Good or Evil, more importantly Why?

[kakihara]

Hi im [AX] Kakihara bored at my nightshift, started browsing around some forums and then i saw The Wine Bar with its description. Well anyways this topic isnt working on AX forum so im posting here

this is a ancient discussion but lets see where it leads us:

What is good or evil but more imporatantly Why is a certain act concidered good or evil?

[-(aaK)- Neil Faz]

Because of societies conceptions of whats good (will benefit) or harm (will..well harm duh!) things/people.

[kakihara]

Thats what conceptions we give as a culture or societie. However this will differ from where cultures differ. What is known to be good in my western world might be evil in a country, as example, Nigeria. The concetions we give as a societie arent objective but way too subjective in a subject as, i might say, important as this.

[-(aaK)- Nav]

Intriguing. Good and evil are but a blind mans perception of reality. You cannot define such essences of feeble conceptions mainly because humanity as a whole to blind to appropiattely define its own existance let alone a definition of its actions. One societies murderer is another mans hero. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

Hence my personal philosophy on life;

Unless by some miracle we all come under a totalitarian rule with minds unclouded by personal ignorances and arrogances, good nor evil can never be defined. Let the blind masses choose their morals, their villains and their heroes. We are all but puppets of our own devices so boycott the game of life and do as you wish in life.

[-(aaK)- Neil Faz]

I had a very interesting lecture on something that is tied to this subject yesterday. It was about Obedience and Conformity and basically explained that even 'good' people can be easily turned into 'evil' people. The example was the Millgram experiment.

Basically, in the 60's Stanley Millgram set up a study where he advertised for people to take part in his study. When the people replied and came in they had to go in pairs and choose to be a Teacher or a Learner in the experiment. The teacher had to sit in one room and read a list of words to the learner in the other room. BUT, the learner was always a set up and in on the experiment. It was the teachers results they were looking at. What they had to do was tie the learner to a machine that gave electric shocks increasing in severity every time they would answer a question wrong. It was set up under the pretense that how could pain effect memory. So every time the learner got a question wrong the teacher guy was told to administer an electric shock. And to cut a long story short around 60% of the candidated went all the way giving the learner shocks that were so severe that it was a risk to his health. Of course because it was done in seperate rooms and the learner was in on it, he wasnt actually being electrocuted. But the finding were all pretty much the same.

People can be manipulated easily into doing things which is very out of character. And from that experiment you can see how other things, such as Hitlers extermination of the jews and so on were carried out - not by Hitler himself but because he was the authority telling the soldiers what to do.. As long as you have a figure which you perceive to be an authority telling you what to do, most of the time you do carry out there orders.

Another brief example would be 'The Peoples Temple'. A cult years ago where over 900 people all commited suicide under the leadership of Father Jim Jones. Madness or what! But he started it simply by creating the community and doing a lot of good for them and gaining trust and so on. And then using propaganda and 'mirracles' he convinced them he was special and the authority figure. Funny thing is, he intended to survive and told them all he was killing himself last. Until he was shot i the head by an unknown assassin.

So yeah, very interesting subject indeed. Who is to say whats good and evil? But we all have it inside of us to be both.

"Evil exists primarily in the eye of the beholder, especially in the eye of the victim"