Simple question, difficult answer: "Are human beings basically good or basically bad?"

For some people, however, the ability to create is benighted by a notion that to make room and obtain substance for their own creation they must pull matter from the universe -- carve raw materials from the social and environmental fabric around them. This, naturally, is destructive. And I think that 'bad' people are people who've begun on the process of chipping at the creative-egos of others to create their own [reappropriating the positive contributions of 'good' people as their own, or turning it against other 'good' people] falsely-creative sense of being.

It has been said that only one who has transcended duality can experience full wisdom

[ Each human being is comprised of this, and other, dualities: masculine/feminine, etc

Must humans abandon their essential human-ity to reach enlightenment ? ]

To expand: is the world good or bad? Where does one's sense of self begin and end?

AlsoL is it not necessary to be "morally objectionable" in the eyes of society from time to time to be benevolent n the larger picture? 10th grade discussions of Antigone and The Mahabharat 2 thread, along with Lars von Trier hehe

..[T]he narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over-importance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.

Some people are just more self-oriented and looking out for #1 despite anything, while others are other-oriented. The former do not think they are being "bad" if they steal your screenplay ideas, etc. To just use _an_ example =)

But it's not spring-loaded! It's not tricky at all. It's basic. That's why it's so tricky, if you follow my thinking at all.

For some people, however, the ability to create is benighted by a notion that to make room and obtain substance for their own creation they must pull matter from the universe -- carve raw materials from the social and environmental fabric around them. This, naturally, is destructive. And I think that 'bad' people are people who've begun on the process of chipping at the creative-egos of others to create their own [reappropriating the positive contributions of 'good' people as their own, or turning it against other 'good' people] falsely-creative sense of being.

I cannot help but to admire the depth of the thinking that went into this theory, but I also have to question it. The universe is bigger than that, and it resists dualities (like the creative/destructive one you posited) better than it resists anything else. Dualities are the most wrong of all the wrong things I have ever copme to understand as wrong.

Finally, after YEARS, Kenan gives me an "in" to work with...but we can't on this thread!

Another question: are there any human beings you know of that are wholly either bad or good, without any shades of the other ?

Good, but the definition of morally upright and benevolent is way open to question.

Long answer to be developed later: good and bad and stable human subjects are illusory, the question wants to generalise about stuff best left ungeneralised, pragmatics rules.

Seems like a good enough place to me. Why can't we?

I personally don't believe in absolute morality but I act as if I do – there are things I try to do or not do. Our evolutionary path suggests that our capacity for being excellent to each other, or otherwise, has served us well by virtue of the fact that we're still here. But by that definition we are good as long as we are still on the planet, and that doesn't fit well either. Clearly we do things to each other which we are unhappy about, i.e. bad things. And we also do things that (to me) seem self destructive, e.g. fucking up the planet.

We are neither basically good nor basically bad. We are basically made for reproducing our genes. Obviously some of us tread on other people to attempt to achieve that and some try to avoid that. But that describes the sum of all humans. Individually, not all of us are programmed to reproduce our genes and most of us are capable of some selfish and some selfless acts. Is that because society benefits from just this mix?

As far as I've thought of that question, noodle vague*, the notion of a single act as good or bad isn't one that's determined absolutely -- it's necessarily between the poles. And both the intention and outcome weigh in on the overall Moral 'score,' if we have to give it such a thing. The intention/outcome can be at odds (take, for instance, commander of the slaves forced to build the pyramids for the great Creative goal of ancient Egypt ) but I believe that the truly Creative action is morally substainable and non-relative. And those who strive to live good lives - though they'll misstep in both intention and outcome - are indoctrinated by, and work with, an innate knowledge of the goodness (giving-back-ness) of their actions.

NB: This isn't 'goodness' as Religious rightness, moral certainty, or a Deity-ordained and codified scale of actions [Say... the Ten Commandments, or the Five Steps of Enlightenment, -2 for adultery, +1 for writing a nice letter] but 'goodness' by a moment-to-moment appraisal of the quality of our life and the lives around us, and a striving to make things generally better and not worse. The goal to elevate the universal condition, to alleviate suffering. Which, if we crack it open, puts us back at the question of 'what is suffering?' but I find this insincere, as we all innately know but can't articulate the answer.

