A text from Jorge Angel Livraga.
“No philosopher or thinker has ever doubted such a need, this need for a moral condition that comes from an essentially pure nature, from the very Being itself.
Today, an individual’s innate goodness is conditioned by their religion, family origin, geographical location, race, and many other etceteras that would fill entire pages of a detailed display of prejudices and superficialities. Humanity has been dazzled by plans and systems, by the forms of containers rather than their contents.
Individuals would be qualified according to their origin, that is, according to the system that begot them.
Christians were good, “pagans” bad.
The nobles had “blue blood” and the others were “villains”.
The people are good and the kings are bad… Long live the guillotine!
The worker is good and the industrialist is bad.
The soldier is more valid than the farmer, or vice versa.
The “chosen people” … “God’s people” … In short, the “good” ones, who, to exist, need the “bad” ones.
This common denominator makes one speak of Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, whites, blacks, rich, poor, wise, and ignorant. It is racism in all its colors.
This massifying aspiration for collective redemption, and for the also collective destruction of those who do not participate in such redemption, class or party, places all hope in systems, creeds, races, and acceptances. The individual man loses importance.
(…)
It is correct to think that the solution to this problem lies in the pure and simple understanding that what really matters are not the systems, but the individuals who integrate them. And what is fundamental is the moral quality of these individuals. It hardly matters whether a country is governed by the right or the left, whether its regime is presidential or monarchical.
What matters is whether the individuals for the administration of a country are good, honorable, fair, valiant, and thorough. What we need is not for certain factions or political, social, or religious sects to triumph. What we need is good individuals and for them to be recognized as such, to be allowed the highest responsibilities in all fields. If this were done, they would accept them, not out of ambition, but out of a spirit of generosity and solidarity.
If, going back to Plato, the good shoemaker has the duty to make shoes for everyone; the good tailor, clothes for everyone, etc., he who governs himself, who masters his passions and verticalizes his ideas with the strength of his will, will be the most apt to apply what is advantageous in him to all members of his community.
If we can support good individuals and give them the necessary cultural tools, they will be able to integrate any form of government, because any form of government in their hands will be effective.
If a good individual is at the head of a religion, whatever it may be, he will awaken in his believers the Presence of God, for they will see it reflected in himself.
Let us be brave and start now to throw into the waste bin of History the harmful systems that govern us so that, on their ruins, this New Man can walk, whose main characteristic is to be good.”