Cotton Wool Society Think of the ideals of this world; love, peace, justice, hope, faith, kindness, patience,

goodnessthe list goes on. Now think of the evils in this world; hatred, lust, greed, corruption, despair and so forth. It is the commonheld belief that good must be preserved and evil abolished in order for humans to live in peace and harmony. This belief is therefore centred around moving towards pleasure and away from pain, thus avoiding conflict. However, in this cotton wool society I think we have it all wrong and that this approach is both nave and weak. Confused? Let me enlighten you Conflict is commonly defined as a state of opposition between ideas and/or beliefs. Considering the number of people in the world (roughly six billion) and therefore the number of subjective ideas, I would imagine conflict to be inevitable, although this is merely my opinion. People are subjective beings, that is, the first person or phenomenological experience is unique and we therefore cannot see objective truth. However, that does not mean that objective truth does not exist, only that we can only experience it subjectively. Nonetheless, there are always people willing to lie to remain in comfort. Take, for example, the character of Abigail Williams in Arthur Millers The Crucible. She fostered the lie of witchcraft to avoid being condemned herself, indirectly causing the deaths of at least twelve people. According to human ideals enshrined in law, we in todays enlightened society would condemn people like Abigail, but I believe that the old Bible saying let he who is without sin cast the first stone is more relevant than ever today. True, we may be no Abigail Williams, but what about Mary Warren who subscribed to the lie to save her own life, even if it meant condemning her masters John and Elizabeth Proctor? We subscribe to the lie of comfort, ignoring the injustice and poverty beneath our own noses. If that isnt conflict I dont know what is! Internal conflict, in this case between truth and lies, can be the medium through which we grow, if we allow it. And so we come to the character of John Proctor who at first allowed the lie to remain, but eventually could not bear the deceit and chose to die rather than to live a lie. Conflict, although inevitable can inspire good. But what of the notion of abolishing evil? This is where I believe we have become nave, blinded to reality. To draw on the ideas of German philosopher Hegel, we can only know good because it is not evil; if there were no evil, there would be nothing to measure good against and therefore no definition. In the same sense, without conflict we would not be able to grow through our own ideas being challenged or being forced to remain true to our beliefs in the face of suffering. Nevertheless, in our cotton wool society we discourage conflict and flee from pain, desperately attempting to ensure that our darling children will never have to suffer. We shower ourselves in pleasure and indulgence whilst chaos rips apart the lives of those living in poverty or injustice, muck akin to the stubborn denial of harsh truth in the theocracy of Millers Salem. According to this logic, even if we attempt to put an end to pain and avoid conflict, we will still subconsciously be in conflict with our own nature. If we are to live in enforcement of ideals such as love and justice, it is necessary to endure the pain and suffering of opposition against these ideals in order to affirm them. For human nature is a contradiction of desires and beliefs; we believe in equality but desire all for ourselves and are subsequently obliged to affirm one and negate the other. We are constantly in self-conflict, being forced to deny or succumb to our desires. Of course, in our cotton wool society pleasure and comfort come first, endorsed by a capitalist regime. We must buy and consume to keep the economy in order, but when tragedy strikes or a conflict arises we are compelled to choose whether to be Mary Warren, embracing a lie to avoid pain, or to hold firmly to our beliefs as did Proctor. Conflict, due to human nature, is inevitable. It is by its opposite we define an idea such as good, and evil is therefore an undeniable part of good, which underlies any conflict. However, it is through living our ideals despite suffering and opposition that we grow, and in a cotton wool society this is a hard thing to do. But, it is possible. All we have to do is unwrap the cotton wool and throw ourselves into life in both its pain and pleasure, and, if the need arises, sacrifice our pleasure for the truth.