Does our materialistic shallow society result in people that are lousy human beings, or do humans suck in general?

(Only when you have a considerate girlfriend or wife.)

People are generally self serving. If you aren’t or can’t offer some sort of benefit or gain to them, many are totally indifferent.

Humans are responsible for their own actions. Society may influence bad behavior, but in the end, humans are responsible for who they choose to be.

welcome to the human race

I kind of like the clay analogy—people have the potential to be either good or bad at birth (this gets into the whole nature v. nurture thing) but it is their environment and the people with influence in their lives that determine which side of the scale they start leaning towards.

Of course, there are people that have grown up in harsh situations around cruel people and turned around to do just the opposite and reject what they were taught—I suppose then it’s a matter of personality.

The human race isn’t that bad. You know the phrase, “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet”?

It will totally depend on the day of the week. Mondays generally have everybody’s undies in a bunch “leave me the F’ alone attitude facing another week of work and or school. Friday’s everybody is in great helpful moods with the prospect of a little R&R and sleeping in.

Without help, humans will always be terrible creatures.

A traveller nearing a great city asked an old man seated by the road, “What are the people like in this city?” “What were they like where you come from?” asked the old man. “Horrible,” the traveller responded in disgust. “Mean, untrustworthy, detestable in all respects.” “Ah…” said the old man thoughtfully, “you will probably find them the same in this city as well.”

A few hours later another traveler passed by and asked the old man the same question. “What were they like where you come from?” he similarly asked. “They were fine people. Honest, industrious, generous, caring; I was sorry to leave,” the traveller responded. “You’ll find them the same here,” the old man replied.

All to say that if one is inclined to look for either the good or bad in people, one is going to find it.

@Cruiser The highest incidence of heart attacks occur early Monday mornings. :-)

I can’t help but think people just suck in general, which wouldn’t matter to me in the slightest, if it weren’t for the fact that I see so much potential for good.

I don’t see there’s something wrong with that. It’s their right to decide how they want to live like and how they act. As long as they don’t harm other people around them I don’t care about it.

@Doctor_D I know I lost an uncle to a massive HA on a Monday morning.

@Cruiser I don’t know about that. Sorry to hear that.

I think people will answer directly to what they are. So if they say “self serving” “cruel” “kind” good whatever, they are describing themselves.

:P

@Doctor_D Sorry I clicked on wrong name I meant @Dr_Dredd Too many Dr’s in the house!! lol!

@Dr_Dredd so I hear. I even convinced my boss to move Monday morning meetings to a later time slot based on that premise!!

I will never be convinced that people are inherently bad. Even in the case of wars and other large scale atrocities, its the decision of a few who are in charge of bringing it about through every manipulation they can think of, with everyone under them forced to comply. It is not the population as a whole.

I do think that people mistakenly believe society/parents are responsible for the shallow, self-centered attitudes, but I also know for a fact that most people have never been introduced to the proper life management skills one needs in order to lead healthier lives. 95% of us were never even introduced to the idea that there is any other way to live besides the way we live now.

What we’ve seen modeled by everyone from very early ages are various stages of (blanket term alert) dysfunction. I’ve noticed that people are like water, and tend to take the path of least resistance. That’s a shame, because your quality of life doesn’t get any better unless you take actual steps to change it. How can you change something when you don’t even know you can?

Plus, we’re saddled with negative self-images and so much pain that we choose to escape through materialism and ego instead. We do all kinds of things to avoid our pain instead of identifying it. That leads us into never-ending cycles of failed efforts. We try and try, but never see the fruits of out efforts. I happen to think that is the greatest tragedy of our time.

Considering the fact that society was created by people, the wrongdoings of people could hardly be created by society.

xx

@phillis I will never be convinced that people are inherently bad… ...introduced to the proper life management skills one needs in order to lead healthier lives.

You are suggesting that people need to trained to live in a “natural” manner? That they need to be taught skills to lead “healthier lives”.

Doesn’t that mean that without that training they are inherently bad? If not, why do they need training?

@DarkScribe I think she meant that if you don’t have life skills you can come across as a dickhead.

People have the ability to be both good and bad. Does your question mean that you are seeing only the bad in people? That means you should refocus your lens.

People are generally good, but that’s only because most of the time it’s not in our self-interest to be bad. Make no mistake, if it comes down to a choice between someone else and my family, then consider me selfish, greedy and altogether evil. Granted, often times our individual self-interests align (e.g., preventing our country from being conquered by Hitler), but often they do not.

It all boils down to nature—survival is the name of the game. Humans will always seek progress, and progress is by definition relative.

From a societal perspective, fortunately there are a wide variety of governmental forms throughout the world to choose from. If you want some capitalism, try the US. I’d recommend New York City. Check out San Francisco as well. It all depends on what you’re looking for I guess. On the other hand, if totalitarianism and Stalinism float your boat, then move to North Korea. If you fall somewhere in between and prefer that sweet spot smack dab in the middle between communism and capitalism, then get you some socialism—check out Canada, or perhaps France.

