Amorality is relative.

[razorsmile]

So I gotta ask, why is it that in fiction whenever some person or entity claims to be Beyond Good and Evil, it's invariably because they're doing some evil shit? How come we never see some amoral individual saving orphans, saving lives or saving the world because good evil don't make no difference to them?

Comments

[dvandom]

Because everyone has to have a reason to do things, if they do things at all. Pretty much all the actions we'd call "good" fit into some sort of morality at this point, one could argue that pretty much any practical definition of "good" will spawn an ethos eventually. So, if you reject all forms of morality, you are rejecting all of the systems that good actions would fit into. If your aims are even a little good, you can find some moral system to fit them into.

[razorsmile]

Interesting but not quite my point. What I'm saying or rather what I'm asking is how come the individual who is Beyond Good and Evil and therefore has no stake in either never does anything on the good side of the equation even at random?

By being beyond those systems of morality, you are free to act in any manner of your choosing. Nothing stops you from doing something "good" just as easily as something bad/evil other than authorial fiat.

[dvandom]

The characters who don't commit acts the protagonist considers evil tend not to generate conflict. I mean, you can have cosmic entities "beyond your concept of good and evil" who come in, mess about for good or ill, and then go off on their own business...but "Lord Dynamicus just paid off my rent for a year and vanished!" doesn't get fight scenes going.

(For some reason, I'm having to do Captcha to comment here.)

[razorsmile]

The characters who don't commit acts the protagonist considers evil tend not to generate conflict. I mean, you can have cosmic entities "beyond your concept of good and evil" who come in, mess about for good or ill, and then go off on their own business...but "Lord Dynamicus just paid off my rent for a year and vanished!" doesn't get fight scenes going.

Therefore, authorial fiat :D I suppose it's for essentially the same reason no one ever writes about utopias.

(For some reason, I'm having to do Captcha to comment here.)

Years ago, shortly after Livejournal stopped being my number one stop on the internet, I had a veritably oceanic deluge of Russian spambots commenting on all my posts. I put in the CAPTCHA back then to stop them.

To my horror, it merely slowed them down.

[autopope]

How about: because authors who believe in rigid categories of good and evil implicitly believe that those who don't follow the same categories are by default evil?

Such categories are generally defined by religious beliefs, and the faiths most strongly associated with such dualism tend to be syncretistic ones with a dab of Zoroastrianism in the mix (hint: Christianity, Islam). People who weren't indoctrinated in a dualist faith at an early age - whether or not they subsequently rejected or adhered to it - aren't generally heavily invested in the terminology and don't use it in their fiction.

(I have a non-dualist background and tend to write stuff in which everyone is the hero of their own internal narrative, even when they're doing disastrous, bad, no-good things to other people.)

[razorsmile]

Pleasantly surprised to see a comment from you of all people on my humble LJ! Big fan, obviously, although I have fallen way behind on my Laundry reading since I left the States.

As to the matter at hand, I was thinking more on a Watsonian than Doylian level but I suppose that's as good an explanation as I can expect.