The Shadows We Cast

Good and evil are often seen as opposing forces, but their very existence is a shadow of perception. To define something as “good” implies the presence of an observer who has decided what fits within this frame of reference. And yet, what is it in the observer, the one drawing this line, that claims to know good from evil?

The problem is that we think of good and evil as if they are out there, in the world—something external we can point to. But they aren’t waiting to be discovered like stones on the ground. They are constructed by the perceiver and framed within limits imposed by context, culture, and the machinery of our minds. We attribute actions, events, and people to good or evil based on a lens we often forget to examine.

What’s curious is that we tend to imagine “evil” as something monstrous, an external threat to be stamped out, but this may be more about our own discomfort with ambiguity. We crave clear categories because they give us a sense of control. Yet, to think of evil as “out there” denies the possibility that it might exist within us—or, more troubling, that the very categories themselves are not fixed. What we call good today may have been seen as evil yesterday, and vice versa. It’s not a universal truth, but a perceptual frame that shifts with the times.

The real challenge isn’t determining what is good or evil, but understanding why we’re so eager to divide the world this way. Evil, like good, may simply be the result of our failure to see through our own lens, to mistake our judgment for something permanent and solid, when in reality it’s fluid and contingent. It is our machinery that spins it into something concrete, not its inherent nature.

Good and evil, then, are not absolutes to chase or conquer; they are the shadows we cast when we fail to question the source of the light.

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The Tyranny of the Ladder: Moral Resurgence as Self-Deception

Beware the zealot, not for his conviction, but for the obscure mechanism driving it. His moral fervor rises not from principle but from a delicate balance of power, teetering under the weight of humiliation. It is the energy expelled in the suppression of his own sense of subjugation, the concealed sting of inadequacy, that fuels his strength. The loudest cry for justice often has behind it the desperate internal scramble for domination—self-righteousness acting as both shield and weapon.

What he labels as “higher values” are often nothing more than a rational counterforce, a reflex to unseat the dominant figure who sits comfortably unaware. The Alpha is merely a force—simple, mechanical. Power is its own justification. Alpha-minus, however, lacks such brute simplicity. His ambition cannot take the direct path, so it must justify itself through the language of ethics, principles, equality. The zealot insists on equality not because he is equal, but because equality provides the perfect leverage to counter the dominance he resents yet secretly desires. Equality is, after all, a moral ladder that looks far more virtuous when it is used to unseat those who stand above.

The Alpha often fails to grasp this dynamic, remaining blind to the motives of the one beneath him. He assumes that the world is as it should be: a hierarchy of power and status where the strongest prevail. Alpha-minus, meanwhile, operates under a different illusion—the illusion that he stands on moral ground. His reasoning is sharper, more agile, for he must expose the brute nature of his superior without fully acknowledging the brute within himself.

This game is not restricted to individual confrontations. It echoes across societies, within political movements, and in the quiet desperation of overcrowded systems. Where there are too many competitors for too few positions, new ladders emerge—each rung calibrated to a new set of virtues, each climber insisting on moral high ground. It is in this overcrowded world that the moral zealot thrives. If one cannot hold the top rung of the existing ladder, one builds another, crafting a set of values that place the rivals below, reassigning them to a lower rung. And so, in the name of principle, new hierarchies emerge, and old ones collapse under the pretense of righteousness.

Yet Alpha-minus never fully reckons with his own impulse to dominate. The new ladder may look different, but the instinct to rise above remains the same. In the moral zeal of revolution, in the clamor for equality, we find not the abolition of dominance but merely its redistribution. The ladder is not dismantled; it is merely relocated.

In the end, the dominance balancing mechanism is neither moral nor rational. It is a perpetual reordering of positions, dressed in the language of values. Whether the ladder is one of brute force or ethical superiority, the climb continues. The only difference is the view from the top—or the desperation to reach it.