What are your Political views?
Im guessing no-one is hardcore conservative but ive met many mohawk wearers who I would say were quite conservative..........
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Permalink Reply by Sonic Architect on
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To say their are psychos out there is to deny the patterns that make them which you do mention but I do not think you made the connection: greed. In our society we are instilled with such vicious competition that is a taught "nature" not an inherited trait. This loyalty to such competition and the yay for me but fuck you attitude that permeates our world then puts everything material ahead of emotional needs which creates much of the psych conditions today. Even mental health is a commodity to be bought and maintained by a horrible system which constantly turns people against each other and having them undermine each other with blame games and false senses of superiority.
If man (man being all humankind) were so inherently evil and fiercely competitive, we never would have survived the millions of years we did before "civilization"
So I disagree fundamentally that humans are by nature evil and I think time certainly backs this up. All the horrible shit that happens in our world today stems more from a very broken and terminal system and covers it up with such bullshit as human nature that says and enforces their doctrine that they are protecting us from ourselves.
It is a very deep discussion and obviously it has a lot of connections but if you really step back and start thinking of how people treat each other today and relate it to how we are brought up, taught, and indoctrinated into a world that thrives on such ruthless competition for everything.
I would say more on this but I am very limited on time and need to set up to do a table in my town.
pe(A)ce
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Permalink Reply by Josh on
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Yes perhaps "psychos" was a loaded term and admittedly incorrect but what I meant to say was is that there are those who are still going to do evil irregardless of the laws and values of a society...
Despite the argument about power and competition in society (which you made good points and is mostly correct) you failed to acknowledge that even in the tribal stage predating civilization, people used their knowledge and technology for personal gain... the attitude of yay for me and to hell with everyone else has always existed...its is now that America has entered (what my sociology book likes to call) the age of mass consumption that it can no longer be ignored and is being shoved down our throats constantly... trust me i agree with you about society i'm not arguing that, i only meant to say that no human is born with a developed conscience and is thus prone to evil without remorse. it isnt until they experience retribution for an action or learn morality that they learn what it "right and wrong" within a society...
What about the question of murder? It is an age old problem predating civilization; ever since the dawn of time people have killed to gain something or purely because they didnt like someone... certainly in the days in prehistory there were certain laws and regulations (undocumented of course because its prehistory) that prevented those from killing eachother? i'm going to go on a limb and say that there were such things because people who bash people over the heads with rocks make me uneasy too.
I think the majority of people are misunderstanding my posts lol
Its easy to blame it on society and government which admittedly makes it worse (look at crime rates now with the failing economy)... In our American dreamworld of instant gratification we sell our souls and buy things with money we dont have.
What I am saying is while intentions are good at times (such as a child innocently stealing a candy bar from a supermarket) in their early stages (predating the conscience) people are prone to commit evil over good because good is not inherent but must be learned. Yes while the mom may slap the kid on the wrist and make him give it back, no matter how innocent his intentions he now finally "knows better". No person in this world is born knowing that stealing, raping, and murdering is wrong; it is by the current laws and regulations of society (which admittedly can be pathetic) that determines what is "tolerable" (right is a matter of perspective) and something that isn't and deserving of punishment.
According to Hammurabi's code in ancient Babylon, it was fitting for them to cut off the hand of a thief or to kill a murderer (an eye for an eye) Today however we would say that we have gone beyond that and that such actions are "immoral" and unbeffitting of our society today...
What does this have to do with the issue? A society's morals and values change over time so inherently the finer points of "right and wrong" also change with the society.
I dont know if you read my very first post on this but i do agree that society corrupts... while a society dictates what is "right and wrong" there are other elements at work that can make one do evil actions with good intentions, like social stratification... for example the poor are placed at times under insurrmountable odds in order to keep them from advancing in society. Karl Marx based his conflict theory off of this (the bourgeoisie vs the proletariat) Is this fair? HELL NO its not but its what the poor do after that plays into the argument. It seems that they can suffer under these unfair conditions or they can find a way to rise above it beit legal or illegal... which is why more poor people than rich people are convicted of the crimes they commit because in this society money=productivity which inherently makes you a better person... i dont agree with it i think its immoral but to american society today has become tolerable. its sad.
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Btw I am impressed with the maturity the people here have... this is the first place i have found that people can talk about stuff like this without sounding like children or calling someone a motherf@cker instead of civilly discussing differences... i cant even do that in a classroom at the most liberal college in my state lol some athiest referred to my God as something just as ficticious as a "Flying Spaghetti Monster" hey i understand if you're athiest, i'm not one of those Christians that hits people with Bibles or judges or hates people (thats why i stopped going to church) but he didnt have to say something THAT absurd and show off his own stupidity...
