To culture good and bad are some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, while in nature it's the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken.

This is because society has to function as a larger organism, especially in times of stress. Otherwise the social immune response kicks in and anyone deviating from the narrative has to be eliminated. Safety in numbers.

The problem is that while our social instincts are primordial, our weapons are all too modern and there is no longer quite the safety in numbers.

For those creatures who live as individuals, it is more safety in awareness. To be alert to every noise and movement and evaluate them accordingly.

All the nuance, subjectivity and complexity has to be evaluated, not just reduced to black and white.

Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The light shining through the film, rather than the images on it.

It is just that father figure lawgiver is a useful narrative construct for a constantly regenerating population. Basically stories for children.

Though assuming ideals as absolute tends to empower the most close minded and fanatical, while confusing the open minded. So power tends to congeal into the most hard and rigid structures.

Which is manageable when weapons can only kill one person at a time.

When it's millions of people, it's not so much culture, politics, or personalities, as it is biology and physics.

The bull is power.

The matador is art.