Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

psycho-philospohical questions that need answering

Page 4 of 4 [ 50 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4

Previous topic | Next topic

Awesomelyglorious
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,157
Location: Omnipresent

17 Apr 2009, 10:57 pm

starvingartist wrote:
well we could get into a whole different discussion about individual rights and freedoms vs the rights of the group, but it's too late for me to go there tonight lol--i will say however that since no man can exist outside of all other life, than trying to navigate through it in a completely self-serving manner just doesn't seem like the wisest choice to me. it is foolishly dismissive and wantonly blind. freedom must be balanced with responsibility, or all you have is chaos where everyone just does whatever the hell they want. that obviously is not something to strive for as a species.

Well, how does the status of other beings have anything to do with the basis of my behavior?

Well, chaos only emerges if other people are doing that same thing. It says nothing about the basis of your actions. I mean, you, the acting individual, are the only actor.



marshall
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Apr 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,752
Location: Turkey

22 Apr 2009, 3:21 pm

This is an interesting topic. I don't really have the time or energy to contribute to the all the subsequent debates and digressions in this thread but I'd still like to respond to the original post if I may.

The concept of a complete lack of compassion in an individual disturbs me as well. But to me there is something even more disturbing about human nature. It's the fact that sociopathic behavior towards a certain target isn't limited to people who fit a certain "psychological type" you describe. When the people who possess those qualities are mere outliers they can be held in check by society as a whole. The amount of damage individuals can inflict is limited. But when the sociopathic mindset makes its way into the power structure of society the potential for evil is virtually unlimited.

It's the power of culture to destroy the emotional connectedness of people that really haunts me. When I read about the way African slaves were treated on slave ships during the American slave trade years there's just no way I can comprehend it. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the majority of slave traders were sociopaths. These were normal people. If a difference as trivial as physical appearance can make millions of ordinary "good" people go emotionally blind to each other then I can't put much stock in the ability of empathy to save us from ourselves.

As painful as it is to admit this I can't truly convince myself that I'm above it all. I can't say I'm not emotionally blind to people who operate completely devoid of compassion. It's the emotional blindness that makes hate possible. So in a sense I feel that I am partially sociopathic in my disposition towards sociopaths. Because I can't possibly "get" these people they are almost like objects to me. I don't think I'm so far gone as to have no reaction to seeing these people suffer. Even monsters don't truly deserve to suffer IMO. But if I witnessed actual damage done by someone like this, damage delivered without provocation or remorse, then I would probably lose all sense of caring or feeling towards them.