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Permalink Reply by Bob on
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For many money=productivity, but many are beginning to realize it is not always the case. Don't get me wrong, money is needed to maintain even a basic lifestyle. Many, however, are realizing that personal satisfaction and accomplishment are important values as well.
And yes, unfortunately, those with money can literally get away with murder (look at OJ).
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hey...I am a bit limited on time again but I am certainly interested in pursuing this discussion. Of course in a civil matter =) As I said, it is a huge and deep issue and cannot be discussed in 5 minutes =p
To start, I did read your first post yes.
The topic of uncivilized history is really one that no person or book can really clarrify with facts. Sooooo much time came before the books and what I mean is that if people are inherently evil to the point that it is so vicious, our species never would have survived. Any text on the subject however, on either side will be skewed by the writers belief.
But on the same note, to say that humans have an evil nature is to understand and not deny that there cannot be only one. There can exist only evil with good and as humans have evolved over millennium the argument of what separates us from the animals is the trait of reason and conscious. So to say that humans have the power of reason, and then also say we are animals is in my opinion contradictory.
People do horrible things yes. Some form the get go due to upbringings or some genetic marker but it must be documented too the rise of such markers or diseases in human populations with the rise of the population and also the time to evolve them. (This is another topic for later of environment vs. genetics in the role of mental illness or violence)
But an overwhelming majority of people who do something bad, no matter if it is turning a back to a friend, or fucking over a co-worker for a promotion, at first you feel horrible. To watch somebody suffer because of a lie you told eats you up. The choice then remains yours of whether you let it eat you up, and possibly change your ways and say you will not due it again. Or you ignore it, keep doing things like that and eventually become desensitized to the feelings and initiated into that mentality of self before community.
Of course too, it is all subjective...the experiences we share are all unique as are our genetic make ups, tolerance of pains, and breaking points. I have been through horrible things in my life including sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse and while I ended up having a lot of psych problems in early 20's, there are people who would have went through all this, there are people who go through worse and come out upstanding and largely without any baggage. There are also those who take far less and get far more fucked up.
But still in it all, we have the choice of whether to redeem ourselves, make ourselves better, or turn a blind eye to the injustices we do and get desensitized to them over time.
more later perhaps =) Must run now.
pe(A)ce
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all i am trying to say in all of this is that i believe that humans are BORN with a tendency to do evil without remorse (because they have none, their minds arent mature enough) but later even out because they learn morality... thats all. NOT that they are ALWAYS naturally evil.
I pretty much agree with all that you just said; but the central argument i was trying to make is that humans do not ENTER this world with a preconcieved notion of right or wrong but rather they learn it then have the ability to choose... i'm sorry if any of my other ramblings confused anyone as now that i go back and read it, weren't really connected to my argument but more or less me trying to expound upon yours lol i got off track i'm sorry
As i am sure you agree there are just some that no matter what will do what serves their best interests right or wrong (as you said those who become desensitized to the suffering of others)... As you have argued before our modern american society with is consumerism and competition only ENHANCES this in those people.
As for the topic of mental illness and health, i will not deny that the experiences have the tendencies to shape the psyche of people later in life... it is my belief that unless one is BORN with a mental illness e.x. Down's Syndrome etc. people's minds only operate on instant gratification (which can sometimes be construed by a society as "evil") until they reach an "age of accountability" and for those with said mental illnesses reach that age later in life... basically what i am discussing is when do people lose their inherent "innocent evilness" (because we would say that they don't know any better) and reach that age of accountability to where they "know better" than to do such things...
I apologize that you endured such things in your life, and you are a better person for overcoming such things, i think anyone who does that is a much better person. But what i think you are trying to say is that when people mature past that "age of accountability" the conscience becomes relative based on their learning experiences and overall sensitivity/desensitivity to the suffering of others as a result of their actions.
I am not really sure where i stand in the issue of environment vs. genetics but i believe that you would have to add another variable, cognitive process. I am currently a psychology major (i'm not trying to brag just trying to get anyone who actually reads this to understand where i am coming from lol) and i tend to lean more towards the cogitive school of thought. Studying environments and behaviour is all well and good but i believe that there is more to it than just people mindlessly taking hints from their surroundings... as for genetics, i'm really not too sure what to say about that, i'm not completely sure that traits are necessarily completely genetic. like i dont think that if my dad was a murderer that i would be more prone to kill someone for example, thats where i think that cognitive thought would come into play. people invent in their minds a preconceived notion on how to handle situations based on who they think they are. like for example an anorexic person has developed the thought process that eating is bad or the results of eating is bad, so the best way to cure it is not through modeling (a behaviourist "cure") but rather by changing how someone thinks about what she/he perceives to be bad...
