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Hello, everyone. I need you guys' insights on some of life's profound Qs that I have always wondered. I have been always fascinated by history and especially WWII history. While doing some extensive reading, researching and watching footages on WWII, I couldn't come to understanding of how much evil a human being is capable of against another.
While reading about Nazi SS soldiers shooting innocent men, women, children and elderly, I couldn't stop but ask myself, "Where is the conscience? I would shoot myself in the head or be court-martialed than obeying the order of shooting innocent civilians. Where was the conscience? Were they trained to resist their conscience?"
I always believed that all human beings are born with and possess innate conscience and it plays a pivotal role at most challenging and excruciating circumstances.
Do you believe all human beings have conscience? Also, do you believe each human being's true identity and conscience will shine the brightest when faced with the most challenging and difficult situations in his/her life?
Thanks in advance for any insights.
It is unfair for you to reference the Germans, and make no mention of the Americans who set Vietnamese children on fire with napalm and stood there and watched them burn. Or who unquestioningly obeyed the command to firebomb Dresden or bomb Hiroshima, events which most Americans cheered in the streets.
The reality is that every person possess a conscience, but it is easy to train them to overcome their conscience and regard some human beings as "enemies" which they can be taught to slaughter in large numbers with few qualms. A majority of Americans would, on a moment's notice, cause death and suffering to at least a few people. For some, it would only be the latest serial killer or terror suspect, but for some it includes all illegal aliens and all Iranians, too. The main difference is how they were brought up and brainwashed, and not the conscience they were born with.
Having said that, it is also true that some people are born with a psychiatric condition known commonly as sociopathy. They are nearly all males, and comprise, according to various authorities, about 2% of the male population. They have no remorse. Many of them temper their behavior out of fear of being caught and prosecuted, so they limit their carnage. The majority are contented to establish relationships with captive wives and children and take delight in seeing them suffer, while appearing normal to the outside world. It is possible that sociopaths are genetically lacking in capacity to feel compassion.
One of the key characteristics of a sociopath is the inability to feel the pain they inflict onto other people. The are numb to their deeds and lack any guilt for their actions. One could argue that also have no conscience. In ancient times, they were called goons, in various languages.
To think these people walk among us in our every day lives is frightening. Being a sociopath is the key element for being a murderer or rapist, etc.
Human behavior is conditioned by its consequences.
Give human the power to do what he please and not fear any consequences and his action will turn to be every imaginable evil. Because conscience is a fear from consequences...
One of the key characteristics of a sociopath is the inability to feel the pain they inflict onto other people. The are numb to their deeds and lack any guilt for their actions. One could argue that also have no conscience. In ancient times, they were called goons, in various languages.
To think these people walk among us in our every day lives is frightening. Being a sociopath is the key element for being a murderer or rapist, etc.
No, you will find serial killers are sociopaths. But not all sociopaths are serial killers. They effect 1% of the population.
It is not a key element in being your ordinary run of the mill murderer.
Human behavior is conditioned by its consequences.
Give human the power to do what he please and not fear any consequences and his action will turn to be every imaginable evil. Because conscience is a fear from consequences...
Humans very rarely find themselves in a situation in which they have no fear of consequences. But they often find themselves in a situation where thay can blame somebody else, which has a similar effect. This often occurs in a military situation, where a person can commit all kinds of atrocities, and blame them on obeying an order.
Some people cry at movies and some don't. Crying comes spontaneously and irresistably in a situation where the viewer empathizes with someone on the screen. Perhaps this is a reliable clue as to whether a person innately possesses the kind of conscience that would resist or avoid causing another distress.
One of the various downsides to our wanting to "belong" to a community, is that we will do almost anything to "fit in".
Every person is capable of killing anyone, all you need is the right circumstance. Its easy to get people to do things they say they'd never do.
I agree, but there are crimes that are committed that are so self serving that fitting in has nothing to do with it. I would argue that for those crimes that there is not club and they would be excluded from even the wrongest of the the wrong.
