal sacrifices for the good of your family and community. Some of us think of this as the highest form of morality, but there is more.

Level III: Post Conventional

For the approximately twenty percent who move on to Level III, moral reasoning transcends local rules and boundaries to enter a universal arena. People at this level don’t leave conscience, law, or duty behind. Rather, they use their maturing understanding to work out a personal ethic that is not prescribed or enforced by anyone else and applies to everyone and everything.

We enter this level when we come to see that others are persons too, and deserve fair and equal treatment. Bad then becomes anything that violates human rights and good is whatever affirms them. However, it eventually dawns on us that evil is even more than the violation of human rights going on out there:  it is the absence in me of love or caring: it is when I do not respect the life, sovereignty, or significance of otherness.  It is when I feel hatred. When I feel superior or more entitled. When I do not see the log in my own eye.  Most of all, it is when I do not act with fairness and compassion toward every form of life.

The ultimate good then becomes whatever I can do to promote justice and engender love using the principle of nonviolence to create the most possible benefit and cause the least possible pain or harm to others. At this level of reasoning, morality is no longer about pointing out and destroying the evil in them. It is about cultivating genuine love in me and acting in accordance with this love in everything I do.  This is a fulfillment of the noblest moral potential of humanity.

So in answer to my earlier question—Are we supposed to condone evil as well as good?  Absolutely not! We are to integrate the evil within us into our awareness, which is the only way to defuse it.

This material is taken from Healing the Sacred Divide.

Art Image: St. Thomas Aquinas, Wikimedia Commons

Jean Raffa’s The Bridge to Wholeness and Dream Theatres of the Soul are at Amazon. Healing the Sacred Divide can be found at Amazon and Larson Publications, Inc. Jean’s new Nautilus Award-winning The Soul’s Twins, is at Amazon and Schiffer’s Red Feather Mind, Body, Spirit. Subscribe to her newsletter at www.jeanbenedictraffa.com.

 

Join 5,847 other subscribers

Comments

7 Responses

  1. It is just fascinating! I just have some thoughts:
    First, I am constantly having problems using the word moral, though morals for me is a social subject which is changing permanently in human history (through wars, for example). Therefore I prefer to use the word conscience. Second, I agree that good and evil exist in us, and we can’t eradicate evil for good. That is like women’s emancipation, which began over a century ago and was misunderstood by some women who tried to be like men and leave their femininity. The main thing as I believe is to merge both sides and not damage one.
    Personally, I am someone who likes to make others happy, to be joyful and helpful. However, I know that I have evil in me, but I found out that the good is more adorable to practice than the evil.
    But I also know that many aren’t so, and the only salvation which comes to my head is to let the evil out but under control. When we know our evil side, we can let it out under command; (it might help with doing sport, dancing or caring as loud as possible!)😁
    Thank you, Jeane, my lovely teacher, for letting me through my thoughts and even generously pricing me. Love to you.💖💖

  2. I understand your problem with the words “moral” and “immoral”. Sometimes when we use the word “moral’, people think you’re talking about self-righteous, ultra-orthodox religious judgments. Like telling women they can’t show their hair because it’s “immoral”. Ridiculous. But the overall term “morality” used by Kohlberg and Gilligan is simply about the whole issue of making distinctions between right and wrong and what motivates your choices. Individuals and groups have differing opinions, but ultimately it comes down to whether their opinions and choices are coming from love, (in which case you have an inner guide, or conscience, that helps you distinguish right from wrong and feel guilty when you do something hurtful to someone else or choose to act with kindness and compassion) or from ego, (in which case you’re just following your own self-interest and the rules of the group you belong to without asking yourself if your rules are truly of benefit to all).

    I just ran across this quote today that explains what Jung meant by “integrating” evil: “Integrating the shadow [and evil] means seeing plainly all the ways that we fail, and all the ways that we continue to make the same mistakes over and over again; it means seeing our failings right up close. How many of us want to admit our worst qualities, our weaknesses, our most shameful deeds, our most painful failings, The shadow [and evil] can be present in our drives for power or living through the inner voices of our mothers or fathers. we might express the shadow [or evil] through our sexuality, our religiosity or through our financial dealings We might express it through the way we fail others. Shadow work means wrestling with past regrets and difficult inner realities [like hatred for others who are different or weaker or more vulnerable than us]. Our shadow is the moral dilemmas we are living with in slow motion.” This is from Jungian author Gary Bobroff in his book Knowledge in a Nutshell.

    Thanks for writing, Aladin. Your comments always add to the discussions here. 🙂

  3. Thank you Jeanie. Reminds me: ‘the stone you builders rejected, has become the cornerstone.’ What we do not acknowledge or put onto others because we reject it in ourselves, is a great way of working through the shadow. (inter alia)

    1. I just looked up that quote: “the stone, the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” so yes, I think this meaning could be interpreted psychologically as something like: “the refusal to connect with the Self is to lose the greatest treasure of our lives, which lies within. “

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts