by Owen Hayburn

Created on: March 18, 2009

Are People Inherently Good?

I do not find that any one person can be inherently good based off of a few different ideals. Most notable of those ideals would be that I do not personally believe in "good" or "bad" or any of those terms that may make a similar comparison.

Let us look firstly at "Good Vs. Bad". To be a "Good" person we as a society have deemed many different acts, and beliefs, and ways of life to be good. If you work hard, pay your taxes, mow your lawn, go to church, you are a "Good" person. If you do not conform to the "normal" ways of this society you are either considered "bad" or just slightly off or different, which at times can be ok. At other times a person can go too far, they can murder their entire office of co-workers, they have a few bodies in their lawn, the say that they will never pay taxes, and so on. Those people would be considered "Bad" possibly even "Evil".

My thoughts on this matter are many are varied. Having said what I have previously in this article, now I will mention the way things I happen to see are and how they work.

First of all the concepts of good or bad do not exist at all. Life itself is about choices. If you choose to do what everyone else thinks is ok to do then you will be alright, or "Good" because the consequences of your actions are positive. If you refuse to do what everyone else wishes you too (to not be a mindless drone) then you are "Bad" because your actions didn't match what everyone else thought they should be. The only thing that makes this difficult is the fact that society is so large now with its burgeoning numbers that no one has the ability to act on their own to discover new ways of doing anything. We like to say otherwise just so no one thinks that we steal people's freedom constantly, but it is the case. Yet, at the same time we cannot overlook the needs of the whole group just to make an individual happy especially if that individual means to harm us all.

As an example let us turn our gaze to a murderer. Lets say that this murderer only kills other criminals. Is he wrong in doing so? Now think for just a moment about how over worked and underfunded our law enforcement is. He is doing a favor to us all by killing other killers. As a whole however this man is dangerous because he doesn't follow the rules that people set up long before he was born and that he never agreed to. Society says hes "Bad". Now if we looked at a cop that took out a mass murderer then he would become a hero, because he worked within our rules to do what was "Good". Even though this cop may drink like a fish and beat his wife and children. Does this make him "good"? Again it all comes down to choices, and sometimes the results of doing what is most beneficial to everyone is not seen in that light, and what seems like it would be fine for everyone actually hurts more people than you would have guessed.

All in all it comes down to a "Good" person, thing, idea, or anything else would be one that ends with positive results, actions, or things. Those objects are not good to begin with they become that way when someone gets what they want out of them. (making people rather selfish to only like what works best for them.) And anything that does not provide someone with exactly what they want or need to be "Bad". because it results in negative consequences.

In closing just remember, make a choice after you have thought about who it will affect, not just you or those small amounts of people around you, but everyone, the person you consider "bad" one day could be the person that made the most positive choices regarding the very actions or items that could save your life.

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