Further, there are those that are mentally ill and so, while we could say there may be fitting in with the imaginary, I don't think that it would fall so neatly into the category.
No that is why their are sociopaths. They can for instance kill another human like most kill a bug.There are plenty of them too.
Texdav makes the second reference to sociopaths that has been made on this thread. Have to agree with the posts that have made these references, and the idea that there is your answer to the question of whether everyone has a conscience. Psychologists might offer more complex explanations of the phenomenon--I'm not sure, but they might--but if I have the right impression of what a sociopath or psychopath is, basically in simple terms the definition of such a person is someone who has no conscience. So, yes there are people without consciences.
In regard to the OP references to the Nazis, I do think that you are often seeing a lack of conscience with certain SS officers who seemed to delight in treating concentration camp inmates with particular cruelty, but it gets very complicated with the mass of soldiers who were just following orders. We don't really know how we would react in extreme situations until we are faced with them. We can only speculate. I doubt that any of us can honestly say that we know absolutely for sure that we would not "follow orders" if the refusal to do so would mean our own doom. That's not lack of conscience, but survival in a world that can sometimes be terribly harsh.
As far as crying at movies goes, try taking the movies to a more severe level, and consider those movies dealing with the subject matter discussed in the opening post. I'm sure that many movies dealing with the subject are tough to watch. One I'm thinking of in particular is one I saw in a class several years ago. Can't remember the title, but maybe it will sound familiar to some of you. It was about an attempted uprising at an extermination camp. The inmates smuggled in some dynamite or some kind of explosive, with the intent of causing devestating damage to the camp. There was a glaringly frank view of the way inmates were treated, the inmates who actually worked on the crews running the gas chambers where other inmates were killed, and the attitudes of the camp command officers as these officers attempted to uncover the plot. The planned uprising turned out to be pathetically weak, after which you were left with the impression that life would continue as usual at the camp. According to the professor in the class where I saw this, the movie was based on a true story. Maybe people suspected of having no conscience could be shown this movie. Or have them watch the play "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" which also deals with the Holocaust. Man, if anyone can watch either that movie I can't remember the name of or "Butterfly" without sitting there at the end in kind of stunned silence, trembling, feeling tears welling up, some kind of intense reaction, the world really better watch out for that person.
Hello, everyone. I need you guys' insights on some of life's profound Qs that I have always wondered. I have been always fascinated by history and especially WWII history. While doing some extensive reading, researching and watching footages on WWII, I couldn't come to understanding of how much evil a human being is capable of against another.
While reading about Nazi SS soldiers shooting innocent men, women, children and elderly, I couldn't stop but ask myself, "Where is the conscience? I would shoot myself in the head or be court-martialed than obeying the order of shooting innocent civilians. Where was the conscience? Were they trained to resist their conscience?"
I always believed that all human beings are born with and possess innate conscience and it plays a pivotal role at most challenging and excruciating circumstances.
Do you believe all human beings have conscience? Also, do you believe each human being's true identity and conscience will shine the brightest when faced with the most challenging and difficult situations in his/her life?
Thanks in advance for any insights.
Well, first of all, we should all know by now than some humans are bereft of any type of conscience. Sociopoaths, for example, simply seem to be lacking whatever brain-wiring is needed to know the difference between right and wrong. Many of them function fine--and even sublimely, like Ted Bundy--in other areas of societal actions, but when it comes to rules, well, it's just like that particular switch in the mind is turned off. Or they DO know the difference between right and wrong, but, as an old college psych proff of mine was fond of saying, simply feel that rules are for other people and don't apply to them.
But of course the Nazi soldiers you cited weren't all sociopaths; in fact, in all likelyhood very few of them were. So what gives? I suggest you Google "The Milgram Experiments" and see what many, many, well-adjusted people are capable of when they are in a position where they feel they are beholden to authority.
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