A very interesting campaign slogan in the last election was that of JV Ejercito, who was running for senator at the same time as his half-brother Jinggoy Estrada. The slogan was “Elect JV Ejercito, the good one”. The implied message was that he was the better brother who is not implicated in graft and corruption and was a better performer in the Senate. This is a moral judgment for which Jinggoy may never forgive JV. Even President Duterte made this moral judgment when he endorsed JV but not Jinggoy and even commented after the election that “sayang si JV” and hinted at a possible government position for him.
In two recent hit movies, “The Avengers: Endgame” and “John Wick 3” the, delineation between the good guys and the bad guys made the audience clearly cheer for the good guys. The recent celebrations of the 75th year of the allied invasion in Normandy and the 30th year of the Tiananmen incident in China, sharply contrasted the perceived good guys and the bad guys in these events.
Even granting the historical bias of the narratives that are written by the victors, Hitler and the Nazis were clearly the bad guys. And even with the deliberate silencing by the Chinese authorities about Tiananmen, the perpetrators of the killings of the Jews and the dissidents are the bad guys. The advent of the internet and social media has enhanced this perception over and above the main media discussions.
The history of mankind is also the history of moral philosophy. The pillars of all religions are their moral tenets. And all interesting stories are always a fight between good and evil. The problem is that people sometimes, and over time, are unable to distinguish between good and evil, or compromise their perception for selfish reasons.
Then there is the problem of the shading of good and bad. We tend to argue that maybe it is slightly good or bad and can be tolerated and accepted. Killing a million Jews or thousands of dissidents is totally bad, but killing a few thousand drug addicts may be acceptable. We tend to rationalize in terms of degrees, which even some religions or sects promote for their own interests like their endorsement of some candidates in the last election.
However, I am inclined to believe that the world is moving in the right direction in this moral order. It may not be because mankind suddenly had a moral revolution to do good, as a lot of bad and evil things are happening all around, but because evolution forces us to do good, for mankind to survive and prosper. Authoritarian and populist governments that disregard the common good in governance and environmental challenges will be confronted with irreversible changes that cannot be overcome without the total support of the people. The weather disturbances, calamities, water and food shortages in the next 30 years will change civilization as we now know it. Millions of people will relocate due to economic and environmental reasons. This is even now happening in Latin America and the Middle Eastern countries. And again, these changes will be enhanced by the advances in information and communication technologies that will force governments to do good to get the people’s cooperation. Liberty, Truth, Justice, and Human rights will be necessary ingredients in all governance to succeed.
In movies and in TV shows, there are episodes when two friendly armed groups converge and there is always one guy from one side who yells: “Hey, we’re the good guys” to prevent a misencounter. Most people are really able to know the good guys from the bad guys, we just compromise or get compromised sometimes. We just have to remember, that for evil to triumph, it is because the good guys did nothing.