We Americans just love our evil. We not only demonize our criminals, but we relish doing it. It permeates our society. Our literature and movies are rich in evil protagonists, and we buy innumerable guns to protect ourselves against bogeymen of all sorts — even as we have a voyeuristic fascination with them.

The concept of evil permeates also our institutions. We codify it in our criminal judicial system, and we have the highest incarceration rate of any Western industrial society to show for it. Not satisfied only to elect politicians who champion the death penalty for violent offenders, we use a punitive approach even for nonviolent crimes as well — all under the banner of justice.

But just what exactly is evil?

Suppose you are entrusted with the monumental task of formulating a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prospects of peace in the region rest wholly on your shoulders. Where would you begin? What would you set about first to do?

In an undertaking of such magnitude, and humbled by the failed attempts of peacemakers who have gone before, you doubtless would set about to study the history of region. You would study the land and its people and educate yourself on their prevailing politics, religions, values, rituals, customs, and social mores. You would thoroughly acquaint yourself with the parties to the conflict and the unique problems and needs of the groups they represent.

Absent this, absent a careful examination of the root causes of a conflict, your efforts would be doomed to fail before they begin. Right?

Actually, no.

Today I find myself thinking of all the division in the world. We humans have an inexhaustible capacity to focus on what separates us rather than on what brings us together. Whether it's over religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, or any of the innumerable other ways we classify each other, this feature of human nature breeds only fear, suspicion, discord, conflict, and war.

It's not that I would want to whitewash our differences. To the contrary, I actually see them as a source of richness. But even after many millennia, the echoes of our distant anthropology still by and large lead us to see our differences as a threat.

How can we can overcome this at long last?

When I raise this question with others, invariably they cite a particular belief system which they hold as right and true, a path we all would do well to follow. It's a sad irony that the very thing which gives rise to separation among people is what we prescribe most often as its solution.

After so many years of searching for the "right path," I have come to see the choice of a belief system itself as the problem — that is to say, any belief system.

Most of us tend to think of political parties in terms of their positions on issues of the day. For instance, if we hear talk of cutting taxes, reducing the size and role of government, strengthening the military, and relying on private enterprise, we identify that with today's Republicans and the political right-wing. And this is generally where our analysis stops. Seldom if ever do we pause to consider that a collection of ad hoc positions is not an end in itself but rather a means to an end.

But to what end do the Republicans want to cut taxes, reduce government, and strengthen the military? Just what is their mission?

The sentiment embodied in what we in the West know as the "Golden Rule" has appeared in many cultures over the millennia, long before the time of the Torah. Today even agnostics and atheists extol it for its wisdom and seek to use it as a moral guide for their lives.

But what exactly does it mean?

As my once hailed Baby Boomer generation comes to grips with the heretofore unthinkable prospect of retirement, what better time to reflect on its legacy for American society and the world at large. Unfortunately, as I revisit the last several decades and examine them for influences of my fellow Boomers, I cannot but conclude that we are the most morally bankrupt and spiritually depraved generation in a century. We are materialistic, narcissistic, and self-absorbed.