Comment on What is in for the antivax in a government?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 hours agoThey absolutely think they are doing good…
Pretty unanimously, the most evil people to walk the planet all legitimately believe they’re the good guys.
Almost no one sees themselves as a villain, that’s just how the human brain is wired.
People not understanding this, is why evil shit keeps fucking happening.
If you just keep writing them off as “villains” doing evil for the sake of evil, we’ll never learn how to stop it. That literally why they keep coming back.
snooggums@piefed.world 5 hours ago
Nah, the majority of evil people are doing stuff that benefits them personally, not for some misguided altruistic purpose that makes for good villains in fiction. Trump, Putin, and all of the rest sre just looking out for themselves and sometimes their families/contacts at the expense of everyone else.
CannonFodder@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Yes, but they honestly believe that’s the right thing to do. Or at least they’ve convinced themselves that it’s excusable. They believe they have a right to do things for themselves at the expense of others. That’s why they won’t ever have remorse. It takes more intelligence to empathize with others; they don’t have that. It’s actually kinda sad.
People who wig out and do what they know is evil are very distraught, and often suicidal.
snooggums@piefed.world 4 hours ago
None of that describes someone who thinks they are 'one of the good guys'.
valek879@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
But it does describe an embattled hero surrounded by villains on the snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Heroes kill people all the time in stories. We don’t disparage the hero because they killed because it was for a good cause. And like imagine if the hero didn’t kill the bad guy and next week you’re dealing with the bad guy again. Clearly RFK and friends are fighting the good fight and have to defeat the bad guys once and for all.
Obviously to me it’s BS but the point is that they might see the bad stuff and justify it because of the greater good or whatever. We’ve learned through countless tales that ends don’t justify the means and doing bad things for the greater good is usually bad and often terrible. But we also have an imagination and empathy. And know how to read.
Fiction is full of stories that teach you right from wrong. The distinction gets more complicated as we get older so we use stories to explore the ideas. WE do that, our current leaders do not. And because of that they are lacking in empathy and didn’t see the patterns that they are following. And don’t see the history that they are rhyming with.