Calvin and Hobbes: Is human nature good or evil?

Seriously…my vote is for crazy too. I mean, come on, we all feel crazy sometimes, or when we don’t feel crazy and we look around and everything is crazy around us and then we wonder :
“Am I crazy for not feeling crazy?!”

We are such a mash of good and evil that it makes a us a little loopy.

I agree with AngelineM. Either way we’re going to get flamed for passing judgement.

I have no idea. I tend to believe that a person is inherently good, but people are not. Put it to mob mentality or whatever. But, then you take into account greed and you can see how the one person could not be good. On the other hand, take into account culture and you could find yourself in a crowd, town, city, or country of the kindest people you’ve ever met.

Moral of my story: The jury’s out.

And I love Calvin and Hobbes. My favorite quote: There’s never enough time to do all the nothing we want.

I have been reading the book “The Liars Tale: A History of Falsehood” by Jeremy Campbell. In it he addresses this issue. He does so by explaining the world we live in, by way of different sociologist and scientists, such as Darwin and Lamarck.

In the second chapter, I feel he makes the best point in this topic. To summarize, in essence, he says,

Humans are neither good, nor evil, by nature. We are not inclined to be good or bad, because those actions are perceived internally by others, based on what happens externally.

Instead, he claims, that humans simply are. Meaning, we act out of self-preservation, self-advancement, self-gratification, self-defense, etc.

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What I get from this is this: To describe humanity as either bad or good is, like Ian said, more a statement about me, then about people. We cannot describe the collective in these terms, sure we can describe individuals, but not a collective people. We all exist for ourselves, and our progeny, which are a reflection of ourselves, in my opinion.

Now, you might say, “WHAT?! I don’t do these volunteer trips just to make myself feel good!” I being someone who is working to go on a volunteer trip to Haiti in March, who is getting an education in a field where I will be helping people in global poverty situations, and having a past in helping people, might agree with you, before I really I looked at the situation.

Get past all the negative connotations, get past the idea that it’s BAD to work for yourself. When you got back and you told people about what you did, and they are impressed and throw compliments your way, doesn’t it make you feel good?

When you are actively helping someone, and they smile and say thank you, doesn’t it feel good?

Please do not think I’m insulting myself, or anyone who partakes similarly. I’m just making a case.

You might say, what about mothers and fathers and the work they do for their children. Aren’t those kids a representation of their parents, even adopted ones? Do they not represent their upbringing. I digress, and I am generalizing even more now.

The simple point stands though, we work for ourselves, in all that we do. It is not some evilly selfish inclination, it is human nature. Some take it to a further extent than others, some use it as rationalization to commit evil acts and others are impacted by the emotions. Regardless of what you are doing, even self-mutilation, it is out of some deep and basic instinct in humans to help ourselves advance.

Individuals are generally good. We see evidence for this everyday in our lives. Most people mean no harm to others. Do people do evil to you while walking down the street, at work, or during the myriad of other daily social activities? If people were generally evil someone would just as soon punch you in the face as give you the time of day. There are a few sociopaths out there, but they are much less than 1% of the population. All the evidence of life seems to indicate that people are generally good.

It’s a big question and so many theories out there, as Jared pointed out.

I think humanity is basically good, and the support for Haiti etc shows that.

But I think it is still self-preserving and always open to negative possibilites.

Changing the circumstances a bit, as in history when charismatic dictators have persuaded the masses to do evil; or when the individual is given the corrupting influence of power such as in the Stanford prison experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

I think humans are like (other?) animals, and adapt to their situations. A good loving dog in its home might turn bad if removed to a bad home, or into a killer if it finds itself lost and starving.

Scholars estimate, conservatively in my opinion, that more than 262,000,000 people were killed as the result of democide (killed by their own governments). Six times as many people have died from the inflictions of people working for governments than have died in battle.

Draw your own conclusions.

soo, its pretty much all true. some people are good, some are bad, but most are crazy