When I meet a new person, my operating assumption is that they are good, that no one is evil. There are rare people who make me uncomfortable, but no instant revulsion as a evil person. It may be naive and it may hurt later to find out they did not turn out to be what I thought them to be, not as genuine as I thought. I think also that everyone is dragging their dirty bag of troubles, issues, complexes and deficiencies and need to be kind in dealing with people. I probably haven't been cheated by someone truly evil, haven't met the meanest or have tolerated too much, forgot and forgave a lot.
I was discussing what makes people mean with a friend. I feel it is their context and threshold. In their context, they may not think they are being mean, there would be a watertight rationalization in their mind. I listened to a podcast where someone was talking about a killer who has convinced herself that she is being kind and helping people by killing them. Their threshold of dishonesty may also have been lowered. At what level might we think we are crossing out moral standards? Like this thought experiment - you are driving through the city at midnight, came up on a signal which is red, no one around, will you cross the signal (assuming no camera) or will you stop and wait? Agreed, this is a worldly rule of traffic signal which is for safety and convenience, not a universal code of conduct, moral principle or a fundamental value that we are violating . But what is our threshold?
In the nature, a cheetah killing a deer is not wrong, it is for its survival. So I read recently that actions that further evolution is right. If we draw up the scenarios and think if in each case whether what we did was for survival, would that justify the action? If we knew someone was weak and outsmart him to get something we want, is that fair? If we knew someone was weak and let him get ahead, is that our weakness?
I was discussing what makes people mean with a friend. I feel it is their context and threshold. In their context, they may not think they are being mean, there would be a watertight rationalization in their mind. I listened to a podcast where someone was talking about a killer who has convinced herself that she is being kind and helping people by killing them. Their threshold of dishonesty may also have been lowered. At what level might we think we are crossing out moral standards? Like this thought experiment - you are driving through the city at midnight, came up on a signal which is red, no one around, will you cross the signal (assuming no camera) or will you stop and wait? Agreed, this is a worldly rule of traffic signal which is for safety and convenience, not a universal code of conduct, moral principle or a fundamental value that we are violating . But what is our threshold?
In the nature, a cheetah killing a deer is not wrong, it is for its survival. So I read recently that actions that further evolution is right. If we draw up the scenarios and think if in each case whether what we did was for survival, would that justify the action? If we knew someone was weak and outsmart him to get something we want, is that fair? If we knew someone was weak and let him get ahead, is that our weakness?
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