Why do people have such faith in humanity?
- Thread starter Doclector
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I have no faith in the current state of Humanity. I only respect the potential of humanity.
It is why we do not execute or imprison people with mental illness. They have potential to be cured of their illness, and their cured self is a potential peer we respect.
The madman does not deserve to be mad, and neither does the corrupt humanity deserve to be corrupt.
It is why we do not execute or imprison people with mental illness. They have potential to be cured of their illness, and their cured self is a potential peer we respect.
The madman does not deserve to be mad, and neither does the corrupt humanity deserve to be corrupt.
Perhaps I may counter with another question? Why shouldn't I have faith in humanity?
EDIT: Honestly, it depends on what you believe about humanity. If you are a spiritual person, and believe in some sort of human soul, then that would give humanity some sort of higher purpose. However, if you belive that we are an organic fluke in a long chain of flukes that we call teh universe, then there is liitle point in believing in humanity, and you may as well give up and go sleep in a tree.
It should be noted that this answer does not reflect upon my own personal beliefs, and is merely an opinion in repsonse to the thread's question.
EDIT: Honestly, it depends on what you believe about humanity. If you are a spiritual person, and believe in some sort of human soul, then that would give humanity some sort of higher purpose. However, if you belive that we are an organic fluke in a long chain of flukes that we call teh universe, then there is liitle point in believing in humanity, and you may as well give up and go sleep in a tree.
It should be noted that this answer does not reflect upon my own personal beliefs, and is merely an opinion in repsonse to the thread's question.
My faith in humanity comes from my family and friends. They all prove to me that there still are genuinely great and magnificent people.
You wanna know why?
Look outside. I don't know about you but I see a town, there are houses, built by men, powered by great and ingenious machines which were, yup, built by men. There are roads laid out for vehicles to take us places and there's a huge field where a man grows crop. One man in a vast field.
And it's not torn apart, or desolate. People live and they smile and they talk and they work and they love. Yes they fight and they hurt and on a grander scale we war and we kill. But not always. Almost all the time we're at peace here, not because of threat of violence but because of absence of need for it.
I don't have faith in humanity, I don't have faith in anything. I do see good reason to think that we'll be okay, in the end. For all the horror we are capable of and it is truly an unprecedented horror, we are capable of good too and for the most part, that's what you get.
I've seen people at their worst, I've seen them at their best and you know? No one celebrated the evil fuckers. Everyone cheered the heroes. Even if we're not capable, as a whole, we recognise and praise those who are.
Look outside. I don't know about you but I see a town, there are houses, built by men, powered by great and ingenious machines which were, yup, built by men. There are roads laid out for vehicles to take us places and there's a huge field where a man grows crop. One man in a vast field.
And it's not torn apart, or desolate. People live and they smile and they talk and they work and they love. Yes they fight and they hurt and on a grander scale we war and we kill. But not always. Almost all the time we're at peace here, not because of threat of violence but because of absence of need for it.
I don't have faith in humanity, I don't have faith in anything. I do see good reason to think that we'll be okay, in the end. For all the horror we are capable of and it is truly an unprecedented horror, we are capable of good too and for the most part, that's what you get.
I've seen people at their worst, I've seen them at their best and you know? No one celebrated the evil fuckers. Everyone cheered the heroes. Even if we're not capable, as a whole, we recognise and praise those who are.
Nice to finally see a reply that isn't full of hypocritical Ire.Indeterminacy said:
Yes, we as humans have the right and preference to block out the world around us because we all know deep down its a horrific place. We can live with ourselves because if we don't think about the tragedy it can't affect us.
And Yes all of my points are steeped in experience. By the time I was 14 I had lived on 3 different continents and gone to school amongst a myriad of people. Now I am 24 and have seen much of the world as I love to travel.
Too bad its getting so dangerous to move around these days eh =/
Because the remaining 10 percent are sane logical beings capable of keeping humanity high and mighty.
"Before i get started, i just want to say that I don't want this to come across as an emo thread"
Fail
Fail
I have to agree with the OP. The notion that all humans are born with some sort of inner goodness or moral is just bull. We are animals, driven almost exclusively by instincts and emotions, and whatever supposed morality or ethics that are normally attributed to human beings over other animals on this planet is just the superficial requirements society has created.
Take a look at the world. The majority of us live in poverty. We torture and kill each other. This is not some sort of exclusion - this is the human norm.
To quote Lord Byron:
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
But I still love this world. Puppies are freaking awesome, for example.
Take a look at the world. The majority of us live in poverty. We torture and kill each other. This is not some sort of exclusion - this is the human norm.
To quote Lord Byron:
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
But I still love this world. Puppies are freaking awesome, for example.
