Difference between good and bad

Before I start the discussion on this topic, I would like to share what instigated this thought in my mind. Yesterday, a friend and I watched Star Wars- Revenge of the Sith, and surprisingly I could relate myself to the dilemma of Anakin Skywalker. After I came out of the hall I could not rationalize myself about who was good and who was bad, in context of the movie. When I tried to extrapolate this to society and religion, a big question that I had almost never asked myself arose i.e. is good and bad a perception that people carry? Just because people believe in doing good things, even a wrong fact can be converted to a right perception? Immediately I could relate myself to two examples where a deliberate attempt was made to differentiate the good from the bad.

Firstly, let’s talk about World War II. In world war two what the Axis did was always portrayed as evil and it related to the dark side of human nature. On the other hand what the British, the French and the Russians did is always depicted as good. If we look deeply into the issue that the two world wars occurred because the Allies were could never bear Germany to become a superior power. Post world war I, the treaty of Versailles almost crippled the economy of Germany to an extent that even bread was not affordable to the German population. Further, not to forget, the Red army, used to kill its own soldiers, if they returned back. This was done to ensure that the generals could impress Stalin with the commitment of their army in the war. Not to forget, that the German army were considered as a force that could bring freedom to the Slavs (Russians). In light of such events, the question that arises is that who is the lesser evil? Just because the atrocities by the Germans are less recent in time, their actions are still considered as atrocious. However, Britain, that enabled its colonial empire by force, is never considered a nation led by dark forces post world war two.

Secondly, our religion. If I have the liberty to express my views about certain religions, I would rather say that the bodies that are try to preach such religions act more like companies that desperately want to sell their brands and stay competitive, than bodies that can preach the right way of living. They try to impose the thoughts of some religious philosophers as the ultimate truth, when the main idea behind imparting these thoughts (by religious philosophers) was to bring order during their times. These ideas or thoughts no more apply to our modern times, and are old fashioned. As a result what we se around us is religious chaos and disorder. Therefore, what is required is a new way of living the right form of life, and that will definitely come from independent thinkers of our times than those who preached 2000 years back.

Depressingly, the only thing that I can infer out this is that freedom to think individually is always suppressed in a society. People always want us to be conformist and live a life that has not novel objective. And it’s these people who sideline non-conformists and call them bad or evil and never allow new thoughts to surface.