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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6755923" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, I agree with your conclusion, even if I don't agree all of your particular reasoning is necessary to reach it.There are a variety of intellectual paths that might lead one to neutrality on both axis, including I would think a certain degree of apathy - what's later been called 'unaligned'.  You have documented one such path, but I don't think it's the essential nature of the thing.One path is the belief that excessive devotion to good is either itself not good or else isn't functional (which is almost the same thing).  Beliefs of this sort can be seen when Paladin's are invariably presented as being so good they are evil.  There are tons of stories in all sorts of media where the advocates of good are ultimately so righteous that they are intolerant, and so intolerant that they are cruel, and so cruel that they are invariably no different from evil.  In this view of the world, there is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil', per se, there is only moderation and immoderation, and anything in moderation is good, whereas everything in immoderation is evil.  A person of this sort doesn't see themselves as siding with evil against good, but in siding with moderates against extremists.   It may serve no purpose to side with an extremist against another extremist, and the danger of course in doing so is always that you might become an extremist yourself and adopt immoderate intemperate solutions to problems.Much here depends on your picture of what 'good' is, what aspiring to be 'good' is, and whether 'good' even really exists or is a delusion.  If you think good implies pacifism for example, you can from the neutral position argue that pacifism is ultimately dysfunctional and therefore not good.  If you think good implies purity for example, you can from the neutral position argue that pure anything is antithetical to life and therefore not good.  If you think good implies self-denial, you can from the neutral position argue that too much self-denial invariably empowers evil.  If you think good implies asceticism, you can not that too much of that invariably would be joyless and that life is better with a certain amount of decadent pleasure taken in moderation.  In short, from this world view, the people aspiring to perfect goodness are merely deluded and will always as they take those aspirations more and more seriously move into a sort of madness which is unhealthy for themselves and others.  This doesn't mean you are siding with the serial killers, which from the neutral perspective is an example of the sort of immoderate and unreasonable thinking that arises from the sort of fanaticism you'd expect of people committed to immoderate good, since it essentially lumps everyone that isn't fully committed to the project with the worst sort of evil.</blockquote>

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