I don't agree. They can be good light, evil light, or any combination light. The point is that in D&D, the alignment poles represent those with the more extreme beliefs.
In your particular interpretation that you prefer.
Which I find silly and self-defeating.
I disagree with that dichotomy. You can have the majority of world being "good light" and end up living in an evil world full of despots that the "good light" people weren't motivated enough to stop from gaining power.
Or... they're morally good enough to accept suffering rather than commit themselves to the actions it would take to end the threat of evil.
Ideas like Nonviolent Resistance, for example. Or the idea that killing a killer makes you just as evil as they are, which honestly sounds like something a murderer would come up with to ensure no one kills him to stop him from continuing to kill.
It's almost like there are these external pressures on people to -not- do a violent uprising. Or prevent evil from coming into power in the first place. Not that it always stops them, just usually.
It's not a matter of lacking moral character.
You do not need equal amounts of the "lights" in order to be neutral. You just need to not be motivated enough of an extreme in your beliefs to act on them to change things.
See... I find this kind of thinking dangerous.
Both because it ignores the definition of Good that we're working on (Altruistic, Respect for Life, Dignity of Sentient Beings) and paints motivation and ability as fundamental qualities of a person's moral identity rather than a function of society and circumstance.
A person in a wheelchair unable to go to protest due to sundry factors is not "Less Good" than someone who can attend the protest.
No. Most of the world is neutral. If the masses were good enough to risk themselves to overcome the evil in the world, we wouldn't have evil rulers on Earth right now. The problem is that most of the "good light" folks don't have strong enough beliefs to risk themselves for the good, so those motivated enough to risk themselves for power and selfishness often succeed.
Nah. Most of the world is good. We're taught to think of most of the world as neither good nor evil but largely selfish in order to isolate ourselves from each other to minimize any kind of resistance against fundamental injustice.
But, again, this gets into real world politics and we shouldn't be going there, Max.
There is no conflict. People are complex and can be indifferent about some things, while not being indifferent about other things that they do not believe in strongly enough to risk themselves.
Laws, Arrests, and Fines exist in a Political Structure and do not exist outside of a political structure. Good and Evil, and their definitions, intersect with politics ALL THE TIME. They are largely the basis of political discourse. And you're talking about them like they're separate, discrete, unconnected items. It's bizarre.
And your final point of "believing in strongly enough to risk themselves" is also nonsense that ignores reality.
We exist in a structure designed to force compliance. It doesn't make you "Less Moral" to be in a position where fighting is impossible for you. It just means you've been forced into compliance.
People who are able to go to a scheduled protest while you have to work to put food on your table to keep yourself and your family alive while you watch from afar are not "More Good" than you are. They're just able to attend that protest.
I didn't. Saying the word politics is not getting into real world politics, especially in the context that I used it in. Politics exist in our fantasy silliness too!
Honestly, trying to map alignment to reality and say "Most people are neutral" is political AF, my guy. I'm hoping we can keep further discussion to the game world and end this external discussion about your experiences with morality in the real world.
At extremes, it kinda is. The phrase "Too much of a good thing" exists for a reason. Too much of anything is bad.
Disagree. Too much love is not a bad thing. Too much happiness is not a bad thing. We can pretend all we want about them being bad for you, or invent scenarios where the method of gaining those things is somehow bad, but no one is going to die or be injured by feeling "Too Much" love.
Too much oxygen kills us because we're evolved to live in the environment we're in. Too much water or salt or sugar or whatever else is also a function of the structures of reality we're in.
"Too much good morality" is not a thing that could happen.
Nobody said that. Necessary =/= good.
Fair. I also don't think it's necessary. And the position you posited (Without evil, good wouldn't prepare to defeat evil) is hardly convincing, as demonstrated.
No. Zealots would take over, dictating to others what good was and punishing those who were not good enough in order to convert them to a better state of good. What constitutes goodness would move ever more extreme over time.
See, THIS is where you lose everything. Good in D&D is defined as Altruism, Respect for Life, and Dignity of Sentient Beings.
Zealots of those three things don't go out and punish people for not being "Good Enough". Why? They respect the other person's life and believe in their dignity. They do not "Convert" them through violent means. Why? Same reason.
You ever watch Deep Space Nine? If Moral Goodness had "Zealots" they'd convert you like Root Beer does.
I'd reference the real world phenomenon you're trying to present, here, because it's factually wrong... But politics.
Muscular neutrality isn't about doing a good action for every evil action or any of that claptrap. It's about recognizing when a world or area in the world is too extreme in one or more directions and knocking that place down a peg or two.
Muscular Neutrality involves killing good people and spreading evil when "Good" is too powerful or evil is about to be defeated, and vice-versa.
Which means it's about doing Evil when Evil might lose, and doing Good when Good might lose. And while that might "Seem" morally neutral, it REALLY isn't.
It's making the decision to ensure that there is always murder, and sexual assault, and genocide, and evil undead, and dark gods holding equal-ish power to do and spread those things to the gods of light to ensure that at no point is evil ever destroyed.
And that's evil.
And you can do all kinds of ridiculous moral calculus about how many times they do the reverse to try and add up to a 0 sum game... But everyone who is murdered, tortured, and sexually assaulted remains so for the rest of time. Muscular Neutrality doesn't Un-Kill the innocents that the evil it protects murders. It can never undo the harm, and makes no effort to do so.
Muscular Neutrality assumes that being good and being evil are fundamentally equal prospects with fundamentally equal impact. But they're not.
Good, in practically every work ever written, is about maintaining or improving the status quo. Evil disrupts the status quo, sure. But it does so through terrible actions and is ultimately opposed by enough force to stop it and restore the status quo, or at least a semblance of it.
Muscular Neutrality misunderstands the most fundamental truth about Goodness: Good is Reactive rather than Proactive.
Evil goes out and does something horrible, good goes out and stops evil from doing additional horrible acts, then tries to do what it can to repair the damage that was done.
Evil tries to burn down the city. Good stops evil once it realizes what's happening, then works to rebuild what was lost. You'll find that formula in practically every story on the subject ever written, whether it's a work of high literature bound in leather, or a pulp novel.
Evil acts. Good reacts.
You don't read a D&D novel about an orc tribe minding it's own business when the Good and Moral Kingdom next door sends a contingent of knights to wipe out every man, woman, and child in the tribe and think "Man, these orcs are so evil. It's a good thing the knights genocided them all so nobly!" after all. (And in no small part because it would make the kingdom very blatantly evil...)
Whenever a war happens in those novels it's because the orcs or goblins or giants or dragons or Thayans or whatever force of evil exists in the novel takes the first swing and the heroes react to the evil actions and go fight them. Nearly every D&D adventure on the market follows that formula, as well. Because that's the fundamental role of good and evil in most stories.
Protagonist and Antagonist.
In almost every story you read where an evil or at least unkind person is the protagonist it's the same schtick. Either a "More Evil" enemy rises and must be fought against, or someone who pretends to be a hero is actually an evil person with a ton of PR spin. (Looking at you, The Boys and other 'Genre Defying' stories and practically any work by Blizzard which involves a religion of "The Light" that is constantly doing evil and pretending it's good)
Anyway. Yeah. Muscular Neutral must be Ignorant, Uncaring, or Alien, or there some external force to the universe that will destroy it when good or evil is destroyed. Muscular Neutrality doesn't work, otherwise.
