[OT] What is WRONG with people?

[I'm A Banana]

Yar.

About Bad and Good....I've never met anyone who would describe themselves as "the bad guy," and literally mean it. I mean, even Rebel Chic is done with good intent, and the belief that what you're rebelling against is inherently wrong.

Everybody persues the best life they can for themselves and those they love. This is, as far as I can tell, the only thing that is truly universally good.

A powerful king takes people from his kingdom and sacrifices them to deities who demand it. Evil? Hey, it keeps the world ticking one more day...

Of course, those dudes at the gas-n-gulp didn't seem to really *have* to do what they did. But perhaps they, themselves were venting after they were given crappy directions by a well-meaning gas-station clerk themselves....or...well, it's kinda hard to think of things that would justify it...

It's just that, too often, we take the Disney version of reality. There are Good Guys and there are Bad Guys...only problem is, everyone's a Good Guy. Even the Bad Guys are just roguish Han Solo types, or at least that's how they think of themselves.

Reality is much more complex. Whenever somebody does something that seems, to me, to be unequivicolly wicked, I always want to ask them: "why?"

Usually, it's a lot more constructive targeting the cause of the malicious act, rather than the malicious act itself.

And me, not being a Buddhist, have no compunctions about seeming preachy.

There are jerks. But jerkiness does not exist in a vaccuum. Don't hate the jerk. They're just doing what they think is best for themselves and those they love -- the human insctinc. Hate the reason they are a jerk, which often relates far enough back to some truly wicked act that defies sanity or basic human instinctual morality.

Not always....some people are jerks for rather trivial reasons. But then, work to improve them. They're obviously not born-and-bred bad guys. They didn't shoot red lazers from birth.

 

[Humanophile]

Your problem now is you're talking all theory. When you have people sitting back, in a good mood, and able to talk in a semi-detached way about this, then yes they'll want what's "good" by their moral systems, which can at least be explained to your average sane person. (Agreed with may be a whole other kettle of fish, but you can see where even, say, a klansman is coming from and think "If I were raised in that small-minded and angry a setting, I might think like that too".)

However, that's all in theory. Somewhere way back in the mists of time, someone lost something valued "unfairly" in a no-fault setting, or maybe someone realized that they stood to gain something by stabbing someone else in the back. Ever since then, you've had opportunistic jerks who think that other people don't matter in the pursuit of what they want, and you have a lot more people who feel powerless for one reason or another and like to feel powerful in any way they can. And it's an unfortunate fact that the best and easiest way to feel power over someone is to screw them over.

(It's unimportant to this discussion, but I've found that no means of "filling the power hole" ever works. Hedonism, crime, or just being an , all of them leave the person always coming back for more. But that's all IME.)

So while I guess you could say that there are no good or bad people, just good or bad actions, I think that if a person does bad often enough, you can bet that they'll do bad again if given the chance. And I don't feel like dodgy semantics enough to always say "people who have tended towards being bad most of the time I've seen/heard of them, so I'll assume they keep doing bad and will do so given the opportunity until I see otherwise". Most of them deserve t obe called simply "bad people" anyways.

 

[firstborne]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Karma

Originally posted by Pillars of Hercules

You're 100% right - the attitude that says "anarchy and chaos rock" and "I'll do whatever I feel like 'cause I'm bad" have run amok.

The problem with this consumer anarchy is that it's practitioners are not responsible anarchists. It is a common conceit that with freedom comes responsibility; anarchy, being the ultimate freedom, thus comes with the ultimate responsibility. A true anarchist takes responsibility for all of his actions. Too many of these people do not understand that anarchy is a philosoph. Instead they pick it up at the mall with mom and dad's credit card.

 

[stnu]

No sure if anyone covered this.

Did anyone ever kind-of reward those who did good?

Be more courtious to that fella who just helped the old lady.
Walk up and say "good work" to that kid that just helped a complete stranger. etc

 

[Pangias]

waouw....guys.
I truly believe in Karma. I m a lucky guy, and i meet mostly nice people (maybe something like 90%) Sometime i met people that are rude or mean, and when it happened i say "get away from me". When someone need help i always try to be helpful.

And i swear there is a reward for that. As a christian i thanks god to be born in France a place where it is great to live ( as America or all the european country) and i never "whine" in a church.

I try to be honest and help people and most of the people i met and i make friends with are like that.

Some times i m an ***hole. 2 nights ago, i was going to my car and i met a tramp (someone without a home...i just want to be sure) he asked me a coin, and i had no coin in my pocket and to avoid annoyance i walked straight ignoring him. And he was still polite. I felt truly guilty, and i still feeling guilty. So think about it guy, sometimes you don't mean to be rude, or you are in a mood where you are rude. So forgive people who are rude and try to make theim change and the world will be better. But don't blame theim without giving theim a chance.

 

[WizarDru]

I also see day care as creating mob mentiality, where you have an alpha and then a pack. They look for weakness and follow.

Ummm....what? I'm guessing you don't have kids, right? Either way, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on how children attending day care breeds a 'pack mentality'. Basic human nature asserts itself in any society and any environment. You don't need daycare or school to ostracize others, and last time I checked, daycare certainly didn't encourage such behavior.

 

[Wicht]

Everybody persues the best life they can for themselves and those they love. This is, as far as I can tell, the only thing that is truly universally good.