Once again good discussion! looking forward to more
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hey there...I have a lot more time to make points a bit better so I will do so now that I don't have to rush =)
Haha Segadoway...you will loooove this post length =p
Your point is one I got despite mine not necessarily being argued or put out in a way to be understood so I will try to expand it a bit now that I have time. Lets first start by me saying, I largely do not believe in absolutes and understand that every person will have different reactions/not fit the typical "mold" for lack of a better word at this moment. So if I say "people are born good" or something, it implies that it is not a constant, but at least a majority. So with that I will proceed.....
Firstly, if people are born with an inherent inclination to cause harm, even if that is the dominant trait in that person, they also have the capacity for goodness. But in your statements you somewhat contradict yourself by saying first "i believe that humans are BORN with a tendency to do evil without remorse" and then in the next paragraph state "...humans do not ENTER this world with a preconceived notion of right or wrong but rather they learn it then have the ability to choose"
This implies that social/environmental aspects play a much larger role than so-called human nature. To say people "choose" to do right vs. wrong in the sense of starting down that path, I think requires to look at our current situation and really wonder if we have a choice? Ultimately, since the day we are born we are initiated into roles which have been constructed for us by so many external forces...from things such as gender roles when the parents learn if it is boy or girl and on and on through life. Then we must ask who is really raising our newborns? Largely, it is not parents anymore because as society speeds along, we have been brainwashed into being too busy and too resentful. Watch around you to how many parents deal with a screaming child in a store for instance, do they ignore it with a look of contempt? Or does the parent take the time to hoist the child up, caress it, talk to it, comfort it. This is an extremely telling tale. It has been an accepted fact of life largely in our society that women have the biological clock and by the age of 25 or so usually have at least one child. At the age of 25 what have most people done? Gone from pre-school, to school, from high school to college, working jobs all the while and all you have learned is a whitewashed version of reality that promotes this vicious competition and is preparing you for it.
So now at that point, what choice do you really have? Quit your job or school to live? But can you really? Most cannot because they believe you need money to survive and be happy. You need to fit into the mold, the "mainstream" the accepted roles and if you step out of that, you are frowned upon by peers, and often times your own friends and family.
I am going to take your points a bit out of order and connect them later =) I am going to jump ahead to the mention of instant gratification and self-interest and come back to my thoughts on how there will always be troubled people.
Instant gratification is indeed something we as a society promote at what I would say a pandemic level. So few people will go out of their to do something for others, let alone strangers with no reciprocation but again, this is instilled in us. Mental illness for example..depression, schizophrenia etc. to obesity and other "problems"...what is the solution? Pills. Miracle instant cures. Very few therapists and doctors advocate for addressing the root causes of these things and treat the symptoms. The pharmaceutical companies make an extreme amount of money and have plenty of lobbyists in the governments to fuel this cycle.
Other things like fast food for instance....no wait, people do not have to cook themselves so what happens? A few things actually...people end up further disconnected rather than closer (families for instance) people are fed food that is sub-par and not healthy, factory farms erode the o-zone, treat animals to obscenely horrible conditions, pay farmers below minimum wage for veggies, cut costs at all corners and rake in the profit under the promotion of convenience Convenience has become one of the cancers of our society. Everything is done under the guise of convenience...wal-mart and one stop shopping centers that put out farmers and independent markets because WM has everything you need in one spot and is cheaper due to its politics. Email and IM has taken over rather than calling people and communicating verbally and with emotion because who wants to remember and dial those pesky numbers? Rather than type out *laughing* we put LOL and on and on and on.
So we establish that convenience is the way. Race to the bottom for labor prices and reach for the sky with inflation. Taking that you get the extreme forms of this which are degenerate. People who deal drugs for instance, no different than a wall street broken or politician but they are hated because they did it independently and cut out the tax system. And whats the difference really? The dealer sells dope to junkies who are broken, destitute, and trying to escape and the Doctor doles out endless prescriptions for patients who are broken, destitute, and tryign to escape. But we say one is acceptable and one is not. And I by no mean condone drug dealing, or support those doing it. I am just pointing out that it is no less exploitative of people than fast food or pharmaceutical companies making countless dollars on peoples addictions to various things including convenience.
It is much more convenient to not do the extremely hard work on ourselves. It is much easier to buy in, become apathetic, follow the "norm" and not stand against it in any way. Our self-reliance has systematically been eroded over time and then people are turned against each other with every excuse from human nature or blatant and precise blame games.
