Choosing Good is Hard Work
Being Human is not About Being Spontaneous
To believe abstaining from harm suffices for ethical perfection, as if only two paths lay before us — wrongdoing and righteousness — and thus, avoiding one path inherently places us on the other. If you don’t go towards good, then you go towards evil, they say, and conversely and much more importantly, if you don’t go towards evil you are going towards good. This is a profound misconception, which I will fight here: To do good is not at all to abstain from doing evil.
No guys, it doesn’t work in this way. We must stand against this dichotomy.
Indeed, it is true, that there seems to flow an archetypal current towards good. Its model, perhaps, could be found in the maternal instinct that carves out space for a child’s life: almost automatically, almost without decision, without choice, a mother helps her child and “makes good” for him. Instinctively, precisely.
Perhaps this is the reason why goodness seems less attractive than evil: it appears devoid of decision, devoid of choice, and hence lacking in allure.
What most captivates us is the experience of freedom, and there seems to be more freedom in acting contrary to others’ expectations than in conformity: in the latter scenario, we suspect our actions are not our own but those anticipated by others around us, who are surprised if we deviate from the expected.
For this reason, people think that “doing evil” is more attractive than “doing good.” But this is a mistake.
Goodness demands imagination, intelligence, resolve, and will: it is anything but the banal normalcy of non-choice, or letting the mediocrity of “yes-men” dictate our actions.
Every quality, every capability summoned for ill, must likewise be mobilized for good.
To do good means to forge positivity, whatever that may entail, to create connections, to open spaces, and to keep possibilities alive. Choosing goodness is hard work, not second nature.
You can read the original text in Italian . Translated with the help of AI.