I have to disagree. Pursuing the best life for oneself and pursuing the best life for those you love are not always the same thing. (Nor is it the only universal good thing.) Too many people in the pursuit of self justify hurting or neglecting those around them. And not enough people are willing to sacrifice self to help those around them.

A powerful king takes people from his kingdom and sacrifices them to deities who demand it. Evil? Hey, it keeps the world ticking one more day...

No, he just thinks it keeps the world ticking one more day. Reality is not what we make it to be. Reality is the way things really are. His actions are still evil. Human sacrifice is an appalling religious practice and can not be justified by an appeal to the warped view of the world held by those who do it.

It's just that, too often, we take the Disney version of reality. There are Good Guys and there are Bad Guys...only problem is, everyone's a Good Guy. Even the Bad Guys are just roguish Han Solo types, or at least that's how they think of themselves.

Reality is much more complex. Whenever somebody does something that seems, to me, to be unequivicolly wicked, I always want to ask them: "why?"

Okay, here is the problem with that. Some of us believe in an absolute morality. Some things are always wrong and some things are always right. From such a worldview, it does not matter whether a person describes themselves as good or bad it matters what they do. Hitler was an evil man. It does not matter what he thought about himself. It does not matter why he did what he did. It does not matter how many people try and justify what he did, the actions of Hitler and his followers were evil. Period. There are those who advocate having sex with minors, with or without consent and despite their faith in what they do, I find such people evil. Men who beat their wives, regardless of what they were raised to believe, are bad men. Serial murderer's, despite the fact they were often abused as children are still being wicked. No amount of self worth makes an evil act good.

You can ask yourself why someone was wicked and the answer may be enlightening but that does not make the person less wicked. A man has a bad day at work and so he takes a sawed off shotgun and kills his boss. You may discover that he had deep seated emotional problems stemming from an abusive mother and a poor hair day but he still did something wicked. Reality is not all that complex. Motivations might be complex but the end result, the final actions of a person regardless of motivations are normally easily judged as being good or bad by most rational people.

Usually, it's a lot more constructive targeting the cause of the malicious act, rather than the malicious act itself.

This sounds good in theory but unless you can time travel you can not target the cause of a person's actions. You can help them cope better perhaps and a good therapist and/or someone who wants to improve, can often work to overcome all sorts of tragic events. But the myriads of people who have gone through abuse, gone through tragedy, dealt with horrendous enviroments and come through it all as normal, sane people, stronger and more able to cope give lie to those who say that they are forced by their past or their environment to do evil to others. And those who refuse to cope or who refuse to change can not be allowed free reign to do as they will by a society that wants to keep a modicum of safety. You may know a child abuser has a bad history as a child themselves but that does not mean that you are going to let them around children. You have to target the actions of people when their actions are harmful to others. The best way to break a cycle of abuse, sadly, is to remove an abuser.

To sum up - good guys are not those who claimt hey are good guys, they are those who do good. Bad guys are those that do bad.

 

[olethros]

There was another case of a group of nurses, all female, showing up in Employee Health each with a mysterious and painful "rash" on their butt. It wasn't a rash. It was chemical burn. The toilet had been clogged and when the maintenance worker had unclogged it (using Glug) he/she didn't wipe the seat off!

Hah! I'm a graduate student in Chemistry at a large University. This reminds me of a story about one research group that kept getting small chemical burns on their hands.

It turns out that one of the graduate students, after working with irritating chemicals, would forget to take off his latex safety gloves and just walk around the department...all the while opening doors and such and depositing said chemicals on doorknobs and such.

he somehow always remembered to take off the gloves when he went to the bathroom, though....

 

[Wicht]

Ummm....what? I'm guessing you don't have kids, right? Either way, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on how children attending day care breeds a 'pack mentality'. Basic human nature asserts itself in any society and any environment. You don't need daycare or school to ostracize others, and last time I checked, daycare certainly didn't encourage such behavior.

I don't know if I would call it a pack mentality but I do think the public school system tends to breed a certain "peer" mentality in which children try to identify themselves mainly with others of their own age and seek approval from that "peer group". One of the things that is being discovered about those who have been homeschooled is that they do not, at the end of the day have the same generational gap problems that public school children do. Homeschooled children are more likely to get along better with their parents and with others outside of their own theoritical peer group and are less likely to feel the need to win their "peer's" approval. We can debate the reasons for this and the advantages/disadvantages but nevertheless it does seem to hold true that the school system shapes, in part, a persons world view and behavior towards others.

 

[R.X.DIEM]

I don't know if I would call it a pack mentality but I do think the public school system tends to breed a certain "peer" mentality in which children try to identify themselves mainly with others of their own age and seek approval from that "peer group". One of the things that is being discovered about those who have been homeschooled is that they do not, at the end of the day have the same generational gap problems that public school children do. Homeschooled children are more likely to get along better with their parents and with others outside of their own theoritical peer group and are less likely to feel the need to win their "peer's" approval. We can debate the reasons for this and the advantages/disadvantages but nevertheless it does seem to hold true that the school system shapes, in part, a persons world view and behavior towards others.

I would have to agree! My wife and many of our friends are Teachers. I have the utmost respect for them and the proffesion. But I do have certain concerns about my childeren going to certain schools. In my Neighborhood there are two boys(12 & 14 yrs) that are home schooled. They are outstanding kids , smart, polite and interesting. The down side to this (sadly) the other kids in our neighborhood don't socialize with them. The boys aren't pompus or geeky. They are very confident and smart. I believe they have an edge on the their futures