Conciousness>selfishness>fear>anger>hate>suffering.
What would be the remedy of fear, and the selfishness that creates it? Knowledge, but of the value of virtue and selflessness specifically. Therefore, all hate and evil would be a lack of knowledge—an ignorance. This is what inspired Socrates (debatably, the founding father of philosophy) to begin teaching strangers around his community, because he knew that it’s a knowledge that needs to be gained thus, taught, to the point where he even took his own life to die a martyr to what he had to say. And the knowledge that the fear that would’ve otherwise have stopped him from even teaching anything at all would be a selfishness. This is what warrants hate and evil to any degree infinite forgiveness, and why it’s so important to teach it the error of its ways, through love. Whether through meeting what you would consider as hate when you’re met with it, with love, or exemplifying it via selfless actions. Because some people don’t even have the ability to tell their left hand from their right (Jonah 4:11), but we can use the influence of an Earth (what a collection of people are presently sharing in—society, driving cars, holding the door open for strangers etc.) to teach the more difficult to do so; if everyone were sharing in selflessness and virtue, wouldn’t it be seen as typical as driving a car is today? Therefore, nowhere near the chore it would be seen as otherwise, considering everyone would be participating in it. And what does a cat begin to do—despite its, what we call “instinct”—when raised amongst dogs? Pant. We are what we’ve been surrounded with, like racists, they just don’t know any better, being abscent of the other side of it. And love (selflessness) is the greatest teacher, it renders the ears and the mind of a conscious, capable being—on any planet, to be the most open-minded, thus the most willing to truly consider foreign influences.
“We can’t beat out all the hate in the world, with more hate; only love has that ability.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
I see. It is honestly difficult to tell exactly what you mean. Education is, of course, essential to making change for the better, but the content of that education is just as important. Being selfless as a person on an individual can mean doing good things while actually entrenching the forces that create systemic suffering. For example, volunteering to feed people and convincing others to do the same. It would be difficult to call that a bad thing. And yet, the way it is funded tends to mean it is a way to distract from the root causes, from what impoverishes and deprives, from the destruction of community and lives. There are entire industries predicated on converting people’s empathy and desire to help each other into a tax write off and cheap PR.
So yes, there is an education problem there, but it is more challenging than teaching empathy alone. Empathy is only a basic starting point and is insufficient. One must plug into a political program that correctly analyses societal systems and directs action through an organized program intended to address those systems.
Of course the content is important, that should go without saying.
Yes that’s something that can happen, so what are you saying? We shouldn’t do good at all and the “value of virtue” is nonsense just because there’s a potential of that happening?
Of course there’s more to it. It’s far from simple, I’m not arguing that at all. Especially when it comes to the way we organize ourselves. But we can never imagine a future where ourselves are no longer the emphasis if the way we organize ourselves contradicts with it so much, and even forces one in the opposite direction of the true life lived most in the present that a life of selflessness has to offer anyone of any belief. Selflessness is far from being beneficial from only the beneficiaries side of things.
The key is that once you emphasize the content, the discussion itself changes. It ia no longer abstract, just about knowledge, but is now a political education: what are the forces at work causing suffering (it is not just ignorance), how do they function, and how can we work together to address them?
The reason this us so important is that oppressive forces are mainstream and dominent and they will determine was avenues you have for, say, charity. The system will craft society such that your work provides a release valve for the suffering it causes, which can actually entrench and normalize those oppressive forces. They provide the funding, after all. They will expect to be credited for their “generosity” with ill-gotten gains and, say, a carceral system they maintain premised on punishment rather than public betterment and healing. People motivated by empathy, who are taught empathy, may get caught up in that charity system and thereby, overall, help cement the opprrssive ruling powers that create the disposession in the first place.
So, one muat be educated in correct ideas with sound analysis based on a critical study of society and its material oppressive forces. You must know how the political economic system functions if you are to understand the roots of suffering. And must then push farthee to ask how it has been challenged historically and how you might assist that process.