Most people are fundamentally decent

[Mick Mac]

Keef Wrote:

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> During the snow, a neighbour who I'd never spoken

> to, offered me use of his shovel, when he saw me

> struggling to clear the front of the house. I then

> did the 2 houses next door, both having older

> people living in them. Unfortunately, the woman

> one side took this as permission to start knocking

> on my door asking me to do things. You give an

> inch...

young maaan.....

[Fabricio the Guido]

@ CitizenEd, I agree with you. Some people think it is better to do shitty things to others before they do it to you. A sort of reversal of the universal moral code. One of my fav books is by an author called Todorov called 'Facing the extreme : moral life in the concentration camps'. He basically takes testimony from people and uncovers ordinary gestures of compassion and solidarity. This is in a context where there is zero value to human life. Some people will try to remain decent and others will not. Who's example would you follow? The Anne Frank case is another example protected by one person and betrayed by another. It shows that moral choices are personal but people like to abdicate their responsibility by joining in collective amnesia. These are sort of lies which enable us to do shitty things to others and then justify it through the rarefication of social processes.

[ianr]

Fabricio the Guido Wrote:

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> PS: is it always necessary to quotes one's sources when posting on here? In theory, can I make up

> any old farrago of nonsense and pass it off as "commonsense" "opinion" "fact"? it does make for

> a very laborious conversation if I have to have a reference for every comment I make. Just saying.

Adding http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061107145607AAuN9u5 or http://www.roebuckclasses.com/people/thinkers/hobbes.htm or even http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Human+beings+are+physical+objects%2C+according+to+Hobbes is scarcely laborious.

[Fabricio the Guido]

Precious nano seconds which could have been spent on some other social media? Seems like a waste to me. Where pedants fear to tread fools rush in... Actually, is that a call for more careful references or denigrating the web as a resource?

[karter]

Is there a decent person out there that can lend me a usb cable for a nokia 6600 mobile so that i can download memorable photographs taken last year at a festival? Have since upgraded and been moving and it's sods law that i cannot find it. Thanks

[waynetta]

Ok a leap of faith here. I'm going to look at the world through RosieH coloured glasses and say that most people are fundamentally decent, and I'll include paedophiles, murderers, muggers, drug dealers, people trafficers, pimps, racists, terrorists, muggers, bullys, rapists, homophobes, bankers, traffic wardens and Jordan in that list.

[RosieH]

Who make up what percentage of the population waynetta?

[waynetta]

There were a lot of 'fundamentally decent people' living in Germany between 1938 and 1945 who either committed atrocities against mankind themselves, or enabled, supported or ignored those who did.

[RosieH]

Neatly sidestepped.

[daizie]

Fabricio the Guido Wrote:

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> @ CitizenEd, I agree with you. Some people think

> it is better to do shitty things to others before

> they do it to you. A sort of reversal of the

> universal moral code. One of my fav books is by an

> author called Todorov called 'Facing the extreme :

> moral life in the concentration camps'. He

> basically takes testimony from people and uncovers

> ordinary gestures of compassion and solidarity.

> This is in a context where there is zero value to

> human life. Some people will try to remain decent

> and others will not. Who's example would you

> follow? The Anne Frank case is another example

> protected by one person and betrayed by another.

> It shows that moral choices are personal but

> people like to abdicate their responsibility by

> joining in collective amnesia. These are sort of

> lies which enable us to do shitty things to others

> and then justify it through the rarefication of

> social processes.

Thanks for that, i will read it , seeing as everyone i come across is a hypocrite .

[camberwell70]

RosieH Wrote:

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> With a few (notable for their exceptionalism)

> exceptions.

How do you know?

[waynetta]

The Stanford prison experiment, carried out in the sixties by Philip Zimbardo, demonstrates perfectly how cruel and sadistic apparently normal people can behave in certain circumstances.

In a nutshell, this was an experiment where ordinary volunteer students were divided into two groups, jailers and captives. Within two days the students who were the jailers were maltreating and even torturing the captives. The experiment had to be abandoned because the behaviour of the jailors had become so violent and dangerous.

[huncamunca]

Most people are decent

Problem is the sprinkling of wankers do seem to grab your attention