I bet doesn't answer your question at all.

* it'd be dishonest and really presumptious of me to claim I had a well-reasoned answer.

I can see that replacing good/bad with creative/destructive is an improvement or an attempt to evade the constructed aspects of good/bad duality, but I don't think it escapes far enough. At the same time, pragmatically, whatever works for you, yeah? I don't have any well-reasoned answers either, I tend to think as I go along with all the dead-ends and space for mistakes that implies.

It's from The Diceman. Everybody should read it once. It's funny and true and scary.

I'd be willing to state that any un-domesticated species on this planet would vote for us being a bad bunch, especially fish.

maybe squirrels and pigeons think we're okay?

Locke came along about thirty years later and said that what Hobbes was on about was all very well, but perhaps a little wrong. Locke argued that man in his most primitive state is co-operative and bands together because it just makes sense. Put it this way, Ugg has killed a deer, Ogg has invented fire and Agg has built some kind of primitive wheelbarrow. They are all hungry but Ugg knows better than to eat raw meat and is too far away from Ogg to cook it. Therefore he tells Agg that he will give him some grilled deer if he can use his barrow and when they get to the fire they let Ogg have some, ergo a community is formed.
So according to Locke, humanity is based on trust, not fear.

This may not answer the original question so well I guess but it's something to think about. We have other things to look at such aas what happens when Locke's pact is broken and why communities war with each other. That is when the Lockeian and Hobbesian arguments clash because now we see that humans can and will get riled up surprisingly easily. We must also look at what Ogg's fire is doing to the trees around him and ask whether Ugg killing a deer makes him a good person.

In order to survive mankind must create things like fire, shelter and food. He must adapt his environment in order to suit himself. Other animals do not do this. Perhaps this is evidence that mankind may not be natural to this world. Why would such a useless creature with no natural armour or weaponry (claws etc) be able to survive on this Earth? Why does he have to mold the world in this way when other creatures don't have to do this. The destruction of the environment is neither good nor bad, it's something man has done since he first walked the Earth, since the first time he fed or clothed himself.

Sorry to get all Ickeian here btw. Just stream-of-conscious bullshit

Pascal is the best on these issues:"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him, the universe knows nothing of this.

All our dignity then, consists in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour then, to think well; this is the principle of morality."

On the other hand, Pascal came up with that stupid "being religious is a good idea even if God doesn't exist" meme. Also, he invented roulette.

So it's not like you'd trust the Pope-sucking tosser as far as you could throw him.

Moralities tend to be expressions of power...
With you so far. Per Marx, teh ruling ideology is whichever one best serves teh ruling class.

...inasfar as they are they must be resisted.
Why? Is this a *moral* imperative?

I write horribly pompous when I'm dying for a drink. Or when I've had one, come to think of it.

If I'm fightin' Teh Man, then I can't possibly be Teh Man. And thus, for generation after generation of overprivileged undergraduates, Teh Man becomes Teh Other. Radicalism thus provides a safe haven from which to enjoy the prerogatives of comfortable white middle-classitude.

TV's Mr Noodle Vague implicated in none of this, and gratefully acknowledged for raising the issue in the first place.

I'm seriously thinking, especially today, that the only decent political actions are the ones we can't talk about.

OTFM

Yay! Postructuralist critique and token resistance win again! Yay!

(that is, i think that certain human characteristics are "bad" in the context of our society but are not necessarily "bad" in themselves -- they [either reflexive or habits of thought] are products of earlier times that are not good right now.)

you can't deny dualism without positing a new dualism (dualistic/non-dualistic) and you can deny essences without positing a non-essence as essence (or creating the essence of "contingent")--you can't really escape the poor ways we are forced to think.

it's kind of a question that absolutely demands an answer and cannot be answered.

look at a herd/pride/group/whatever. on one hand, it's this violent hierarchy where the strongest get the food and reproductive rights and everybody else gets nudged off the line. the selfishness of passing on your genes. yet on the other hand, there's this co-operative or codependent structure amongst many more intelligent species. you have serious bonding and definite devotion. love.

both the selfish and unselfish bleed into eachother the more complex social structures and the notion of morality get.
m.