Yes instant self gratification is what we do because it is convenient and because of that it keeps us from ever addressing the root causes of our problems which is not human nature, but vicious competition instilled since birth by a patriarchal white capitalist system. Those that stand on the periphery and say such things like human nature, its pointless to change it, etc usually have the most to "lose" which in all honesty, is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Money is shit. It is not happiness, it is not being complete, it is a cancer that takes you over because you will never have enough and that is how it is fueled.
This shit stretches much much deeper than simple things like this and most people do not know it because most do not live under it but in it. College kids might question a bit but how many would drop out, throw away their privilege to stand in solidarity with the poor who live in squalor because of their privilege.
Will there always be "bad seeds" maybe so, especially in the short term if a complete social revolution happened where we valued human emotion over material wealth. People do not know how to be self sufficient, people are afraid of attachment, afraid of bearing their weaknesses to anybody, afraid of showing emotion. How many males do you know that will openly admit to crying to anybody? How many females do you know who will openly say they were raped if they were? Do you know why they don't? Because it is always the victims fault in our society. The first thing many are told when they do something wrong is "Why did you do that?" and go on to point out why it happened to them instead of comforting them.
So maybe there will be bad seeds but if communities and people raise children from birth, all the way through, with the child's emotional interests invested in rather than seeing them as a cog in the machine later and letting the TV or internet raise them, a lot of these horrible sociopath tendencies would disappear perhaps. And if people do pose some form of threat still there are ways of dealing with it that are much more humane and mutually healthy and beneficial for both the person showing such tendencies, and the community. Our current solution is severe them from the community and hide them away as an abomination rather than understanding that they are still human. Every single person can teach us something, form the innocent child o the ruthless murderer...even if it is just self reflection on how we are complicit in creating these problems and seeing to it we don't become that. But that stems back to materialism...if nothing is given in a physical, material way then it is not worth it which is why people are murdered by the state in the death penalty, they gain a lot of money and people label that person a monster with absolutely no redeeming value.
In a better society, even with the best support systems if it happens that people are broken from birth and cannot be corrected, they can still be a valued part of the world, loved, learned from, and not locked away and forgotten like the garbage people produce.
Sure things may arise like fights or conflicts but when a community has its self-reliance to defend and upkeep, people will not be so afraid of being honest at the moment it arises rather than letting it bubble up to the point where it becomes so out of control. Even things like gun violence or frat boy fist fights stem from that instant gratification idea we have discussed...to much work to find out the points we see eye to eye on and simply write the person off as an enemy, expendable, and to made an example of...much like how our worlds armies wage wars against faceless enemies that are not people but the epitome of all that is evil. All comes back to taught behavior by a ruthless system that thrives on constant exploitation of those under it.
A utopia will never happen but a much better world where peoples needs are met, we can all be honest with each other without fear and worry of what people will think, and where our emotional needs are a priority as are our individual goals and dreams (which will be our own as compared to a corporations or governments) and we can work toward that now by changing ourselves internally and rejecting such cop outs as nature.
Besides, what do we really have to lose in trying? The current systems have failed miserably and speed us toward ecological catastrophe while millions of people die, starve, are homeless, or otherwise victimized to satiate an uncontrollable hunger for power and wealth by an extreme minority.
few more things to touch now...when do people lose "innocent evilness" it is subjective to the person. Some may never, some lose it very simply, some after a logn fight but then just wanting to give in because nothing else seems better
I do nto believe the conscious necessarily comes to mirror what has happened to the individual. It is a factor yes and I think that the community and support systems are just as big, if not bigger factor. I was lucky. In my situation I had some support systems, however bad at the time. I had a wife, a father and mother and brother and a couple of friends. A therapist. They all had their severe flaws and most largely had no idea what I went through or was going through in my episodes, but it was something. I sought anythign I could to NOT become that monster and believe there were times I almost did. I was violent, out of control, hurtful and emotionally abusive towards people....but I refused to let go and tried to stay grounded by any means I could...music, creating things, writing, cutting myself up, anything that would help me through another minute until the time came when I could be strong enough to fight back much harder against it and break those routines of self destruction.
But a lot of people do not have any system. Most people turn the blind eye and do not care, and many people literally have nobody or nothing in their eyes and that is the scary place to be that grows this hopelessness, the need for retribution perhaps, or getting drowned in things like junk or booze and committing some horrible act. This does not just happen at the age of reason, it can happen at any age. There are children who feel that and you can see it in their eyes. Their are pre teens, young adults, and 20 somethings that feel it. It can come at anytime because nothing is constant. A persons life can unravel in an instant despite the naivety of us who think it cannot. And if you have seemingly nothing, what are you to do? To say simply pick it up and move on is ignorant and refuses to acknowledge that the person is unique and is affected differently from everyone else.
