Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Portia on February 20, 2006, 10:07:27 AM
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I haven't tried to run a poll before. Hope this works okay. Everyone gets one vote (logged in people only I think…?). I’ll try and vote first. I would imagine it’s anonymous.
This is a question I enjoy asking people, to see what they think and why.
When I say are people born or made evil, by evil I mean ‘bad’, destructive, angry, hateful etc. Kind of relates to Tiffany’s thread and I’d be interested to see what people feel overall.
Hope I’ve made the choices clear…let’s see if it works…please have a vote. Thank you.
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Cool! It seems to work. And you can give replies if you want to, too. Or just vote and remain anonymous.
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this is a toughey!! i think born. there are many people who go through terrible circumstances in their lives and turn out to be warm caring individuals. there are others who blame their evilness on their circumstances. on the other side, there are people who are given the best upbringing and are still evil.
i was reading on the net the other day. there was a serial killer, cant rememeber the name but he has offered his brain to science. he swears that they will find something wrong with his brain.
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Thanks Darky I’ve been reading after your post and now I’m in two minds! Head injuries seem to figure highly in criminals (killers) and the studies of serial killers' brains are fascinating. But is it born or made – even by accidental damage (what if brains are damaged in the womb?)– seems we don’t know either way.
I’m hoping they don’t find some genetic reason. On the other hand…..
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it could open the debate even more if we can try to ask, what is evil? evil by whos standards? society? from one individual to another? is someone evil because how they have treated an individual? could a person have percieved anothers actions as evil because they have not known or presumed intentions? see in my mothers books i am evil, well the term she used was poisen. i think she is evil because of how i felt she has treated me and my sister. on the other hand my other sister, the choosen one, absolutley does not think our mother is evil, and probably thinks we are evil.
i think i am confuzzling myself here!! :? i apologise, i am not very good at getting a point across, mores the point, im not sure what my point is lol!
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I have a deep belief here which kind of contradicts the poll in the first place :?… I did ask two family members this question and they both said ‘born’ straight away.
I don’t think anyone is inherently evil as a person, but I do think people commit evil acts. Why they do it is the question for me…and Darky you said you think your mother is evil because of her actions, yeah, actions are evil! Calling her daughter poison.. that’s a terrible thing to say to a child, at any age. I’m sorry.
I get your point darky. Thanks for voting too (assuming you did). It’s probably a daft thing to vote on but I wanted to try it out………bye for now
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no not daft at all!! i just get some weird ideas in my head sometimes!! i hope i have not offended you!! (((((hugs)))))))
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Fascinating...and I'd MUCH rather do this than work, but (so briefly):
I think it's also a language issue and I like to think about how language evolves.
They used to call depression "melancholia".
I think perhaps "evil" is evolving into "sociopathy" or even "extreme narcissism" or similar terms.
"Good" though, seems a word I'd like to keep forever.
I wonder if when I prefer to skate from "evil" to "pathology" if I'm trying to avoid some deeper question about faith.
I'm an agnostic but it's a painful position. An honest one I can't simply discard, put something else in the slot. But if I had a more certain grasp on the langugage of faith I'd do better with the question of evil.
Maybe the greatest evil is apathy in the face of suffering.
