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RE: DEBATE: Is Human Nature Good Or Bad?

in #philosophy7 years ago

Don't we first have to define what is good or what is bad? If all our activity is focused on getting what we want at the expense of other people that's called selfish. Parents and teachers try to get rid of this at an early age kids. Of course it doesn't usually work. The most common word in all languages is I.
Getting what we want seems a human desire hard to stop.

Of course people on Wall Street will be much different than those in a monastery in Tibet. So where you live makes a big difference. Don't assume that car coming down Wall Street is going to stop to let you cross the street. A study from The 1950s by Lewin found that Rats in crowded conditions were much less kind.

We are all a mix of good and bad. The same person might show road rage in traffic and later hold the door open for someone. Most religions try to get us to be more this way. Most fail. There are millions in prisons and few in monasteries. Better look both ways and cross that street quickly.

To quote a Nobel prize winning poet, "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows."