This is a very interesting thread, and a subject I grapple with regularly. Some thoughts:
i hate it when ppl try to live by doing good things and avoicing bad things...because if there were no "bad" things then you couldnt say anything was good.
... if everything was hunky dory in this world, there would be almost zero positive growth. Humans need challenge, heartache, pain and trouble as a cosmic swift kick in the ass.
Personally I think the most important thing to bear in mind here is that there is a big difference between the kind of things that just happen in life, that we label as 'bad' (like an earthquake destroying your house, losing your job, etc) or 'good' (like winning the lottery), and the kind of things that can happen to you as the direct result of another person's conscious action. I agree that the former kind of 'bad' is inevitable and necessary (in keeping with the 'you can't have light without dark'), but I cannot agree that the latter kind is.
Our actions; morals, emotions, mental, and state of psychical wellness is greatly e/affected by that of the society inhabited.
I think that's just attributable to good and evil being strictly human conditions/ constructs. What is good or evil? What a consensus agrees to be good or evil on a societal level and aside from that what we as individuals interpret to be such. There's nothing to suggest either exist without us aside from our own invention.
I very much agree that the social/societal element is a crucial factor in this sort of debate. Take as a (rather unpleasant) example the case of a parent having a sexual relationship with their child. The parent may either not see their actions as 'bad', or know that they are but ignore this in favour of fulfilling their needs and desires. What I think is important is the fact that the parent and the child exist within a social system in which the action (which may on an abstract level be considered neither 'good' nor 'bad') will almost inevitably cause suffering to the child - suffering which may not even be simply because of the action itself, but due to net result of the action plus their existence within that social system.
I think this means that 'evil' exists
because 'good' exists, and probably vice versa. I would argue that, upon the emergence of human 'civilisation', the capacity for humans to create 'good' through their conscious actions, as a result of the intersection of their actions with the social system they were acting within, was necessarily accompanied by their capacity to create 'evil'.
I really like these points:
there is an evil in the nonapplication of particular "goods", and then there is another evil in the badness that takes some effort to create.
an analogy is to a driver and an animal on the road.
a- in the first instance the driver would run over the animal if they do not swerve out of the way;
b- the second involves the driver swerving in the attempt to run over an animal they would not have had they stayed on their original course.
what lightens the load of consciousness is doing good things, without conscious effort.
Sorry for the rather long post, I just saw so many ideas and thoughts that resonated with me or got me thinking!