Hops
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Oops! I may have erased? my intro!...Anyone familiar with Dr. Robert O'Hare's cutting edge research into sociopathy? He's an internationally renowned expert and researcher in sociopathy and psychopaths out of the University of UBC in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. My home town! Fascinating research. He did studies years ago hooking people up to brain scans and looking at the activity in certain areas of their brains in response to words. He flashed a number of words on a screen-neutral words like " chair, book" etc and emotionally laden words like" fire, blood, pain" etc. He had various test groups including people with anti social diagnoses etc from prison population...and really fascinating ( and no doubt some will be offended and consider this controversial!)- Vancouver Stock Exchange brokers! Hmmm! a whole 'nother diebate/discussion! Anyway...what he found was the brain scans showed distinct difference between normal subjects and sociopaths reponses to words in terms of what areas of the brain were stimulated. He found that with normal subjects, the emotionally charged words produced lots of frontal lobe activity and activity in centres where our conscience is housed. For the anti social and sociopathic subjects, however, the only activity- in response to both neutral and emotionally charged words- occurred in the base of the brain. where animal instincts are housed- sex, shelter, food etc- all the base instincts and not anything related to emotion, conscience, empathy etc. So...his research seems to support theory there is a genetic basis for anti social behavior and that these people have no access to feelings( other than envy, anger, rage, hate etc) or conscience. They see people as objects, are all about instant gratification and taking what they want, how they want, when they want without any thought to who they have to hurt or destroy. There is evidence on the other hand, that anti social people can be trained to recognize and respect- some, not all- consequences to their actions which can put the brakes on their destructive behaviors. All they have to learn is that if they do a), then they risk b) happening to them and if it's a criminal charge or significant loss, they may reconsider simply because of what it wold mean to THEM.So...i do believe that people are born genetically impaired in terms of being capable of feelings, specifically empathy and having a conscience. We may all look human but there are monsters walking among us in human form. I know many people find that a disturbing and difficult to wrap- your- mind- around concept. I come into contact with numerous sociopaths etc in the course of my work and it's chilling how many of them were exhibiting incredibly cruel and violent behaviors at very young ages- age 3, 4 etc. I am hesitant to use the term "evil" ( although I wholeheartedly understand the sentiment and am not totally opposed to the concept...serial killers come to mind, for one) because it's a value judgment and an emotional term( not to mention religious connotation). People without consciences are simply what they are, and in the extreme are killing machines- not unlike sharks. I agree with those who feel that Ns are anti social and often sociopathic. There are distinctions between all these diagnoses according to the DSM- some subtle. Look forward to other opinions! Hugs, Moira
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That's brilliant Moira. I like the sharks analogy, as in an odd way its without judgment.
It helps to think that some people are simply unsafe.
OTHER people were not born with that genetic limitation, and then through environment (e.g., abuse) they became shark-like. But in some cases with love and help, these folks can turn around. (I keep remembering the young white separatist, reared on pure hate, who did an about face at the risk of his life...totally GOT the humanity of people he'd been taught to hate.)
Fascinating and helpful discussion. Thanks for all of the pieces.
Hops
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Hi Guys,
Great topic.....I think both. I think that ultimately people get a choice. I think that we live in an imperfect world and I think that noone is 100 percent good, or 100 percent evil. I think we all have a capacity to do and be evil. I do think it has to do with the brain too. I think to deny emotions is a scary concept. This means that choices are not filtered through the heart or soul. I wonder whether any babies are born not having emotion. Or is the absent of emotion a choice. Did a pyshopath chose to ignore the heart of emotion somewhere along the line. Or was is a mental condition that forced him to be without that emotion. Do sociopaths choose to deny any good. I once read about a girl who was bought up by satanist and she had lost all memory of the horrific disgusting rituals that went on untill she was in her 20's. I think that sometimes people who are exposed to extreme evil either become just as evil or learn a way to protect of themselves what is good. Do you think that others who were bought up fine have chosen to become evil or were going to be evil anyway. Do you think that evil is about whats in the mind, heart or soul of a person or sometimes just the mind. I don't know but I think we all get a choice, a persons mind can't be 100 percent evil can it?
Jessica :) :)
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i think the same as you jessica. i dont think a persons mind can't be 100% evil. thinking about seriel killers in prison, they may well have battered, beaten, murdered people, or maybe they were involved in gangs, killing loads of people. BUT if they get their hands on someone that is classed as a peadophile.....................
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Darky wrote:
evil by whos standards? society?
Portia wrote:
I did ask two family members this question and they both said ‘born’ straight away.
Both points strike me relevant. Quite frankly some (many?) of society's standards of evaluation are designed to protect (tolerate) abuse, and are - in my book - quite evil. However, they tend to derive from psychopaths (sociopaths) rigging the system to protect themselves.
And I think that people who "would like to" believe that people are born evil are doing a kind of evasive maneuver - because if people are not born evil, then the rest of us (parents, etc.) have a LOT of 'splaining to do!
