Draw your own conclusions.
]]>I think it comes down to opportunity. There are so many more opportunities in life to do bad or neutral acts than to do good acts. You have to step out of the monotony of preservation and advancement usually to do something positive. Truly good acts usually have a cost and only emotional (or vaguely status related) rewards.
If someone in front of me falls while racing to the front of a line: pushing them is negative, ignoring them is neutral, and helping them is positive. The only reward of the positive is a possibly disgruntled thanks. For many people, and in some religions, choosing the neutral, as most of us do in day to day situations, is linked with the negative. Ignoring the good you could do, is just as bad as choosing the negative option.
Even ignoring the neutral option, it’s much more difficult to do good. How many people can you name who have done truly amazingly good things at the same level of the sociopaths and insane dictators out there? People who have been the direct cause of saving millions of lives. People who have renewed the lives of hundreds, and drastically turned around their situations for the better. They are definitely out there! And more power to them! But it’s such a hard thing. It takes so much effort, and time, and courage, and money, and skill, and luck, and correct circumstances. While jails and history books are full of the other extreme–anyone with brains, a hatchet, and a truly rotten heart can do immense evil.
]]>I think humanity is basically good, and the support for Haiti etc shows that.
But I think it is still self-preserving and always open to negative possibilites.
Changing the circumstances a bit, as in history when charismatic dictators have persuaded the masses to do evil; or when the individual is given the corrupting influence of power such as in the Stanford prison experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
I think humans are like (other?) animals, and adapt to their situations. A good loving dog in its home might turn bad if removed to a bad home, or into a killer if it finds itself lost and starving.
]]>So, I think the focus needs to be shifted a little bit. It’s not that we are generally good with a small percentage bad, look to my first comment, we do things to preserve ourselves. To go around punching people would result in a higher likelihood of death, or at least pain.
Just because we do not act in a bad or good way would not mean we can be described by the word opposite our actions.
Basically, like I said before, it all comes back to preserving and advancing ourselves. Good or bad can not be described to a collective, in my opinion, because it is a subjective description, a majority % of bad acts or good acts still would not prove our race to be good or bad. First off, there is no way to judge acts, outside of our own world, and because you would have to follow every human being for every minute of their day.
Good or bad can not be used to describe a collective people because we all adhere to different societies, cultures, religions, beliefs, histories, circumstances, etc.
As individuals we can be broken down, but again, only in a subjective matter.
That’s just my two cents.
]]>When you put it in that sense, it causes me to hearken back to the idea that was expressed so magnanimously, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The golden rule.
We have just expressed it and explained in a more critical and analytical sense.
Thanks Ian. Great points.
Jared
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]]>In the second chapter, I feel he makes the best point in this topic. To summarize, in essence, he says,
Humans are neither good, nor evil, by nature. We are not inclined to be good or bad, because those actions are perceived internally by others, based on what happens externally.
Instead, he claims, that humans simply are. Meaning, we act out of self-preservation, self-advancement, self-gratification, self-defense, etc.
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What I get from this is this: To describe humanity as either bad or good is, like Ian said, more a statement about me, then about people. We cannot describe the collective in these terms, sure we can describe individuals, but not a collective people. We all exist for ourselves, and our progeny, which are a reflection of ourselves, in my opinion.
Now, you might say, “WHAT?! I don’t do these volunteer trips just to make myself feel good!” I being someone who is working to go on a volunteer trip to Haiti in March, who is getting an education in a field where I will be helping people in global poverty situations, and having a past in helping people, might agree with you, before I really I looked at the situation.
Get past all the negative connotations, get past the idea that it’s BAD to work for yourself. When you got back and you told people about what you did, and they are impressed and throw compliments your way, doesn’t it make you feel good?
When you are actively helping someone, and they smile and say thank you, doesn’t it feel good?
Please do not think I’m insulting myself, or anyone who partakes similarly. I’m just making a case.
You might say, what about mothers and fathers and the work they do for their children. Aren’t those kids a representation of their parents, even adopted ones? Do they not represent their upbringing. I digress, and I am generalizing even more now.
The simple point stands though, we work for ourselves, in all that we do. It is not some evilly selfish inclination, it is human nature. Some take it to a further extent than others, some use it as rationalization to commit evil acts and others are impacted by the emotions. Regardless of what you are doing, even self-mutilation, it is out of some deep and basic instinct in humans to help ourselves advance.
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