Tiny Little Despots and The Normalisation Of Evil Behaviour in Current Society

Deus

Human nature more than ever has become more and more susceptible to degrees of corruption that has become so widespread in current society as to be normalised, go uncriticised and go unchecked.

And it’s not just the base vileness of most human beings to be nasty to each other that is the problem it’s the platform to do so in this ever increasing fragmented society.

The little illusory power that some individuals believe they hold whether that be granted by peers, fans, customers, or university and the platform to air their ignorant uninformed opinions through current media (tv, internet, social media) has inadvertently lead to even more souls become prey to such influence.

The world has got bigger and smaller in last century or so. Bigger in terms of population and smaller in terms of the ability to travel to any destination quicker and cheaper. Smaller also in terms of information news etc to be distributed to everybody with access to the tech en masse.

This has now exposed the little tyrant in almost every human being, unprepared, unenlightened, ignorant and the ability to express their bile at any point their status quo is questioned is but one of the many facets which in previous centuries were unheard off.

These are essentially new problems that society is facing but the old ones also have made their way unchanged from 200 years ago or more.

The inability of man to think for himself and yet at the same time have the instantaneous ability to communicate and express himself with almost any individual on any part of the world is where others become indoctrinated in evil, malice and stupidity.

So then though these aspects of human nature are not new or revelatory they’re just more thoroughly exposed.

Human beings can be good but they must do so through suffering for it is that that teaches compassion, love, self-love, respect for self and others. Humanity, charity and helping others when they are in need.

If not through suffering then a good home, good education on healthy social real interactions not social media and other such gizmos.

Agent Smith

Power asymmetry, oui mon ami?

Deus

↪Agent Smith

All power is equal, the abuse of it is not. Some temper it others go mad with it.

Agent Smith

↪Deus

All power is equal? Why then is there evil in the world?

Deus

Because of the improper exercise of it e.g. corruption…see hitler, putin etc

javi2541997

hitler, — Deus

Hitler was never a corrupted politician. The III Reich characterises for being a devil but clean dictatorship.

Joshs

↪Deus

Human nature more than ever has become more and more susceptible to degrees of corruption that has become so widespread in current society as to be normalised, go uncriticised and go unchecked.

And it’s not just the base vileness of most human beings to be nasty to each other that is the problem it’s the platform to do so in this ever increasing fragmented society. — Deus

If we were to populate an entire planet with clones of you, people who not only share the moral philosophy in your OP but follow its implications to the letter, channeling only their most noble instincts in dealing with others and assiduously avoiding what they define as corruption and vileness, what would be the result? I suggest it would be similar to the world that you describe. When we try to hold others to normative primciples of right and wrong, when we understand human behavior in terms of a universal framework of ethics, we will have no effective means of making sense of ways of seeing the world very different from ours , and we will be forced to condemn rather than sympathize with behaviors that don’t fit our norms. In this way, our moral righteousness is part of the problem rather than the solution. As Ken Gergen wrote:

“We do not suffer from an absence of morality in the world. Rather, in important respects we suffer from its plenitude.”

Deus

Criticism is feedback. And helpful to individuals to be confronted with themselves if they can not do so unaided.

At the risk of sounding a moraliser. I do not condemn but sympathise with the various levels of ignorance that produce such behaviour.

Seeker

↪Deus

I believe the things you are trying to point out have to be seen at the relative level, e.g. it is not wrong to assume for any antagonists to be able to cover more ground nowadays but the same holds true for the communication possibilities of any protagonist. The scalability of it all might have changed but any good or bad influences existed always before as well. Another relevant factor in that context is the scale of the media of the days of old vs the social media of late and before it all the total lack thereof. People were prettty nasty 'back then' as well but the only things on record concerning whichever pre-industrial behavior, let alone 'our' pre-historic' behavior, were written down by a select group of biased 'authors of history'.

PhilosophyRunner

If we were to populate an entire planet with clones of you, people who not only share the moral philosophy in your OP but follow its implications to the letter, channeling only their most noble instincts in dealing with others and assiduously avoiding what they define as corruption and vileness, what would be the result? I suggest it would be similar to the world that you describe. When we try to hold others to normative primciples of right and wrong, when we understand human behavior in terms of a universal framework of ethics, we will have no effective means of making sense of ways of seeing the world very different from ours , and we will be forced to condemn rather than sympathize with behaviors that don’t fit our norms. In this way, our moral righteousness is part of the problem rather than the solution. As Ken Gergen wrote:

“We do not suffer from an absence of morality in the world. Rather, in important respects we suffer from its plenitude.” — Joshs

I agree with this post. Recently I have been leaning towards the view that it is not immorality or amorality that causes the greatest harm, rather it is righteousness that does the most damage.

Agent Smith

Because of the improper exercise of it e.g. corruption…see hitler, putin etc — Deus

In other words power trumps ethics and hence evil; I suppose all crimes/evil deeds can be reexpressed as power play - might is right?

Deus

↪Agent Smith

The corruption of power is evil for it can no longer be called power.

Agent Smith

The corruption of power is evil for it can no longer be called power. — Deus

What can it be called then?

Deus

Delusion

Agent Smith

Delusion — Deus

Yep, that's one way of describing it.

Deus

↪Agent Smith

Power and the illusion of power is something of an everyday occurrence within the corporate world and I even include banking industry here.

After large acquisition of wealth the mismanagement of it ultimately betrays the illusion

Agent Smith

↪Deus

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Power + Money (the other thread).

Deus

Power plus money = influence I guess.

But towards what values…western ones I hope

Agent Smith

↪Deus

That's a good question.

BC

has become more and more susceptible to degrees of corruption that has become so widespread in current society as to be normalised, go uncriticised... — Deus

Humans have been corruptible from the beginning (write in your preferred date here ______________ I doubt that corruption has been "normalized" or gone "uncriticized". Unchecked? It's never been checked very well.

These are essentially new problems that society is facing but the old ones also have made their way unchanged from 200 years ago or more — Deus

200 years? That's just yesterday. We do have a few new problems (global warming, for instance) but most of our problems have equivalents in any time period we might look at.

The inability of man to think for himself — Deus

People are as able (or not) to think for themselves as they have ever been

I am not especially sanguine about our collective future, but I am reasonably confident that people are operating now with pretty much the same capacities they have always operated with, which means that we will tend to be a day late and a dollar short most of the time. We developed the ability to create problems that we do not seem to have the ability to solve. Perhaps big brains and abstract thinking aren't all that advantageous after all.

We aren't evil; we are smart and wise (once in a while) -- just not quite smart and wise enough.

Tiny Little Despots and The Normalisation Of Evil Behaviour in Current Society

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