The Problem of GOOD

Dear Transcendentalists, Romantics,
and Colleagues Across the Curriculum

(Courses without Borders Series)

THE PROBLEM OF GOOD:
accentuating the positive so
as to generate:

The Problem of Evil.

Generally this is a “philosophical” concern.

It’s also a “religious” concern except that
religions usually offer some framework for
it—explanation—so that while it’s a real
problem in the pain-in-the-ass sense, it
isn’t a problem in the

What…?
What the…?
What the helllll….?

sense.

Do you see the distinction?
Problem philosophically?
Problem religiously?
Problem psychologically?
—just to add another way of talking. .

Would it be a problem biologically? Evil?

Is it possible to consider a “neutral” and
non-judgmental definition of the word
EVIL?

(I know you know: any word is NOT
what-it-stands-for—there’s a distinction
and gap between any WORD and what
it represents—though I usually collapse
and conflate and confuse the 2

sign and signified

which is why I am uncomfortable
when a flag is burned, a teddy bear is
named Muhammad, or the acute pain
rising up from my use/abuse of variously
stigmatized & banned PC terms determining
me determined.

Indo European: upo – up from below.
That’s the root of the notion behind
the word “EVIL.”

Mere description.

Up from below.

It doesn’t take much to guess how and why
I add to that description my good judgment,
my negative sense and revulsion.

The Problem of Evil springs from my sense
of GOOD: and so it’s a Problem of GOOD
that mothers my problem of Evil.
Need we argue?

Evil
Stuff from below
comes up, damnit.

Fall of the House of US

Madeline (“tower of strength”) for example: breaks
out of her catatonic trance and tomb and rises up to
embrace her twin, Roderick (“noble ruler”).

In so many of Poe’s stories: the buried alive rise from
below to bring down House (ecos) —so to speak.

It’s a problem.

To reduce & simplify: Emerson and Thoreau focus on
the “transcendental”—what Snoopdawg and Alexander
Pope would call over arching ALLGOOD, insisting
‘Sallgoood what ever it looks like from a human and
humanist perspective. And there’s benefit in holding
that hypothesis, belief, faith, obviously—at least
attitudinally:a good operating assumption—
that over-all, on the whole:
it’s all Good.

Poe & Hawthorn go to the Dark Side, (which we know
mustn’t be ignored, suppressed, or sent down below
because it’ll rise UP, pissed off! Or you put it in your
terms and images.)

They both explore bottom-up fundamental fear:

ooooomygawd, awful,
the horror, the horror…
what the hell?

Poe’s treatment of the dark is aesthetic,” descriptive:
I’ll say non-judgmental, a-ethical, psychological
& a-moral.

Hawthorne plays on the “moral” traditions—against
the background of “Puritan” Christianity.

pleasureNpain
clarityNconfusion
attention-efficiencyNattention-deficiency
maniaNdepression
healthNsickess
loveNhate
etc
add your favorite binary pair of Siamese
twins —all variations on the same severed
GoodNevil relationship & how come they
can't Just Get Along. :

As soon as I cut & separate what’s ONE
& send the “better” half to the attic and the
“other’ to the cell in the cellar: I got the
problem of evil coming up from below,
damnit

This is the root of the problem:
it’s the Problem of Good mothering
the Problem of Evil. You can see the
symptoms all over: check it out.

Maybe you can improve my terms &
images and we can argue—or what’s
a college for? It's a good thing.

xxxooo, Jon Edwards.