The Good is only the Good of Evil – Letterpress Print

Description

„The Good is only the Good of Evil“

Martin Heidegger wrote this in a letter to Elisabeth Blochmann on 12th September 1929.

What he meant by that is that, in order to be truly good, we have to comprehend that evil is always and inherently a part of our nature. When we don’t comprise evil in our essence, we can’t truly exist as moral beings.

Thinking only happens against the chaos of unreason.
Morality is born out of crime.
Only where love is, hate can exist.

Or to speak metaphorically: Light can only exist in darkness. And darkness couldn’t be grasped as such without light. Thus, the heart of light is black (Jacques Derrida) and vice versa.

Those who are good without knowing evil can not be truly good. Evil has to be known and accepted as „existent“ so that the good becomes your choice. Only then is it truly good.

This is and always has been a necessary step to fully understand human nature, the conditio humana. The conditio sine qua non.

It’s not the nature of the world though. The world just is. It’s us human beings that bring interpretation in it, that have perspectives on it. Only for us, there is Good and Evil. But to us, it is vital. Both of it.