Personally, I take the Alice Miller (alice-miller.com) view that people are made evil by abuse, and that this is a cycle - and that we have to be aware of how we treat children (and one another generally) such as to turn it around - but, meanwhile, the culture has become somewhat, er, abusive, and it is difficult to find sane, healthy standards in most of our institutions. Of course, in such a situation it is much easier to simply say: "born" and blank-out accountabilitly. Easier, but not very effective.
I am aware of those studies where people have presumeably normal, healthy childhoods and still turn out bad, but I seriously question the standards of "normal" in our presently abusive culture. The important bonding that MUST occur at the time of birth (with the mother) is regularly and forcefully prevented in all hospital births around the world. And this is normal, but diabolically evil in itself. And not a minor point in the central question of empathy.
I think we really have to LOOK at what we are doing to children from the time of conception onward. And I think most people don't want to look, perhaps are afraid to look.
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15 votes! I’m glad I did this now. I was a bit unsure at first. Lots of interesting thoughts here.
Moira,
I looked at Dr. Robert D Hare (????same one?) website and books (http://www.hare.org/) and thought about his work, and him, and how he’s really cornered his market so to speak and so on. And it struck me that he’s looking at those people now, as they are today, and I wonder if he looks at how they got that way, peers right back into their backgrounds, genes even. I don’t think his stuff necessarily supports the genetic angle but I do think he’s made one heck of a name and business for himself. I’m …. sceptical and cynical (the more I know, the less I know, will I end up knowing nothing? I wonder that!). Very interesting. Thanks!
Darky
i dont think a persons mind can't be 100% evil. thinking about seriel killers in prison, they may well have battered, beaten, murdered people, or maybe they were involved in gangs, killing loads of people. BUT if they get their hands on someone that is classed as a paedophile
they’d be violent towards them? I kind of don’t want to go too far down this route because it may well cause lots of emotion here….but…I gotta say, if you mean what I think you might mean, I probably disagree. What I’d disagree with (and it might not be what you mean), is classing anyone as the lowest of the low, because I think that’s creating a scapegoat for all our bad stuff. Better to understand it I think. And understanding is in no way excusing it either. I’m no apologist for others! Hope you see what I mean?
Declarlib
And I think that people who "would like to" believe that people are born evil are doing a kind of evasive maneuver - because if people are not born evil, then the rest of us (parents, etc.) have a LOT of 'splaining to do!
Yes. I think many people who want to believe that other people are born evil are simply avoiding thinking about it. Whether it’s genes or environment, or a mixture of both, it might be different for each person? People may have brain damage in the womb, might have some physical defect from a chemical imbalance, might have bad early years experiences …. or maybe there is some wee part of a gene that can function wrongly, whatever. For the two people in my family, my guess is they don’t want to think about it and they’d rather believe in a black and white world. “They’re evil, I’m not and can’t be. They must be born like that because I can’t imagine anything happening to me that would cause me to commit evil acts.” Lots of fear and denial there! And downright ignorance. Stupidity. No imagination, no empathy.
The important bonding that MUST occur at the time of birth (with the mother) is regularly and forcefully prevented in all hospital births around the world. And this is normal, but diabolically evil in itself. And not a minor point in the central question of empathy.
It’s getting better I believe. Home births happen in the UK. Babies are put straight on the mother’s chest in hospital. It is getting better, slowly. Generally I agree. We’ve got big brains and lots of technology but we’re primitive in our understanding of emotions. And we treat children as objects, all the time. All the time!
LOOK at what we are doing to children from the time of conception onward. And I think most people don't want to look, perhaps are afraid to look
Yep fear keeps us from treating children with more respect than we give adults. And I think they deserve more respect than adults do, purely for practical survival reasons (of the species).
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Put "Richard Kuklinsky, the Iceman" in your address bar and read about him. They have made a couple A&E documentaries about him. He was a professional hired killer who finally got caught. He killed till he was in his 50's, a most prolific killer. Really interesting study on good vs. evil.
He has asked Dr. Parks Dietz (the psychologist who studied Jeffrey Dahmer, Son of Sam and so forth) WHY he was able to do the things he did.
Really, take a look at it. If you can catch anything on him on t.v., you might get something out of it on what makes a person like this.
