When it comes to people you meet each day (friends, colleagues, schoolmates, …), are there people among them you’d call ‘genuinely evil’? Is it a majority of them?
Honestly? Yeah, it’s well over a majority. I wouldn’t call them ‘purely evil’, but ‘genuinely evil’ is pretty much the norm in society. People just tend to compartmentalize their evil.
I feel like this is projection. How tf do you know “well over a majority” of people are compartmentalizing “evil”, in a way so good that we can’t detect it, but somehow you know this to be true and we should trust you? Why? How? What makes you special in knowing this? I’m sorry if I’m coming off rude, I just don’t understand how people can say this with such confidence when they haven’t asked “well over a majority” of humans. 😛
In 2024 35% of eligible voters didn’t vote and 32% voted for Trump. That’s not a perfect measure, but it’s about as much of a case as can be made. I’m also far less inclined to move any of those 67% over to the “good” side than to move any of the 32% that voted for Harris to the bad side.
In my personal experience, 95+% of people are, at the end of the day, pretty selfish. I don’t mean that they need to be saints, but almost everyone does not want to make small sacrifices to make the world a better place.
I’m talking about people that don’t want to eat less meat or try to consume less, or maybe just give the benefit of the doubt to the other side.
I can’t help but recall of two quotes: one from Rousseau who said “Humans are born good but society corrupts them”, and another from Hobbes who said “Humans are a wolf to humans”. While it seems like both thinkers couldn’t agree with each other because both statements look different, the logical implications from Rousseau inevitably leads to that of Hobbes. I’ll try to explain my point below.
When Rousseau says “society corrupts good humans”, he implies the existence of not-good humans because, as we know, society is made out of people (not just Soylent Green). Rousseau implies that the not-good humans were once good until they got corrupted by earlier not-good humans, which were corrupted by even earlier not-good humans… somewhere, non-goodness was born. Causality requires that a non-goodness stemmed from some kind of “patient zero of evilness”.
Now, religions would be tempted to think of this “patient zero” as something supernatural: Shaitan, Iblis, Angra Mainyu… It’s not exactly wrong (as archetypal representation), but it’s not accurate either: it’s not something too otherworldly, it’s right in front of us or, should I say, inside us.
Take Derren Brown’s “The Push” (a documentary about social compliance and conformity): before the auction gala where (spoiler)the person was cluelessly played by a hidden script to push someone from a rooftop, commiting murder to (in their mind) save themself(/spoiler), Derren conducted a “selection process” where the candidates would answer a test: unbeknownst to them, the test was beyond a questionnaire, it was evaluating who would keep standing up and sitting whenever a bell rang. They weren’t told to do so: they were, instead, socially pressured to do it, because all the other candidates were doing it. It’s the “monkey see, monkey do”.
Those who didn’t watch The Push (watch it, it’s illuminating) might ask: if the candidates weren’t told to do it (switch between sitting and standing whenever a bell rings), how did the behavior emerge? The behavior was initially seeded by actors, people who initially acted on it. Then things got funnier: one by one, actors were removed and fresh, clueless candidates were added, until no actors were in the room, yet the behavior continued. It was carried among “generations” (batches of candidates).
There was no devil behind this behavior. One could argue “Derren Brown was the devil behind the scenes, conducting a social experiment”, but something motivated those actors (e.g. money), just like something motivated the hypothetical “first evil human” to be evil, except… something also motivated clueless candidates to imitate it, just like something motivated the “Rousseau’s good humans” to spread societal corruption.
It’s not a devil: it’s humans, it’s us. We’re born with this wolf inside, and it just takes a “push” for it to howl. It’s inherent to us because it’s inherent to Nature.
Can I get some data on the “most people are good” bit?
When it comes to people you meet each day (friends, colleagues, schoolmates, …), are there people among them you’d call ‘genuinely evil’? Is it a majority of them?
Daily reminder that 30% of people would vote to bring back chattel slavery if it was convenient.