I have faith in humanity because we were able to overcome our primal instincts. We were able to rise out of a cold and uncaring world and emerge as the most dominant species on this planet by working together as a species.
If you look outside you can see a society which has been created by humans. In this society We have healthcare which is devoted in curing the sick, we have charities devoted to the poor and unfortunate, we have schools dedicated to teaching the young, people donate money and organs in order to help the sick and unfortunate, I can go on and on.
Sure, there are a lot faults in our species but these faults are something which most humans strive to fix.
If you look outside you can see a society which has been created by humans. In this society We have healthcare which is devoted in curing the sick, we have charities devoted to the poor and unfortunate, we have schools dedicated to teaching the young, people donate money and organs in order to help the sick and unfortunate, I can go on and on.
Sure, there are a lot faults in our species but these faults are something which most humans strive to fix.
Wieke said:
I believe that these two people have hit the nail on the head.Xanadu84 said:
Oh, don't you worry, I've got a full stash of hypocritical ire here somewhere. Years of conditioning make it hard to lose that.Dragunai said:
I guess my point was more that even those who have that faith in humanity aren't necessarily "blocking out" the world. They might just live in a different one. Though you could call it "pre-blocked", if you like, or "Blue-pilled" for the Matrix analogy. Maybe the strategies they've come up with for their choice of actions really work with reference to the neighbourhood they live in, and maybe the extent to which problems on the other side of the globe actually affect them is just in as much as it colours the front page of their newspapers. Can we hold that against them? Similarly, Escapists here are typically particularly sheltered middle-class teenagers. Is it that surprising that they react the way they do?
Basically, the foundational world might actually be rubbish, but building and living in a concept-virtual world on top of that one isn't necessarily an objective mistake. At least then, we'd have some degree of control over it.
Simply put? For every cruel, selfish, egotistical bastard who wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire, there is a kind, good-hearted, person who gives time at a nursing home or donates money, even if it's just a few dollars, to charity or simply does something for someone just to make him/her smile.
Haha. At least your honest, that's good.Indeterminacy said:
I wish the sheltered teenagers would keep their unproven, inexperienced theories and ideas out of the line of sight of people who have actually walked the grit like we have.
Its all well and good reading a book and then claiming the world is a great place before shouting down those of us who know otherwise but it just makes you look like a naive moron when it comes to the hilt.
You are right, it is easier to simply re-create the world in our own image than to accept our insignificance and try to push forward. I still prefer to live as a cynical skeptic, waiting for the world to surprise me by not being twisted and deceitful, but I am as yet holding my breath.
mankind will never change though. Not unless something drastic happens to force us to change as a species and I don't see that happening short of some sort of allied initiative of the governments across the world to stop some sort of alien invasion or planet killing meteor.
Even then I think humanity would keep fighting within itself and be destroyed by the meteor or alien force rather than work together toward a common good. Racist, sexism and religious bias will see to that.
Because as bad as humanity may be currently, there have been noticable steps taken to prevent or otherwise counter that innate evil. Maybe in another 2000+ years, the impact will be more noticable so that people who don't even want to take the time to look for it won't be able to refute its existance. However, I can guarantee you that day will never come if everyone gives up before they get out of the gate. The first step would be to actually take that first step.
Also, someone is going to have to explain to me why good deads are only significant when only the receiving ends benefits. Using this logic, any good dead can counteracted with some much as a 'thank you' being given. Is it a sin to expect a reward of any kind? What if the reward clearly wasn't the effort but the doer was content anyway? If a person is pessimistic enough, they can null any genuine good dead by saying the activist received the warm fuzzies or, if they really want to stretch realism enough, that they made a person's life better, which begets sociality, which may eventually affect their offspring positively.
To give an example, what if every restaurant in America, instead of throwing away leftover food, sent it to starving locales around the world and effectively ended world hunger, but one of the underlying reasons they did this was because they knew it would be easy publicity (which begets more money, which begets for food shipping)? Would you honestly care more about their underlying objective or that they saved lives?
Also, someone is going to have to explain to me why good deads are only significant when only the receiving ends benefits. Using this logic, any good dead can counteracted with some much as a 'thank you' being given. Is it a sin to expect a reward of any kind? What if the reward clearly wasn't the effort but the doer was content anyway? If a person is pessimistic enough, they can null any genuine good dead by saying the activist received the warm fuzzies or, if they really want to stretch realism enough, that they made a person's life better, which begets sociality, which may eventually affect their offspring positively.
To give an example, what if every restaurant in America, instead of throwing away leftover food, sent it to starving locales around the world and effectively ended world hunger, but one of the underlying reasons they did this was because they knew it would be easy publicity (which begets more money, which begets for food shipping)? Would you honestly care more about their underlying objective or that they saved lives?