“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” (Eleanor Roosevelt). This is just one of the infinite examples of how human nature has been explored by so many different people. Each and every human is born with the capability of making their own choices. The decisions that they will make in the future will determine how evil they are viewed by others. Although one’s nature and nurture do affect their life, it is their own free will that determines whether or not they are evil.
Though nature and nurture had an effect on each witness in the Golding Trial, every action that they took was ultimately their own personal choice. Joseph Stalin grew up with a brutal, abusive father and teachers that continually mocked him. He later became one of the most cruel, feared dictators in world history. Since Stalin grew up with authority figures that severely mistreated him, he loathed all authority figures. Additionally, while attending the Gori Church School, Stalin was introduced to banned books. He read many forbidden books that introduced him to Marxism. Joseph Stalin was raised to hate authority from a very young age, so he wanted to be dictator of Russia. As dictator, he could ensure that no one ever had power over him ever again. However, the choices that Stalin made were not taught to him. No one taught him to purge the kulaks. No one taught him to force citizens to be worked to death in gulags. No one taught him to kill those who tried to oppose him. These were all Stalin’s personal decisions. He made his own personal choice to take these atrocious actions, and they can’t be blamed on anyone or anything else.
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...man soldiers use infants and babies as targets for machine guns. These Jewish babies were tossed into the air and used as target practice for the German machine gunners. The soldiers were never told to do this; they chose to. They made their own personal choice to kill the babies. It is natural instinct for humans to protect babies and infants. In order for the soldiers to shoot them, they had to deliberately go against their nature to kill the babies.
Another example from Night is when Rabbi Eliahu’s son leaves him. His son was never told to leave his father, he made his own choice. The fact that Elie Weisel was able to stay with his father shows that this was neither nature nor nurture. The Rabbi’s son made a personal decision to leave his father’s side to save himself. He may not have even known he was being evil. He just made his own choice to leave his father.
When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or hate, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trenches one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. " (Wiesel 6)". The Jews were scared and frightened by the Germans, they listened to everything they had told them to do in fear of dying.
Are humans naturally good, or evil? Many people argue both ways. It has been argued for centuries, and many authors have written about it. One example of this is Samuel Clemens's, more commonly known as Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book follows a young boy, named Huckleberry, and a runaway slave, named Jim, as they both run away. Huck runs away to escape being civilized, while Jim runs away from slavery. Together, they talk about life, philosophy, and friends. As they travel down the Mississippi River, both Huck and Jim learn various life lessons. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck witnesses the depravity of human nature on his journey on the Mississippi River.
It is the contention of this paper that humans are born neutral, and if we are raised to be good, we will mature into good human beings. Once the element of evil is introduced into our minds, through socialization and the media, we then have the potential to do bad things. As a person grows up, they are ideally taught to be good and to do good things, but it is possible that the concept of evil can be presented to us. When this happens, we subconsciously choose whether or not to accept this evil. This is where the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke become interesting as both men differed in the way they believed human nature to be.
The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something worthwhile for mankind. For this reason, it is nearly impossible to determine what makes a human being choose the way he/she behaves. Mary Shelley (1797-1851) published a novel in 1818 to voice her opinions about determining personality and the consequences and repercussions of alienation. Shelley uses the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau to make her point. Rousseau proposed the idea that man is essentially "good" in the beginning of life, but civilization and education can corrupt and warp a human mind and soul. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (hereafter referred to as Frankenstein), Victor Frankenstein’s creature with human characteristics shows us that people are born with loving, caring, and moral feelings, but the creature demonstrates how the influence of society can change one’s outlook of others and life itself by his reactions to adversity at “birth”, and his actions after being alienated and rejected by humans several times.
