Comment on Why do some racist, classist, homophobic ect people do "good" things sometimes?
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
As others have pointed out, there’s no “black-and-white” (if you’ll pardon the irony) way of categorizing people. Bad or good people are fictional. Even the best of us have ugly parts to how we behave, and otherwise terrible people can show surprising compassion. Our values can conflict and in the moment we chose to do something wildly out of character, or indulge in impulses we didn’t even realize we had.
In the real world there are no absolute heroes or villains. A man who gave his boots to a homeless man one moment, could beat another to death a few months later. Human beings are wildly inconsistent.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
There are objective good and bad people. They are just rare. Most people are in the bell curve, and the vast majority of us hold some racist/sexist/stupid beliefs… the issue is just if those beliefs align with our peers, then they are good, and bad if they don’t.
I witness people saying horrible shit all the time, but as long as it’s against the ‘bad people’ people think it is great and you are wonderful for saying it.
dustyData@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Morality is not a bell curve. No one is absolutely good or bad, because what is good or bad is relative to the person doing the action and those observing it.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
by that definition, as long as i asked someone to kill me, it’s a morally good thing.
dustyData@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Yes, that’s the whole argument for euthanasia. Glad I helped you to understand it.
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
There are no objectively good and bad people. Never have been, never will be. Every one of us is a grab bag of contradictions. Objectively good people are not rare, they’re fictional. If you seriously look under the surface, we’re all both monsters and angels on some level. Some of us just have better self-control and/or fewer opportunities to be actively transgressive.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
right, so criminal psychopaths and such are sometimes good people?
and someone who never harmed anyone in their life, must also be terrible in some way? they are just ‘lucky’ that life never goaded them into violence or hate…
you are clinging really hard to this relativism. i notice people who do that are usually shitty folks who are trying to normalize their history of repeatedly bad actions, like cheaters, drunk drivers, and folks with who are violent or abusive.
funny thing about my violent exes, they always took this relativist stance on ethics, because to them ‘good’ was only what benefited themselves and the notion there is something more important than them and their immediate feelings was considered evil to them.
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
I mean if your go to is to personally attack anyone who disagrees with you I don’t know why anyone would bother to have a serious discussion with you, but for the cheap seats I’ll try.
Yes, Criminal Psychopaths can, in certain circumstances be good people, other than the fact that they brutally kill some people. No mass murderer has ever been arrested that their neighbours weren’t standing there saying “but he was such a nice guy!” That doesn’t mean I don’t think they should be dealt with harshly, but the reality is, there are people who are good husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and friends who also do absolutely monstrous things when no one else is looking. While we’re at it, there’s no such thing as someone who has never harmed anyone. We’ve all done things that hurt people, and no, just apologizing doesn’t make it all go away. Some harms are more serious than others but no one is blameless. There are absolutely people who tend more toward good, and some that tend more toward bad, but I’ve also watched “good” people rationalize and try to justify some absolutely wild levels of cruelty under the wrong circumstances.
Look, I get it, you’ve been through some shit. I’ve been there and the idea that some people are good and some people are bad and as long as you find the good people you’ll be safe is really comforting. Unfortunately it’s not true. There’s no such thing as someone who is always cartoonishly evil, and there is no one who is perfectly safe, not even you.