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Most people agree that there is a general difference between people easily defined by those who see a half glass of water as half full and those who see it as half empty: those with a positive outlook on life and people with a pessimistic outlook.
- In either case, both half empty and half full perspectives are not considered a measure of good and evil, only a general tendency in people to have a more or less positive or negative evaluation of themselves and the events of their lives
For my part, while I do all I can to see the positive in half empty, I am, most certainty a glass half empty type. As agreed upon by friends and family, I appear critical beyond the educational complements of doubt and questioning, and I am, as such pertains to the cruel myopia of human selfishness.
In fact, beyond critical, when I see the hurt one man can inflict upon another man, one group upon another group, one society upon another society, my despair toward the shallows of man rises to the level of anger and all the moral imperatives that accompany anger then requires more than a simple half full or half empty narrative.
What does it mean if a man is angry but not angry at anyone in particular, just angry at? Is such a man misanthropic, has he arrived at the crevasse of reason without a bridge to cross it; is he mad, primed to commit ill deeds?
I think not, not in general, but he does have, or is, a man with a negative-conscience. He does not feel sympathy, he feels hurt. That he can lose what he has is more apparent to him the pleasure of possession. He believes the punitive awareness of fault is more instructive than hurtful. That peaceful coexistence will come through restricting bad guys more than through being good. That however benevolent people may be, as a whole, they are more selfish than altruistic. To him, a positive conscience is naïve, incapable of a rightful estimation of risk and never to be trusted with the rigors of defense.
A negative-conscience is more aware of dieing every second than living every second, more certain that it will have to concede a weakness than expose one. And the negative, though manipulated by evil, is not evil and dissatisfaction, doubt, suspicion, worry, frustration, criticism, anger and unhappiness can not be defined as bad or negative if through them we come to greater depth of meaning and invention in the absence of causing another man pain.
Though glorious and grand moments of spontaneous good will do occur, life, from the negative-conscience point of view, is more unfair than fair, more unjust than just, and the frequency with which a good turns to bad or a sweet goes sour is a frequency more apparent than the reverse. For a man with a negative-conscience a half glass of water is always half empty even when it overflows.
But where, you ask, among the many annals of psychological and religious text do we find mention of the negative-conscience? Is there such a thing or has this writer merely given name to behaviors previously and better defined by other terms and examples?
- Conscience, as defined by Webster, is “The moral right and wrong of one’s own acts or motives,” or, more definitively, “a knowledge or sense of right and wrong, with an urge to do right,” as right is perceived by the individual. Yet right for one man is not right for another thus I divide conscience into negative and positive; the “if something can go wrong, it will” group and the “every cloud has a silver lining,” group.
But the moral perception that regulates conscience is more than feeling ones actions or motives are right or wrong, it’s the basis upon which societies and religions ordain and govern their people, an attribute fixed in both individuals and groups by the defining incident in the life of an individual or group.
In general the defining innocent arises early in individual or group history and again, in general, if the incident is positive; a miracle, an incredible rescue, an unexpected helping hand, the tendency is toward a positive conscience and if the incident is negative; a severe accident, loss of a loved one or the trauma of abuse, then conscience turns toward the negative. -
So- by this analysis do I prove friends and family correct? Is this, my negative conscience, no more than a psychological manipulation giving me permission to express anger? Is it something I should change, something I can change, something I want to change?
Many a religious leader would tell me yes, change, be nice, be positive, see the good in every man, love your enemy and eventually he will love you.
Of course I agree- to a point. A calm and tranquil conscience, like a serene sea looks inviting but sailors caught in such calm call it dead calm. So too a conscience untroubled has less reason to question and doubt. Absence these negatives learning in all forms would progress more slowly or not at all. It is by the course of learning that we gain the needed energy and insight to better assess what is and is not good and bad not only for us but for those we love and the human community over all.
Of course, taken to its extreme, as it is will all extremes, the negative transforms into blind prejudice and hate. Ingredients of mind which so subdue learning that great life is lived in the absence of life itself and those so subjected
preoccupied,- since childhood, but apart from the pain of loss it’s the idea of death and not the dieing of death that most fascinates me, and yes the negatives are there but I think we mislabel the negative just as we mislabel time and God. Ideas, new intrepid ideas, are the brain’s fountain of youth and through our brain we evolve. Ours is not a search for the sixth or seventh sense, a theory of everything, the “God” particle; the weaver’s thread… what evolves is not what makes evolution possible.”
Ours is a complex world and we study it and ourselves in it in great detail but …We are simple still… Positive is what makes us feel good and negative is what makes us feel bad…
People do not give up power; it has to be taken from them but someone else who does not want to give it up
Absent the negative we would poison ourselves, never turn on a light to see in the dark, believe everything that is said without question, walk to the edge of a cliff and jump with the expectation that we can fly, never invent the mouse trap or improve upon it once invented,