Are We Bad ?

In "The Iks", Lewis Thomas addresses the controversy on whether humans are fundamentally charitable or atrocious. In a mountain valley of northern Uganda, there is a small tribe called the Iks. The government forces them to relocate since the government decides to build a national park on their homeland. Later, anthropologists are sent to observe their behavior after the relocation. It turns out that the Iks become a group of selfish people. They never share, let the elders to starve and turn out the children to forage when they are young. As a final point, anthropologists conclude that humans are fundamentally atrocious through this observation from the Iks. In contrast, Thomas believes that humans are fundamentally charitable, but humans tend to become selfish and cruel when they get into groups. Thomas believes that nations are self-centered and solitary. In his opinion, watching the behavior of each individual Iks is like watching different nations fighting against each other since they all share the common characteristics such as greedy, heartless, irresponsible and egotistical.
In my personal opinion, I agree with Thomas that when humans gather into groups, they become selfish, cruel and greedy.

However, I personally believe that humans are fundamentally atrocious as individual .Examples such as cyber bullying, civil wars and charity scandals can prove that humans are fundamentally atrocious as individual or as groups.

To begin with, humans become cruel when they gather into groups. In psychology, identity is a person's conception and expression of individuality or group affiliations. In other words, humans try to confirm their identity by finding other humans who share the same interest. Humans know gather more people can demand more power, in that case they tend to fight for more benefits as a group. Yet once there are different opinions in a group, humans