Civilization is a construct.

Good and bad are not some cosmic conflict between righteousness and evil, but the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. Even bacteria get it. When good is assumed to be aspirational, rather than elemental, conflicts do become a race to the bottom, as all the evolved complexity, subjectivity and nuance are suspect.

A spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.

Life is emergent, not ordained.

Flowers, bending toward the sun.