So....in this novel I just wrote I think I got all the stuff out I wanted to and a ton more haha. It is an interesting discussion and I enjoy it for sure =)
As for being sorry for what I endured, you do not have to be personally sorry. You did not commit those acts upon me. What needs to be asked by yourself though is if you knew somebody who was enduring them, what would your role be in it? Would you turn your back at the beginning, would you say you are there for the person, grow frustrated after an amount of time and disappear, or stick it out as long as it took through those really bleak times, even if it took a decade?
The scary thing is how fast people fade away who say they are there for the person and all I can urge is for people to stand by their friends and not be too busy or anything else like that.
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in answer to your personal question, i only suffer from minor mental disorders such as depression and anxiety i have never had to endure such abuse as yours and i havent had any friends who have such as that... i did have a friend however who was a huge cocaine addict (an eight ball a day) and had some warrants out for his arrest. i knew this guy since 4th grade so i was a friend to him even during his drug days and i hated seeing him go through it but it took another one of his friends kicking the shit out of him to get him to wake up, as for his warrants i straight up gave him the cash to get out of it and me and him have been closer than ever we can usually always count on eachother to get the other out of shit lol i got other friends who are the self loathing type, one chick cuts herself and my heart goes out to her because i myself have been there and no one gave a shit, so i know how it feels to need someone. thats why i have decided to devote my life to psychiatric study. i really want to specialize in adolescents and substance abuse counseling... i hear what modern day psychiatrists do to people and i really dont approve of it. i have a friend named megan who was placed on the most expensive medicine her doctor could give her purely because he wanted the extra cash and the drugs made her feel like shit/borderline bulimic...
as for me my family doesnt approve of my choice in career path because they see psychiatry as a "pseudoscience" but lately they've been nicer to me because i'm gone all the time. i've lost most of my friends lately because they wouldnt do for me just what you've described... i have fucking DEPRESSION, my parents wont let me see a psychiatrist (again, a pseudoscience and i am on their insurance) don't shut me out because i'm having a bad day, maybe i just need someone to talk to just to get over it and get it off my mind. fuck them though i dont need em', i'd rather have 2 or 3 real friends than a dozen fake ones, and thats all i have lost were some fake-ass friends. my real friends and i are more like family than my family lol
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you make some good points! but i retain that only the mentally ill are the only ones who never reach that "age of accountability"
i'm more or less defining my argument based on a societal perspective rather than a more individualistic one. when i say that people are BORN with the capacity to do evil without remorse, they are doing what their society perceives as "evil" more ore less unbeknownst to the individual at the time because they dont ENTER the world with a preconceived notion of right or wrong, i think the statements make perfect sense. in short they do evil to society but are unaware of it... perhaps a better question to ask would be "is it really evil if one is unaware?" i may have to revise my argument lol thats why i used the term "innocent evil" because to do something and to have no honest grasp of right and wrong should people be held accountable?
yes i agree society and lack of proper parental involvement is mostly to blame, however speaking from the perspective of one whos parents are still together and maintained an authoritarian approach in regards to their kids it is possible that you can get the exact same amount of hatred and contempt for people. i personally dont have a criminal record (because i wasnt allowed to go anywhere), i wasnt allowed to disagree with them, i went to church and they showed me off like prized calf at auction to the people that were the most fake towards me (we were expected to smile, and were scolded when we didnt do so enough or at the right times) and when we went home from service they berated me and my brother and told us how worthless we were and constantly threatened to throw us on the streets if we didnt do exactly what they said, they told me how to spend my money, they dictated what kind of music i listened to, they told me what clothes i could and couldnt buy and made me return the ones that werent satisfactory or simply threw them away. all i ever did was hold a steady job and complete highschool with over a 3.0 and all they did was bitch about how horrible i was. i came to hate everything and almost everyone, i lashed out at people verbally and physically,my violent thoughts and speech were at an all time high, one time they slapped me around a bit after their usual ranting about my worth (or lack therof) and i almost killed myself when they left to go grocery shopping... after being comfortable with my hatred and content in the fact that i believed that God had turned his back on me i was just done with it all, but something stopped me and thats why i want to help people today... i have but a small taste as to what it can do to people and i want to help people just like i was.
how does any of this tie in to politics? idk lol i think this disussion has become more psychological and societal rather than political lol
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And the problem with long posts is.....?
Life is serious. Humor and levity are good, but life is serious.
This is a great thread.
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