@DarkScribe Hmmm…..maybe I wasn’t clear enough when I said I could never be convinced that people are inherently bad. I found it both self-defeating and hurtful to others when I hold a person’s mistakes against them, so I quit doing it.

As a direct result of that decision, I learned thereafter that most mistakes can be grouped into two categories; true mistakes, in which no bad intentions were present, and mistakes that come from personal pain.

By thier nature, neither of those are convincing enough to draw the conclusion that a person is “bad”, and neither of those has anything to do with me. Both causes could be significantly reduced if a person had life management skills. I can’t fully hold it against a person that they don’t understand they are the cause of thier own pain.

Thanks for your thoughts. I am a little sad to see the one’s that agree people suck. I like to think we’re good, but then I see the petty personal attacks and I just shake my head. I guess free will is a great thing, but it also means free to choose negative as well as positive. Do something nice for a random stranger or a friend today, or even better, several people today.

@phillis As a direct result of that decision, I learned thereafter that most mistakes can be grouped into two categories; true mistakes, in which no bad intentions were present, and mistakes that come from personal pain.

Most? I think that a large, possibly the largest motivation nowadays is deliberate, designed to cause angst and or pain. There is a cruelty of intent predominating nowadays that didn’t used to exist in any noticeable amounts. Pick up any daily newspaper to see the truth of that.

@DarkScribe I guess you have to be able to step outside your own pain and ego to see that there is a difference (some people can do this immediately, while others take days or weeks) I don’t deny that people place intentional jabs. What I’m saying is that the person delivering them is in an uhappy place when they delivered it. How many people are busily thinking up ways to hurt others when they are really happy? Hence, those mistakes can safely be assigned to the “mistakes that come from personal pain” category, as I said. Thank you for creating a platform for me to present more detailed thoughts.

I believe that having so many people on the planet these days and living with more people around you than you can interact with causes a person to be removed from the emotions of those around you. If you were in a small community where everyone knew you and if you do something that would cause others to feel negative toward you, you would think twice about what you said and did. If you know you are going to have to face the person that you may have behaved badly toward, on a regular basis, you are more accountable to them. When you live in a large community where you can be rude and insensitive toward people you interact with, you become less concerned about how what you do affects them, afterall, you most likely will not ever see them again, you don’t even know who they are. It removes some of the accountablity from your environment and makes it easier for everything to be about you and what you want. You don’t have to worry about what is going to happen to those around you.

As the saying goes, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.”

I think humans who think that humans suck suck.

People will look bad if you view them through a window of morality that shines an ill light on default human behavior. I don’t see a problem with materialism or shallowness. It just means you don’t believe in some deep mystical stuff. What I have a problem with is mindless consumerism and what it does to the world around us. That’s a combination of the fact that there’s a dissonance between our minds and our bodies because the mind, being lamarckian in evolutionary design, has massively out-paced the body and its instincts. Minds are insanely malleable when they’re blank slates. The body and instincts, not so much. So shallow materialism as an outrcopping of not caring about very complex philosophical abstract constructs that bear little direct, palpable meaning on the everyday moments of life isn’t bad, and neither are people for being what and who they are.

It all translates to my mind doing something like this:
Criterion checker
Is it trying to eat me or fuck me up? no
Is it affecting my ability to keep myself from fucking up the planet around me? no.
Is it making any sense? maybe.
Alright, let’s grab a beer.

@Fenris Good points! How do you reconcile mindless consumerism being fed by consumers, with morality, though? Maybe we could discuss it over that beer :)

@phillis : sure, if you’re ever in the Portland, OR area. The gears churn well but not as fast as others, so the conversation would be drawn out.

@Fenris Hey, if you can put up with my Georgia drawl, we’re in business :)

@phillis : Hell, my mama’s from Georgia, I’ve put up with it all my life!

@Fenris Well, hello there, neighbor! Tell yer mama I said hello!
<waves to Fenris’ mother>

Depending on their background, some humans are suckish and others aren’t. I hope I’m not, and I’m not going to let my kids. But the generations these days are just rude, and inconsiderate because it’s America! People are rude, so you’ve just got to deal with it and move on.

I wouldn’t say that society is materialistic and shallow, but people can be. And they can be lousy, too, of course. Lousy, materialistic, and shallow. And bad dressers who don’t bathe often enough. Or spell properly.

But there’s still more to people—and life—than just that. I think you’re just having a bad day and need some extra sleep tonight. And lots of chocolate on Sunday. That would be my prescription.

Neither

People are inherently selfish, greedy and self-absorbed, which has to be trained out of them for the most part. Do you think a baby is concerned about you being waken at 3am, they want what they want. They have to be told not to hit other kids and to share the toys. If they did not have that innate behavior where did they learn it from, the same parents trying to show them not to do it? The reason we have such crappy adults is because no one did an effective job nipping the behavior in the bud when it started. Parents who never had it weeded out of their mental garden cannot possibly weed it out of their own children, in some ways they cultivate it; creating another generation of ”lousy-acting adults”.