Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
But look at what happened when people spoke out against their governments.
I'm rusty on my history but weren't there some slave owners who actually tried to help their slaves?
People were persecuted for going against their government and were probably afraid to speak out, which is why uprisings happen, because you can't kill everyone at once and if people band together they can change it. We just have to not allow things to get so bad before we band together to change things.
I know a black guy whose family was upper middle class for a long time and his slave great-grandfather "earned" his release because his "master" believed in slavery but also earning freedom and he made sure he learned to read and had some schooling before releasing him.
A lot of people don't realize that before the Civil War broke out, about half the blacks were already free. Many people just had them work for a number of years and then gave them freedom often education too.
The Civil War released all the slaves but not always making sure they had an education or job or could read and write and that led to some problems for the released slaves.
...If everyone had the desire to be good AND 'good' was an objective thing, then no one ever would have owned slaves, or at the very least every slave owner would have been uncomfortable with it on some innate level.
Have you heard of the Milgram experiment or the Stanford Prison Experiment? In the Milgram experiment, people are told to administer painful shocks to someone they can't see on the direction of a doctor. In the Stanford experiment, people were randomly assigned the roles of guard or prisoner. The guards quickly began to humiliate and hurt the prisoners. Together, they illustrate that people want to obey authority and when given authority quickly begin to abuse it...
About the Milgram experiment. I do want to point out that many of those who obeyed their authorities and kept administering shocks experienced some very intense discomfort indeed!
"
According to Orne and Holland (1968), participants may have not believed they were giving real; if they were, surely the experimenter would have not allowed the study to continue. However, the participants experienced extreme stress and it would seem unlikely that this would happen if they did not believe they were giving real shocks: many participants, Milgram (1974) observed, “sweat, stutter, tremble, groan, bite their lips, and dig their nails into their flesh. Full blown seizures were observed for 3 participantsâ€. One experiment had to be stopped because of a violent seizure by a participant.
"
This may not prove that the desire to be good is innate, but it does show how strong the power of a commitment can be vs. a strong conscience. Keeping slaves while knowing it was wrong, by comparison, could've been much easier because any harm done to the slaves could've been done out of earshot, whereas the participants in the Milgram experiment could hear every little plea and scream. This is not to mention that slaveowners could also convince themselves that the slaves were relatively happy and that they were somehow doing them a favor by keeping them fed, clothed, etc.
This may not prove that the desire to be good is innate, but it does show how strong the power of a commitment can be vs. a strong conscience. Keeping slaves while knowing it was wrong, by comparison, could've been much easier because any harm done to the slaves could've been done out of earshot, whereas the participants in the Milgram experiment could hear every little plea and scream. This is not to mention that slaveowners could also convince themselves that the slaves were relatively happy and that they were somehow doing them a favor by keeping them fed, clothed, etc.
I think, if anything, it proves that even if the desire to do good is innate, it is easily overcome by pressure from authority. Despite their stress and fear, the participants in many cases still pressed the button.
Which means, in my opinion, we can't count on people to simply 'do the right thing' if pressure exists to do the opposite. But if people understand how vulnerable they are to authority, it gives them more tools to fight again the urge to go along when their conscience urges them not to. And if people understand how vulnerable those in authority are to becoming corrupt no matter their previous moral character, they'll be more watchful.
Counting on your child to be 'good' is naive, even if that child understands what you and your family have deemed to be 'good' behavior. Again, in both experiments the people involved were just ordinary, everyday folks who if asked the day before they participated would have likely responded they were of fine moral character. They were deeply shaken by the experiance because it showed them how easy it is to be 'bad' and how hard it is to be 'good' when pressure exists. People don't necessarily want to be bad...but they want to be social and go along with the social group. It can be very hard for most people to overcome this, especially if they don't realize it is happening.
Absolutely. Not just the power of authority but of strong situations in general, as they're called, to overpower one's personality. This is why you still discriminate concerning where your kid goes and who they interact with, even if you fully trust that they are smart and "good".
listened to a buddist priest give a lecture on this.
the urge to do evil cant often be explained, as caused by some prior abuse in childhood. often the overwhelming desire to harm others, manifesting itself on the hood among young men, is karmic. when you resist it, u break the karmic cycle. the effects are felt in your life as well as the community, like the ripple of a stone thrown in water.
If you look at a lot of the women who are prositutes, its actually quite sad.
They get into it at a young age, they usually come from abusive, drug filled homes, with no structure and no parental support. They usually ran away from home around 16 or 17 and did it as a means of support. Then they get hooked onto drugs because drugs are a huge part of that scene and then keep doing it because it makes the money to get by and keep up their drug habit.
I don't think any of them go into it because they WANT to.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