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How about this? Most people are not all good or all evil, but those we call evil are able to compartmentalize their thinking. For instance, they can be "good" friends and family members and evil businesspeople or vice versa. I should think most people we consider evil are made this way.
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I've been thinking about this one for a long time.
I agree that environment plays a huge role in how we develop as individuals. I also think that our genetic make up, must also play a major role in that development (and that it must be possible for there to be genetic disorder.....making a person prone to poor behaviour......just as people can be prone to alcoholism or heart disease or cancer or mental illness). It has so far not been possible to idenify exactly which genetic markers are responsible for such disorder, but I'm not giving up the idea that that could be something science will eventually be able to identify.
Whether or not genetics will always strongly over ride environment......is debatable. I think the most likely result is that even if a person is, for example, prone to evil behaviour due to some genetic flaw, their final behaviour pattern might be much better, or less evil, if they are raised with love and compassion, in a positive environment, or with good influences readily available. In the alternate scenario, it seems quite possible to me, that if someone is generally genetically inclined to behave well, but they are continuously subjected to a negative, uncompassionate, unloving environment, and if there are no good influences readily available to them.....well.....their behaviour might very well end up not being very good at all.
Then again, take that same person, and subject them to a "bad" environment, and because of their inclination to behave well due to their genetic makeup, they could turn out ok regardless. Or, the one with a genetic tendancy toward evil behaviour, placed in the most positive environment, might still come out "bad".
This, imo, is because there are so many variables, so many intricate differences in individuals, and so much that will never be recorded (because a person's entire life, every event, everyone involved, all reactions, etc would have to be studied and then their genetics disected and examined.....practically impossible).
Born or made? Will we ever really be able to tell? Some things, I think, are just beyond our comprehension.
Sela
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HMMM FIRST OFF
CAN I JUST REPLY IN A SURVEY POLL THING...
TESTING 1 2 3
but first in skimming this topic
i dont think i saw any consideration of reincarnation and such...
as to evil
i think in some regards we are all sinners
which has some aspect of evil
but above and beyond that i think
the question is more in terms of
what i call being addicted to evil
that one cannot in a sense rest until one
has gotten over on another.....
but i think all who enter into an incarnation are given
a kind of shellac of innocence which if adults around that child
nurture can bring better out its chances for overcoming its own past life addiction to evil
if it had developed one
even lacking that
most addcition to evil can be repented of
but in some cases the soul is so addicted
to break it of its addiction death and reincarnation
is what might better work
with a stint in hell
as i think hell is not eternal
but a kind of reform school for the evilly addictec
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hey the question of evil sez there is its other side which is love. if one goes beyond good and evil which alot of really nasty people do
they make a choice to commit or do wrong .there are others that understand beyond good and evil and see there in the long very long run there is no evil. love always is stronger monsters come and go love is eternal .people are not born evil .take 2 kids same family nasty family kids are kicked around one kid decides im no good i want to die then kills himself the other goes out thinks hes the greatest thing ever wants to hurt everyone he sees. problem with thinkiing in terms of good and evil its some thing to blame. when will our planet pull up our collective socks and not hurt each other we have been doing this for ever time to stop one day when we really grow up .the world will not need goverments when we realize our own DIVINITY and be have ourselves. we are a long way from there .what kind of fire has to be lit to get the human race to stop hurting each other .i do not know where this came from but it was a good question moonlight
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From: http://www.saddleback.cc.ca.us/AP/hs/humanServices/syllabi/HS-120.html
(scroll almost halfway down to "BEHAVIOR FROM MOLLUSKS TO MOPPETS, JEAN PIAGET: 1896-1980")
Re: Jean Piaget's observations/conclusions:
"Unlike Freud, Piaget had no taste for grand theories or empire building. Nor did he have any zest for the cut and thrust of academic infighting. He was, in fact, a rather reserved, quiet personality, a familiar, fatherly figure trudging or bicycling along the streets of Geneva, wearing his blue beret and smoking a meerschaum pipe, eyes ablaze as he picked his way through his latest intellectual problem. He was not much interested in fame, polemics or small talk.
