This image has been on my mind all morning, probably because it reminds me of something that's been on my mind all year.
Since the pandemic, I've spent a good amount of time wondering if I am a good person, and wondering what being a good person even means. So I did some reading on moral philosophy, figuring at the start I'd like deontology best. By the end, I was most in love with virtue ethics, with a dash of nihilism to give it a zing. The most important lesson I learned, however, was that being good is about doing good.
Back to that image. We assume that Our Heroic Adventurers are better people than Their Brutish Invaders largely because the Adventurers believe good things, and the Invaders believe bad things. But if they're both pillaging, looting, killing, etc., does what they believe matter? Do you care if the guy who burned down your house and murdered your family really believed he was doing the Lord's work?It's incredibly easy to assume that as long as we have the correct opinions, we've done our moral duty. In fact, those correct opinions can even make us feel free to engage in terrible behavior, because, hey, the Lord's work. So if someone disagrees with me on Opinion 827, I am entitled to mock him online, make him trend on Twitter, get him fired, blah blah. The Lord's work, remember? After all, Opinion 827 is sooo obviously correct that anyone who disagrees is not just wrong, but bad. Evil. Problematic. Toxic. And thus they deserve whatever they get.
I don't know who "deserves" what. In this world, good things happen to bad people, bad things to good people, good things to good people--I doubt it all balances out in the end. Deserve is in some ways a magic word that makes it acceptable for us to manually balance those scales, dealing out rewards or punishment as we see fit. Thus, we become Heroic Adventurers, and those we hurt are the Brutish Invaders.
The fact is, I don't always know what's right, and neither do you. What I am more sure about, however, is when I am being arrogant, intolerant, petty or cruel, instead of humble, open-minded, sensible and charitable. (Virtue ethics!) And no matter what cause I claim to serve, if I am acting like a bad person I am one. And that's how I distinguish between Our Glorious Leader and Their Wicked Despot, or Our Noble Populace and Their Backward Savages. I look at what they do, not what opinions they claim to have. So if I want to be the Heroic Adventurer, I have to bloody well act like one.
