{"id":983,"date":"2013-07-27T10:28:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=983"},"modified":"2013-07-27T10:29:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-27T15:29:01","slug":"poem-incompetent-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/27\/poem-incompetent-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Incompetent Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t care much for evil<\/span>
\nI don’t care much for incompetence<\/span>
\nThough when present together<\/span>
\nIncompetence becomes a blessing<\/span><\/p>\n

As in math, sometimes in morality, multiplying two negatives can produce some positive results. \u00a0There is at times some hope to be taken at the all too frequent observation that many stupid things happen in the world. \u00a0Specifically, there is hope to be drawn from evil actions accompanied by incompetence. \u00a0In this case, incompetence is an ally of the good, truncating evil, preventing it from manifesting its complete intent. \u00a0If you are an optimist such as I, you might even dare call this a blessing.<\/p>\n

I like this short poem mostly because it illuminates perhaps the most fundamental division in human reality — physics and metaphysics, the mundane and the transcendent. \u00a0Physics is basically the realm of modern science, the sometimes uber-successful reductionistic approach characteristic of Western civilization. \u00a0Great advances have been made in understanding how the physical world works, the means of controlling the “outer” world, the so-called objectively real. \u00a0Modern science breaks things down to understand each of its constituent parts behaves (cause and effect) and how they interact with one another. Unfortunately, this is only the crudest form of how things work, and only “half” of the picture (in the sense of balance, not quantitatively). \u00a0At its worst scientific reductionism kills the whole to study the dead parts. \u00a0Dissecting a frog may produce a lot of knowledge but it does kill the frog. \u00a0Similarly, our quest for knowledge can kill life to study its lesser constituent parts. \u00a0Metaphysics is the opposite, the complement to reductionism, which studies life from the perspective of the relationship of the whole to the part, not the relationship of parts to each other. \u00a0Most people recognize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts — due to humans’ metaphysical faculties. \u00a0Sadly, an overfocus on scientific reductionism has allowed our higher faculties to atrophy (use it or lose it!), and we literally cannot tell apart life from death. \u00a0My favorite example of the manifestation of this is our apparent inability to distinguish between human persons and corporate persons (which are famously said to be made up of human persons — well they got the “made up” part correct!). \u00a0When we can’t differentiate a human worker from a brick — reducing them both to “expenses” — we are in deep trouble as a human race! \u00a0We seem to be able to produce a lot of things, and cool stuff, but the art of human happiness seems resistant to such machinations — perhaps because we are not machines. \u00a0We need to strike a healthier, life-affirming balance between physics and metaphysics. \u00a0As often happens, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has said much of this much more succinctly:<\/p>\n

\u201cScience investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. \u00a0The two are not rivals. They are complementary. \u00a0Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t care much for evil I don’t care much for incompetence Though when present together Incompetence becomes a blessing As in math, sometimes in morality, multiplying two negatives can produce some positive results. \u00a0There is at times some hope … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[360,400,391,341,385,392,539,80,388,283,359,89,306,548,155,81,467,266,354,413,658,94,110,491,601,83,390,93,53,299,547,478,85,389,380],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-art","tag-balance","tag-blessing","tag-control","tag-death","tag-evil","tag-facts","tag-happiness","tag-hope","tag-human-race","tag-life","tag-materialism","tag-metaphysics","tag-modern","tag-moral","tag-morality","tag-nihilism","tag-optimism","tag-perspective","tag-physics","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-power","tag-present","tag-reality","tag-religion","tag-science","tag-scientific-reductionism","tag-short-poems","tag-stupid","tag-transcendent","tag-values","tag-western-civilization","tag-wisdom","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Incompetent Evil | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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