Pavel
Posts: 308
Joined: 1/10/2005
From: Washington
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I'm trying to answer this constructively, but bear with me I'm not at 100% right now.
Dark and light assumes some level of morality assigned to each value, and then it seems to attach a set of rules dicateing those values. But at the same time, what is right and what is wrong? As trite and cliche as that sounds, the values which we assign acts and thoughts are somewhat abitrary. Many people consider the lifestyle a dark aspect of themselves, or society, however when you get down to it, it's mostly a deviation form the norm. There might be aspects of it taken by people to do acts that are commonly accepted as evil, but the vast majority of people into this all tend to be perfectly upstanding sorts, capable of makeing choices that the majority of the time can be seen as good, or at least containing good intentions.
So perhaps the darker end of the pond is less the evil, and more the non-refined core. Most of the actions we ascribe to it are the selfish/primal acts, things done in which the primary goal is profiting oneself, or simple needs (gain/pleasure/survival). Thus we assume the lighter side is the civilized acts, the "no bads" planted in our heads since childhood. "don't run naked outside." "Don't set the cat on fire." "For the last time stop trying to invade France (I can't help that, I'm German, it's my biological compulsion)." These set up the values in which we are to uphold. We don't set the cat on fire because we've been told no matter how annoying it is, it's improper to do so, no matter how much our dark side tells us it'd be so much better in a catless world (just as a disclaimer, I've got nothing against cats).
But this doesn't quite wash well, it's a bit too much of Hobbes if you will, that which is dark or primal isn't always bad or selfish. The classic philsopical example of a soldier throwing himself on the grenade seems to run counter to this. One might make the argument that this is an act of the light side of duality, but if that was the case, it'd be a clear and total override of all things primal and attactched to the dark side. It's a clear act of selflessness, the person on top of the grenade will not be around to appricate the accolades afforded to them for saveing their fellow's life. It's not exactly a trained response, I can't think of any stage in my life I've been instructed to kill myself to save others. Not to mention the fact that the choice to go/nogo is made in mere seconds. I suppose in my semi-coherent state that I'm trying to make the argument that it's this primal urge, the darker end of things that leads to this act to preserve others.
Maybe there's both a light and dark side to both the primal and refined ends of our minds. The lighter side of the primal stick is what drives us to protect others, strangers or otherwise. The darkerside is the part that tells us to take the candy from the jar because it's yummy and noone is looking. As to the refined end of the pond, it really gets down to the good vs evil, and morality kinds of things, I'm not sure I'm ready to get in to. It's easy to think of things as in a gain/loss context. You rob a bank because you'll gain the assets you think you need. You help an old lady across the street because it'll get you the merit badge that you want. But the acts that lack that gain seem to be most odd. Being good at the continued expense of your own existance and quality of life (the mother teresa example), or being evil/commiting evil acts again at one's own expense, with the concious choice to do so, isn't as clear I suppose.
Bleh, good luck at makeing sense of that all.
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