Though he could be remote and cold with adults, he had a remarkable empathy with children. For nearly 60 years he studied them as closely as he once studied mollusks, ferreting out their notions of time, space, numbers and ethics as he sprawled on the ground shooting marbles and playing other games with them. Out of these observations came his challenge to prevailing wisdom about child development. One of his conclusions: "Children not only reasoned differently from adults, but also they had quite different world views, literally different philosophies."
Piaget found that toddlers think like primitive people. The very young believe that the moon follows them when they go for a walk, that dreams come in through the window at night, and that all moving things, including ocean waves fluttering flags, are obviously alive. The young child's notion of justice is also primitive, taking into account only the damage done not the intentions of the offender. For example, a child who breaks three teacups while helping Mother clear the table considers himself more culpable than a child who smashes one teacup in a fit of rage. The clash between the child's objective morality and the parent's subjective one, according to Piaget, is at the heart of much parent-child conflict.
Despite his contributions to both fields, Piaget did not consider himself a psychologist or educator, but a "genetic epistemologies" - a biologist-philosopher asking the question: How does the human organism learn? His answer: partly by nature, partly by nurture. By that, Piaget meant that the child is somehow programmed to master logical thought in predictable developmental stages. But, he added, development depends on vigorous interaction with the environment. Thus, learning is not something poured into a child; it is something a child helps create through his or her own activity. One example: until age five or six, most children thing that six pennies stacked up are quantitatively less than when they are spread in a row. By age seven or eight, almost all children understand that the number of pennies does not change, no matter how they are arranged. The child may have the innate ability to comprehend this new mental picture, but he only learns it through action.
Indeed, in Piaget's view, all experience is organized by intelligence. Every child, he said, constructs and constantly revises his very own model of reality, and does so in a regular sequence. Piaget outlined four stages of mental growth. In the first two years of life, the child is primarily concerned with learning about physical objects; in the next four or five years, he is preoccupied with symbols, in language, dreams and fantasy. From age six or seven to about twelve, the child moves on into the abstract, mastering numbers and relationships and how to reason about them. Finally, from age twelve to 15, the youngster tackles purely logical thought and can think about his own thinking and that of others. For the first time, he can understand double entendre and resonance of aphorism.
Though his ideas stressed inborn processes during learning, Piaget called himself "the man in the middle" on the nature-nurture debate. In the U.S. especially, the prevailing intellectual fashion for years was emphatically pro-nature: environment shapes the person, not heredity, and there are no instincts or other inherent structures. As a result, Piaget was cold-shouldered in many sections of American academia as late as the 1960's. Since then, his work, as well as that of such scholars as Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and Linguist Noam Chomsky, helped persuade skeptics that some form of innate mental structures exists, and the nature side of the argument has gained new respectability.
One common criticism of Piaget is that his work does not lead to any clear vision of how to educate children. Two of his conclusions, however, are clear enough: 1) motivation and rewards are not necessary - the structuctures in the child's mind lead to a kind of spontaneous development, and 2) the teacher plays a limited role. For Piaget, the child is the real educator, not the teacher."
Another interesting possibility to consider.
Sela
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Moira : ...i do believe that people are born genetically impaired in terms of being capable of feelings, specifically empathy and having a conscience. We may all look human but there are monsters walking among us in human form. I know many people find that a disturbing and difficult to wrap- your- mind- around concept.
I agree with this and yet I also believe that in some cases, people born normal can be raised by N's and abusive/neglectful/indulgent parents who end up influencing them to an extent that they turn out evil. I don't believe I can unequivocally say that being "born" evil is the only way people end up that way. A human ends up that way either from genetics because of pre-destiny in my opinion, wrong up-bringing or by choice. That's my view.
ReallyME
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Hi Portia,
I didn't vote because i'm not sure what you mean. How are you defining evil? Do you mean people who are predominately evi or people who are purely evil or people who are evil sometimes but not others or what?
I personally think we all have an inherent evil nature. We are all capable of dishonesty, greed and lust. In some people it is far less pronouinced than others, but I believe the potential is there in everyone.
So I guess i believe the latent evil is there at birth in everyone and some combination of genetics and environment causes it to be more or less prevalent in every individual.
I guess the flip side is there is also good inherent in every individual at birth and the same factors cause it to be enhanced or diminished as well.
mud