The article I picked to show the evil in the world today was about a man named Abner Louima. This man was arrested in 1997 and is suing the state of New York for being beaten in a restroom in the station while being questioned. The sole witness Conelle Lugg, 19, he heard loud screaming and banging noises against the wall of the bathroom while he was in his cell, he then saw a police officer push Louima into a cell pants down and blood rushing out of his open wounds. The officer then proceeded to tell Louima to get on his knees. After all this Lugg said, that Louima fell to the floor and screamed in pain and begged to be taken to a hospital.
there is a good and an evil side to all people, some people are more
Instead the environment we are raised in will change who we are and how we act. In the short story “The Half-Husky” by Margaret Laurence, Harvey is a prime example of this - as a child, he was very innocent and lacked a suitable understanding of the environment he was in, but as he grew up his aunt began to complain about how much of a nuisance he was in her life (complaining about no one wanting to date her because she already had a child). Growing up knowing that you are not wanted must be extremely difficult, because your life may seem without a purpose. Harvey - being raised by an aunt who does not want him - began to not want anything to do with other people. He began to model what his aunt did to him to other people, eventually reaching Nanuk and Vanessa. Nanuk is a dog, but not much different from Harvey as a pup Nanuk was very innocent, but once Harvey started torturing Nanuk by poking him with a stick, getting pepper in his eyes, and even setting him on fire! Nanuk became very cautious and aggressive around other people, the environment he was originally raised in with Vanessa was one with a lot of care, but once he was introduced to Harvey he went from extremely innocent to overly aggressive. Humans are not inherently good or evil, but are susceptible to change through their experiences in their
In today’s society, one is constantly surrounded by individuals with different behaviors. Some will sacrifice his or her life for a complete stranger. However, there is some individuals who would take advantage of the weak and poor for his or her own personal gain. Now the question arises, what makes human beings behave the way they do? Being the topic of conflict of psychology for years, one usually turns to the nature verses nurture theory for the answer to that question. Some believes that a person is born with a certain personality, others believe it is an individual’s atmosphere that determines his or her attitude, and some even trusts the idea that it is a combination of genes and environment that dictates the conduct of an individual.
In a Man 's Nature is Evil, men are depicted as evil since birth. Hsün Tzu declares that "Man 's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity" (Tzu 84). He speaks about how men are born with fondness for certain aspects of life such as profit, envy and beauty. Consequently, obtaining these aspects would lead to a life of violence, crime and recklessness. According to Tzu, men are born with a pleasure for profit. However, this need for riches will cause a man to have conflicts and altercations in his life. This is due to the fact that man will have such a great urge to obtain profit in life that he will go to all means necessary, including violence. Man is also born with envy and hate; it is not something he is taught. The internal struggle these two attributes have to offer will once
Evil can be a scary thing many things can influence on why a person may be considered evil or do evil things.People do things because they were influenced by others or by their own selfish desires,
Through the progression of William Golding's Lord of the Flies and the article, “Are Humans Good or Evil” by Clancy Martin and Alan Strudler, a multitude of undeniable evidence is provided to prove that humans are in fact inherently wicked. In Lord of the Flies, a human being’s savage nature and primal instincts are effectively portrayed through the development of Jack, the lead hunter in a group that gets meat for the boys. Little Jack Merridew, who seems to be nothing but a naive and obnoxious chorister, becomes one of the most malicious and violent boys on the island. Jack's wilder side shows itself the most when he goes hunting. Making one his first kills brought such exhilaration, satisfaction, and pure bloodlust, that it drove him to insane limits,
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur into many shades of grey allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being. Man is not inherently good or evil but they are born innocent without any values or sense of morality until people impart their philosophies of life to them. In the words of John Locke:
How exactly does the human brain work? Are humans evil by nature or are they good samaritans most, if not all, the time? As studies throughout history have shown, this is not the case. Humans are inherently evil because they are always seeking as much power as they can, revert to challenging authority and selfishness in times of peril, and become intimidated easily by “authority” figures egging them on, which is reflected in The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, as well as The Zimbardo Experiment conducted by Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo.
"The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play” (Wilde 4). Many different events can cause someone to become evil in their thoughts and actions, but we can take refuge in the fact that it is possible to grow and change for the better. People often transform into better versions of themselves all the time. As humans, it is our nature to care for one another and be a productive member of society. There are certain moral standards that allow every and any individual to become the best version of themselves, no matter where they come from or their background. Through maturation and experience, individuals attempt to better themselves no
...ing, it is safe to say that humans are not by nature evil but instead, they are good but easily influenced by the environment and society to act in evil way and do such evil things. You choose the road you want to take; either it’s the bad road or the good road. We are all born to live a life where we will be faced with good and evil things. We were not born to be an evil or bad person, but as you get older you make that choice. What do you want to be remembered as: the good or the bad person? Choose to be good over being bad because the rewards to your family, your friend, and yourself will always outweigh the bad.