Yes, but only for foreigners and non whites. Who don’t matter obviously
deleted by creator
Honestly? Yeah, it’s well over a majority. I wouldn’t call them ‘purely evil’, but ‘genuinely evil’ is pretty much the norm in society. People just tend to compartmentalize their evil.
I feel like this is projection. How tf do you know “well over a majority” of people are compartmentalizing “evil”, in a way so good that we can’t detect it, but somehow you know this to be true and we should trust you? Why? How? What makes you special in knowing this? I’m sorry if I’m coming off rude, I just don’t understand how people can say this with such confidence when they haven’t asked “well over a majority” of humans. 😛
In 2024 35% of eligible voters didn’t vote and 32% voted for Trump. That’s not a perfect measure, but it’s about as much of a case as can be made. I’m also far less inclined to move any of those 67% over to the “good” side than to move any of the 32% that voted for Harris to the bad side.
I’m sure each of those people think they’re doing good though, rather than purposely “compartmentalizing evil.”
In my personal experience, 95+% of people are, at the end of the day, pretty selfish. I don’t mean that they need to be saints, but almost everyone does not want to make small sacrifices to make the world a better place.
I’m talking about people that don’t want to eat less meat or try to consume less, or maybe just give the benefit of the doubt to the other side.
Doesn’t make them evil though, just human. The human brain is wired not to make life worse for its host, or its offspring.
deleted by creator
I reject the premise. The term “Evil” is meaningless.
Yes and yes, unfortunately.
Here’s my counter: most people are idiots
@the_q@lemmy.zip @LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone
@politicalmemes@lemmy.world
I can’t help but recall of two quotes: one from Rousseau who said “Humans are born good but society corrupts them”, and another from Hobbes who said “Humans are a wolf to humans”. While it seems like both thinkers couldn’t agree with each other because both statements look different, the logical implications from Rousseau inevitably leads to that of Hobbes. I’ll try to explain my point below.
When Rousseau says “society corrupts good humans”, he implies the existence of not-good humans because, as we know, society is made out of people (not just Soylent Green). Rousseau implies that the not-good humans were once good until they got corrupted by earlier not-good humans, which were corrupted by even earlier not-good humans… somewhere, non-goodness was born. Causality requires that a non-goodness stemmed from some kind of “patient zero of evilness”.
Now, religions would be tempted to think of this “patient zero” as something supernatural: Shaitan, Iblis, Angra Mainyu… It’s not exactly wrong (as archetypal representation), but it’s not accurate either: it’s not something too otherworldly, it’s right in front of us or, should I say, inside us.
Take Derren Brown’s “The Push” (a documentary about social compliance and conformity): before the auction gala where (spoiler)the person was cluelessly played by a hidden script to push someone from a rooftop, commiting murder to (in their mind) save themself(/spoiler), Derren conducted a “selection process” where the candidates would answer a test: unbeknownst to them, the test was beyond a questionnaire, it was evaluating who would keep standing up and sitting whenever a bell rang. They weren’t told to do so: they were, instead, socially pressured to do it, because all the other candidates were doing it. It’s the “monkey see, monkey do”.
Those who didn’t watch The Push (watch it, it’s illuminating) might ask: if the candidates weren’t told to do it (switch between sitting and standing whenever a bell rings), how did the behavior emerge? The behavior was initially seeded by actors, people who initially acted on it. Then things got funnier: one by one, actors were removed and fresh, clueless candidates were added, until no actors were in the room, yet the behavior continued. It was carried among “generations” (batches of candidates).
There was no devil behind this behavior. One could argue “Derren Brown was the devil behind the scenes, conducting a social experiment”, but something motivated those actors (e.g. money), just like something motivated the hypothetical “first evil human” to be evil, except… something also motivated clueless candidates to imitate it, just like something motivated the “Rousseau’s good humans” to spread societal corruption.
It’s not a devil: it’s humans, it’s us. We’re born with this wolf inside, and it just takes a “push” for it to howl. It’s inherent to us because it’s inherent to Nature.