Society should regret the common narrative of good triumphing over evil in children's entertainment

In the end, the whole class applauded a wrong that had been made right. That student... was Albert Einstein. That same sense of childlike play and innocence, questioning, passion, is what I feel in this room right now. [0] GTOE means “good triumphing over evil”. A.) What Good and Evil Mean If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right? [1] So said Aristotle. It is generally accepted that morality governs what one should do; morality deals with normative claims. To say that one should do something is to say that there is a goal one should reach, but both the means and the end make sense within morality if one can reach the end. Kant: For if the moral law commands that we ought to be better human beings now, it inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings. [2] Aristotle also showed that this meaning of morality implies that one’s moral status is wholly chosen The Philosopher writes: Now the exercise of the virtues is concerned with means. Therefore virtue also is in our own power, and so too vice. For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is noble, is in our power, not to act, which will be base, will also be in our power, and if not to act, where this is noble, is in our power, to act, which will be base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in our power to do noble or base acts, and likewise in our power not to do them, and this was what being good or bad meant, then it is in our power to be virtuous or vicious. [3] From this all, it is plain that the Good must be attainable, and any moral agent must be able to be good by choice, and, on the reverse, any moral agent must be able to be evil by choice. If a man is doing anything volitionally at all, they have to be acting towards some goal, and that goal cannot be anything but the Good (for the Good is that which is aimed towards). Thus, what is not the Good is that which precludes the possibility of action towards the Good, for to deny this is to say that the Good is in not reaching the Good, a contradixion. This preclusion is the characteristic of an act which aims to deny free will, for accomplishing such a savage goal shall surely release one from moral concerns. A man is good, then, when he is able to attain the Good by virtue of what he is aiming towards and is able to reach – the Good – and evil when he reaches his goal when that which he is aiming towards is that which is not the Good, for this latter man, in his striving, strives to remain still; he strives to be outside moral concerns, to not have to pursue the true Good by rejecting pursuit itself, but he fails, as “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” [4] This delineation of good and evil, being based solely on the definition of morality, is a priori true. Since the nature of Good is that which should be aimed towards, every man has the moral obligation to aim towards it, and those that do not are objectively evil. There are no gray areas. B.) Aesthetics and Morality The writer has his pen, the artist his brush, the musician his piano. Each of these serves one goal: to allow the artist to create. Each allows the artist to give an idea a concrete form, an embodiment in a world more visceral than that of thought. Therefore, one may learn about the artist’s moral code by what they deem worthy enough to create. What does it say of a man if, when given the chance to show reality as all dream it can be – and it can be­ – he, instead, shows what hell is? What perversity does this require? It requires giving terror primacy over happiness; deeming war more suitable than peace; placing evil above good. And this is only speaking of his ideas – his ideas which he desperately wants to be the reality! Sartre writes: The "engaged” writer knows that words are action. He knows that to reveal is to change and that one can reveal only by planning to change. He has given up the impossible dream of giving an impartial picture of Society and the human condition. Man is the being toward whom no being can be impartial, not even God. [5] The true artist is not under the impression that reality is perfect; instead, he knows that it should be. Quoting Rand, the dear: The Romanticists did not present a hero as a statistical average, but as an abstraction of man’s best and highest potentiality, applicable to and achievable by all men, in various degrees, according to their individual choices. [6] This can only be considered regrettable by the evil being triumphed over. The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics. [7] 1.) Creativity 1.1: GTOE is merely an overarching plot structure; it does not determine any of the intricacies of the story. Knowing the ending does not have to render the rest predictable. Columbo, for instance, always finds an ingenious way to identify the culprit the audience has known all along – it’s the journey where the creativity lies, and the plots aren’t any worse off for it. The range of variation is big enough to be able to accommodate more than one GTOE story without stagnation. 1.2: Firstly, my opponent never specifies the extent to which GTOE reduces creativity, not establishing the impact of GTOE. He only establishes that a lack of creativity would be bad, but not that GTOE, alone, has that much of an effect on creativity. At best, my opponent appeals to repetition, but this is vague and not useful in an on-balance debate – a debate where the difference between “$360b loss” and “incredibly marginal decrease in numbers of artisanal soap shops in Williamsburg” matters. It should be clear that my opponent’s argument here does not apply uniquely. It only shows the negative impacts of commonality. His argument would work just as well against the “tropes” of the sky being blue, there being a lack of graphic rape and murder, and puppets telling kids to do anything but set fire to their houses, all at least as omnipresent as GTOE. The problem with this argument is that it completely ignores the very good reasons why these things are tropes. If it would just be an “incremental increase” in creativity, is this not outweighed by GTOE being the aesthetically sound plot structure? Does not the vision of role models play a greater positive role in the lives of children than the fetishism of evil for the sake of “avoiding repetition”? And even if GTOE has been a piece which has led to wasted potential, is GTOE itself “regretful”? Surely only the totality of the culture, the thing which is bad in itself, is regretful, not just one atomic portion? Not everything creative is good; a child who also happens to be a serial killer is undoubtedly creative, but should probably not be encouraged. In this way, of course creativity should only happen within certain limits. It’s common sense. 2.) Real-World Learning 2.1: Morality only covers those things in man’s control [8]. As such, there can be no “impossible standards” when it comes to goodness. If one aims to have a “mixed” moral status, he is abdicating any moral worth he has; the proper term for this man is not “partially good, partially bad”, but “evil”. Rand, on the excuse used by those of the “Cult of Moral Grayness”: The first thing one would say to any advocate of such a proposition, is: "Speak for yourself, brother!" And that, in effect, is what he is actually doing; consciously or subconsciously, intentionally or inadvertently, when a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites," he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwillling to be wholly good -- and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"[9] Analysing actions is the basis for judgements of good and evil. I ask my opponent to explain how calling an evil man evil because he does evil deeds is improper. 2.2: My opponent has asserted a “moral duty”. There is no warrant given; this can be dismissed. Regardless, I have established that evil is done solely out of free will, and talk of “root causes” obfuscates this. 2.3: “Duty” and subjectivism are exclusive. I have disproven this in my constructive case. 2.4: My opponent argues against GTOE because, in reality, G doesn’t TOE. This is exactly why GTOE is important. It is not meant to be a technical handbook or journalistic documentary about the solutions to all ills. It shows what all should move the world towards. And in this world, everything is so clearly divided. It is my opponent that would like to keep this out of the world and in Sunday morning cartoons. “Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth.” [10] 2.5: Should the good not stand firm in their convictions? Should having such convictions at all not be a source of a sense of superiority? Should it not be so that the good recognise themselves as the good? Just conflict is nothing to regret. In conclusion, GTOE is not something to be remorseful over; it is something to cherish. [0] Sam Hyde, 2070 Paradigm Shift [1] http://bit.ly... [2] http://bit.ly... [3] http://bit.ly... [4] http://bit.ly... [5] http://bit.ly... [6] Wittgenstein, Notebooks [7] http://bit.ly... [8] http://bit.ly... [9] http://bit.ly... [10] http://bit.ly...